The Volokh Conspiracy - Stop Law School Junk Mail:

That's the advice from an e-mail quoted by Prof. Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit):

As you can tell by my e-mail, I work for [name omitted] Law School. I am one of the faculty assistants; we sort the incoming mail for the professors. We get a LOT of mail from law schools looking to advance in the U.S. News Rankings --- and I've worked for both faculty hiring committee chairs and new professors, so I know that this is a lot of mail, everything from postcards and brochures to law school alumni magazines.

If I could say just one thing to all law schools who do this, and the deans who think it's a good idea: STOP. It is a bad idea. It has no effect on your rankings, and in all likelihood it's hurting them. The professors who receive this pile of extra junk mail call it "law porn." Every professor that I know of who gets these instructs us assistants to put it all straight into the trash. They call it a waste of paper --- very expensive glossy paper. One told me that it's actually a negative --- the more law porn a school sends him, the more he marks it down on the rankings --- and I'm not sure he was kidding. Most of it is academic conference brochures for schools on the other coast in subjects the professors receiving them do not teach in. 50+ page alumni magazines are probably the biggest wastes. But one law school went the extra mile and actually sent separate postcards announcing each of its new faculty hires for the last year, four or five in all, which particularly annoyed the professors here. If these schools want to improve their US News rankings, it'd probably be better to take the money spent on this law porn, which nobody will read, and use it for something else that does improve rankings -- more library volumes, for instance. Or better professors.

I can't say that "the more law porn a school sends [me], the more [I] mark[] it down on the rankings"; I don't have the spare neurons to keep such a hit list. But indeed, all those glossy publications go straight into the recycling bin.

UPDATE: The post title was originally "Stop Law Porn," since these mailings are sometimes called "law porn." But I changed that, since there's nothing at all titillating about them.

	[Eugene Volokh, July 29, 2009 at 6:19pm] Trackbacks Stop Law School Junk Mail: That's the advice from an e-mail quoted by Prof. Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit): As you can tell by my e-mail, I work for [name omitted] Law School. I am one of the faculty assistants; we sort the incoming mail for the professors. We get a LOT of mail from law schools looking to advance in the U.S. News Rankings --- and I've worked for both faculty hiring committee chairs and new professors, so I know that this is a lot of mail, everything from postcards and brochures to law school alumni magazines. If I could say just one thing to all law schools who do this, and the deans who think it's a good idea: STOP. It is a bad idea. It has no effect on your rankings, and in all likelihood it's hurting them. The professors who receive this pile of extra junk mail call it "law porn." Every professor that I know of who gets these instructs us assistants to put it all straight into the trash. They call it a waste of paper --- very expensive glossy paper. One told me that it's actually a negative --- the more law porn a school sends him, the more he marks it down on the rankings --- and I'm not sure he was kidding. Most of it is academic conference brochures for schools on the other coast in subjects the professors receiving them do not teach in. 50+ page alumni magazines are probably the biggest wastes. But one law school went the extra mile and actually sent separate postcards announcing each of its new faculty hires for the last year, four or five in all, which particularly annoyed the professors here. If these schools want to improve their US News rankings, it'd probably be better to take the money spent on this law porn, which nobody will read, and use it for something else that does improve rankings -- more library volumes, for instance. Or better professors. I can't say that "the more law porn a school sends [me], the more [I] mark[] it down on the rankings"; I don't have the spare neurons to keep such a hit list. But indeed, all those glossy publications go straight into the recycling bin. UPDATE: The post title was originally "Stop Law Porn," since these mailings are sometimes called "law porn." But I changed that, since there's nothing at all titillating about them.