Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld: On the Difficulty of Becoming a Law Professor

Anyone who spends a large amount of time with newly appointed, untenured colleagues – presumably because one’s older colleagues are just not all that interesting any more – will recognize that acquiring a professional identity, in the sense of being comfortable putting on a suit, tying a tie, and keeping shoes shined, is both a matter of imitating the behavior of others and fitting that behavior into an existing self. Part of this activity is intellectual: what I do in terms of reading and writing; part is social: where I am and what I teach there; and part is mixed: what other people are reading, writing, being, and teaching. An individual’s professional identity is a complex interaction of these three.