University of Colorado law professor Paul Campos, author of Jurismania: The Madness of American Law (1998), turns out to be the author of a previously anonymous blog called “Inside the Law School Scam.” Shockingly, it took less than two weeks for other law professors to guess the author.
Oddly, Campos is disheartened that, rather than critiquing his arguments, people instead attacked the messenger, questioning whether someone who hardly publishes legal scholarship is in a position to slam those who do. But that’s not shocking, especially when part of his critique is that faculty spend too much time researching and too little time understanding law school administration and helping students transition to the workforce.
While the content of the argument is ultimately what matters, who’s making it is hardly irrelevant. There’s a reason that people pay more attention when Warren Buffett says we’re coddling the rich than when some state school professor pulling down $50,000 a year says it. A professor who’s at the top of his field, publishing articles in top flight journals on a routine basis, is naturally going to be better received as a critic of the profession than one with more diffuse pursuits.
Additionally, blogging pseudonymously is naturally going to raise questions about the identity of the blogger and why he’s hiding behind a pseudonym.
