At the Glom, we haven't hid our fascination with the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and we have even held a discussion among other law prof supermoms on the book. One of my disappointments with the book was that Prof. Chua didn't discuss her dreams, aspirations, successes and failures in her on career path. Today, I saw this interview with Chua that talks a little bit about her dissatisfaction with law school and practicing law.
Law school tore down my confidence. I hated being called on. It's not a discipline that comes naturally to me. I did not click with law. I'm the hardest worker, but I could not retain the information
Chua then explains that her hard work led her to a clerkship, which she did not enjoy, and a career at Cravath, which she also didn't enjoy, though she worked extremely hard at both. After a 14-year odyssey to break into tenure-track teaching, she found a niche for herself in law and ethnicity in developing countries, a few leaps away from traditional law classes and law practice. One can jump to the conclusion that she might have been happier in a different graduate program in that field without the wandering in the wilderness.
As a professor, this makes me wonder how many really smart folks stumble into law school and just don't enjoy it because they would "click" with a different discipline. As a law professor, we have the amazing flexibility of dabbling in other disciplines, but most folks in law school are destined for the less flexible world of practicing law. I know that I have seen my share of students who are used to succeeding in school by working very, very hard and are flummoxed by the first year of law school. Some double down and work even harder, like Chua, but others sort of stall. (Of course, this is one reason why there are a growing number of people arguing to make it cheaper for law students to leave after one year: Me, Ian Ayres & Ahkil Amar, and Ari Kaplan.
Of course the tabloid-y bit of information in the interview was that Chua and her older daughter, Sophia, were asked to be on The Amazing Race, though they declined. From reading her book, I think Chua and younger daughter, Lola, would make a more ratings-ready pairing!
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8345157d569e20167606c9bdf970b
Links to weblogs that reference Amy Chua On Being a Law Student:
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
