A Brilliant Law Professor???

[DumbAss Tanker]

Everyone in the world except Carney seems to understand that a professor has PHd, whereas an instructor at law school might just be someone who only has his Juris Doctor.

Not necessarily, there is not exactly a PhD in Law per se although at least one of the most distinguished elder alumni at my school had a related PhD in things like 'Philosophy of law'; law profs of course do have pretty substantial CVs (Three of my profs had been law clerks to different US Supreme Court Justices) and are expected to publish (Generally extensive law review articles, texts, or similar levels of work in significant cases of public interest in matters such as amicus curiae briefs).

Obama was what most colleges would call an 'Adjunct instructor,' nothing more. He's made it abundantly clear that Constitutional Law is not his long suit.

[Janice]

As I understand it, he only taught in one area of the law. That having to do with community organizing. And now of course he appears to be using his office with this expertise in focus.

[DumbAss Tanker]

It always struck me as odd, but I had read that he'd published one article (which is the one that everyone quotes to show how badly he wrote in college), and the appointments to the Law Review were a combination of merit, faculty endorsement or some other criteria, and I'm guessing that Obama was a faculty endorsement.

Apparently wrote a case note, or had it ghost-written for him, but it was not published in the Harvard Law Review. Here is a somewhat windy but skeptical lawyer's blog post on it:

http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2...dnt-obama.html

...which links to a glowing 2010 politico post about the article for further backstory.