Like clients, students and alumni want to get what they pay for, on time and well done. As with law firms and clients, there are ethical standards governing the relationships between schools and their students and alumni. By dint of common interests, law schools pull in harness with other parts of their universities. They also compete with them. Governance within the whole is complicated and subtle, sometimes rooted in unwritten custom more than formal structure.
Ultimate authority can be distant and preoccupied.
This describes not just play within a university but also relations among offices, departments and miscellaneous satrapies within large law firms. Annually, firms and schools hurl themselves into recruiting and promotion rites . A passion for productivity is not limited to law firms. Most scholarship and most client representations, even if key to personal and institutional reputations in the short term and even if very satisfying pieces of craftsmanship, lack enduring significance. Few professors or partners come to a dean or managing partner asking to teach more courses or log more billable hours.