Join With Me, Won't You? Civic Engagement, COVID-19, and the Millennial Generation of Law Professors

Abstract

My goals in this essay are to place legal education’s COVID-19 crisis into this broader context and illuminate the unique opportunity that millennial law professors have to create the conditions for more robust community participation within and outside of our law schools. Part I summarizes the decline of civic engagement and social capital in preceding decades and its consequences for law, public discourse, and quality of life. Part II outlines how this deficit of social capital exacerbates the challenges facing law schools and professors in delivering legal education and constructing community during the coronavirus pandemic. Part III explores the unique opportunity for millennial law professors to respond, both to the particular challenges of COVID-19 and to the underlying social capital deficit.

Keywords: Millennial Law Professors, COVID-19, civic engagement, social capital