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In the United States, law schools provide the principal route of entry into the legal profession. Indeed, education in a law school is the only experience that virtually all members of the modern legal profession have in common. The gatekeeping function of law schools places the nation's law teachers in a most influential position. Although law professors play a vital role in selecting and molding the members of the profession, little research has been done on them. This article presents the results of the American Bar Foundation's first major study of law teachers. The author finds them to be a most highly credentialed group of lawyers, the overwhelming majority of whom are graduates of a small group of elite law schools. She also finds that possession of a degree from one of these schools appears to be not only highly determinative of who become law teachers but also of the nature of teachers' academic careers.

Until recently, women were rarely found on the faculties of the nation's law schools. The few who were tended to teach at their alma maters and specialized in only a few subject areas. This article reports the extent to which women have become part of the tenure track faculties of the nation's law schools. The author finds that women have made considerable progress toward becoming tenure track law teachers. She finds, however, that women law professors continue to be academically inbred in disproportionate numbers and overrepresented in some subject areas.