"What the academy is doing, as far as I can tell... is largely of no use or interest to people who actually practice law."

Said Chief Justice John Roberts, in a quote that sprang to mind when I read this from Gordon Smith (via Instapundit):

[Some old lawprof once said:] "To become a great law professor, one must write a casebook, a treatise, and a Restatement ... Seavey never wrote a treatise."

... It is impossible to imagine anyone giving Scott's advice to a young professor today. The sort of doctrinal synthesis that lies at the heart of casebooks, treatises, and Restatements is not highly valued among today's law professors, even though it has real-world value.

What is the measure of a great law professor today? The highest achievement of a law professor today is creating a new concept or theory that is used widely by other academics in the field....

Lawprofs injecting other lawprofs with theories. It sounds unsanitary, but it's a closed system, so what could go wrong? It's not as if a law professor is going to break out and grasp massive power in the actual real world. Imagine a lawprof as President! It's absurd!

Aw, come on. Seriously. Barack Obama wasn't a law professor law professor. Did he ever try to create a new concept or theory for other lawprofs to use in the sickly circulatory system of academia? Absolutely not. He was always organizing and operating in the political world.