Introduction: Faculty in American law schools and universities often view the award of tenure as an inviolate guarantee of job security.' From this perspective, any attempt to monitor the level and quality of a tenured professor's work infringes on academic freedom. Recently, however, academics have argued that shielding the performance of tenured faculty from serious review potentially may be a disservice to the academic institution. Critics complain that schools sacrifice professional accountability when deficient performance goes undetected and uncorrected.