<p>I assume that you mean 10 years of private practice, and the answer is, probably not. Once you’ve practiced as a lawyer for ‘too long’, the perception will be that you don’t have a high commitment to academia and hence you are pursuing it only because you couldn’t make partner in a private firm, or if you did make partner, that you don’t actually enjoy the life of a practicing lawyer. Not because you actually want to be an academic. </p>
<p>We can debate what exactly it means to be ‘too long’, but I think there is little dispute that 10 years qualifies as too long. Many law professors are hired with little if any practical experience. Barack Obama, for example, became a prof at the University of Chicago while having no practical legal experience other than his law school summer internships.</p>