What do PhDs Bring to the Teaching of Law?

Changes in the hiring approaches of prestigious law schools have opened the door to two apparently quite different sorts of teaching candidates. One is in the direction of more JD/PhD candidates who come to the appointments process with a substantial research project already accomplished. The other is toward lawyers with substantial practice experience, especially in rapidly changing and innovative practice fields.

I would argue that both trends actually point in the same direction, i.e., toward preparing JD students for a rapidly changing legal field that is constantly infused with a remarkably heterogeneous panoply of authoritative knowledges. In the following post on PrawfsBlawg I take up the case of Phds.