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The Legal Academy's Ideological Uniformity

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2018

Publication Title

Journal of Legal Studies

Abstract

We study of the ideological balance of the legal academy and compare it to the ideology of the legal profession more broadly. To do so, we match professors listed in the Association of American Law Schools Directory of Law Teachers and lawyers listed in the Martindale-Hubbell directory to a measure of political ideology based on political donations. We find that 15 percent of law professors, compared to 35 percent of lawyers, are conservative. This may not simply be due to differences in their backgrounds: the legal academy is still 11 percentage points more liberal than the legal profession after controlling for several relevant individual characteristics. We argue that law professors' ideological uniformity marginalizes them, but that it may not be possible to improve the ideological balance of the legal academy without sacrificing other values.

Keywords

Law Professors, Political Ideologies, Legal Profession

Publication Citation

Adam Bonica, Adam Chilton, Kyle Rozema, and Maya Sen, The Legal Academy’s Ideological Uniformity, 41 J. Legal Stud. 1 (2018)

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