"It's recognizing that because of the severe demands on all of our time, it's harder to keep people focused on the fact that there is a primary employer" that is, the University, she says.
The way to reap the greatest benefits, according to Orfield, is to make sure outside work is complementary--and secondary--to faculty responsibilities.
"I think that as long as you keep your basic commitments clear and stay available to the students, as long as your work is related to better understanding of what you're teaching, it's mutually beneficial," he says.
For Dershowitz, this means that even the biggest, most publicized case won't take him away from Cambridge for long.
"Everything should be second to being a Harvard professor," he says.
Even being played by Ron Silver in a major motion picture.