In his introductory chapter, Mark Van Hoecke identified a number of different approaches to legal research.1 The following chapter uses an alternative starting point in order to discuss the variety of legal research: I wonder what would be lost if law professors disappeared from the world. One purpose of this thought experiment is to identify for which type of legal research we really need legal academics, or whether legal scholarship could also become part of other social sciences or humanities. Moreover, it will be discussed how this relates to legal teaching and education: do we need law professors to train lawyers, or would it be feasible to separate education and research?