PrawfsBlawg

How much time should a job offer be open to avoid being thought of as "exploding?"

A friend/prawf at another school writes:  Do you know what is “normal” in terms of how long most schools leave an offer open to a candidate? Is two weeks “normal” or is that the equivalent of an “exploding offer”?  Seems to me back when I was on the market I got even less than two weeks.  But that was so long ago that now I’m not sure I remember correctly.

My own sense is that the answer to this hinges on a few different factors. The communication of the offer has to be separated from the time at which the person comes to visit the school (with sig other for a sell weekend) and from the time the dean has specified all the numbers and other aspects of the offer that the candidate cares about. I also think the timing of the holidays plays in here as well as other unique circumstances: e.g., did the candidate have a long-standing wedding/honeymoon planned?

Assuming the faculty votes in early December and the dean communicates the offer with all the relevant details (teaching load/package; salary; issues re: trailing sig other) within a week of that, I would think anything less than 3-4 weeks after the full details of the offer have been made would be "exploding." I think "normal" is probably 2 months or more, but fwiw, I'm not sure "normal" is a good practice. (Prawfs/wannabees: please feel free to weigh in with your information so we can have a better sense.) 

Indeed, I'm not sure all exploding offers are bad or "coercive," especially if the candidate is told in advance of doing the interview that such is the practice of the school. The practice itself may not redound to the benefit of the school but barring unusual circumstances, it's not so manifestly unjust as to be condemnable outright. A school's choice in this regard should be driven by good and publicly explainable reasons: if there is only one slot and a few appropriate candidates, that might counsel in favor of shorter deadlines; if there are many slots and it's already near the end of the hiring season, that might warrant greater flexibility. 

I've often wondered about a related problem: ie, how schools should handle the situation where they have a number of spots that they would very much like to fill. If a school has 5 spots, for example, is there anything wrong with making 10 "conditional offers" and informing all the candidates/offerees that the first 5 to accept will get the job? Sure, the school might not get the "best" 5 of this group, but assuming all 10 offerees are good enough, does anyone see anything wrong with that? Perhaps technically, the dean would be conveying a "letter of intent" rather than a real offer, but everyone would know what the score is. Thoughts?

Some Solace for Job Seekers?

I thought I would share this video I made with you folks on the job market this year.  Just know that if you're trying to tell people about your article and they're looking at you like you're crazy or a doofus or, in the words of the Dean at the University of Chicago in my case, that there has occurred  "a really poor topic selection on your part," perhaps you can take some solace in the fact that maybe, just maybe, you can use your article ten years down the road as part of a comedy routine.

Law School Hiring Thread, 2009-10, Thread Three: The Next Phase

This thread will be moved to the front every ten days or so.

Please add comments to this thread, not Threads One or Two (where comments are now closed).

This thread is for both law professors and people who are on the market this coming year for becoming a law professor. We invite those on the market and those who are prawfs to leave comments (anonymously if they prefer) regarding:

a) whether they have received a callback from a law school and/or accepted it and

b) whether they have received an offer from a law school and/or accepted it; feel free to also leave details about the offer or info about teaching loads, research leaves, etc.

Law professors may also choose to provide information that is relevant to the entry-level or the lateral market.

Bear in mind: if you don't want your contact information displayed, please just enter in anon@anon.edu or something like that as an email address.

We will continue our spreadsheet approach:  All information should still come in through the comments. Our generous aggregator will continue to use a spreadsheet to aggregate the information (we have started a new spreadsheet for callbacks and offers, which appears below).  As before, only the aggregator will be able to edit the spreadsheet, but when the aggregator edits the spreadsheet, those changes will be reflected in the embedded version below.

As always, please be patient with the aggregator, who will try to update this spreadsheet once a day, but may have a job, and perhaps may even be on the market.

The first thread is here; the second thread (where you can still get the AALS call spreadsheet) is here.

Information Asymmetry, Bruised Egos, and the Law Professor Job Market

Thanks again to the folks at Prawfs for having me this month. In this last post for this stint, I would like to comment on some of the discussions in the comments associated with the various law teaching hiring threads over the past month. I could have posted this in the comments, but I've got guest privileges so I might as well use them.

While I think that the threads are a valuable service to the community and fault no one for following them, my view is that the information contained therein is mostly useless. I realize that it is incredibly frustrating for law schools to have all the information, but that does not mean that candidates are aided by having the information.

I explain why below.

First, even assuming that all postings are accurate, the information is markedly incomplete. For example, the first day my school scheduled AALS interviews was long before it appeared in the appropriate thread. Additionally, we are listed as not yet making callbacks; this is simply inaccurate. Thus, information about the schools making callback, what areas, and when is full of gaps that make it impossible to know the completely true state of affairs.

Second, more broadly, the primary effect of this information is to bruise egos. The people getting the calls don't need the information, they got the call. Thus, the information's primary value is to convey to those not getting the calls that their time may have passed. There is some value to this information, as I discuss below. However, not getting the call is a real bummer. Here are some of the stages:

• Schools are calling, but not me. OK, this one is easy to accept; schools have different needs.
• Schools are calling in my area, but not me. This one hurts. Schools are calling people in my area, and didn't think of me. Well, maybe they only called one person in your area if they are a "best athlete" school, or maybe your background doesn't suit the school's needs. That said, I think that this stage is the toughest to swallow.
• Schools are making callbacks in my area, but not me. The same best athlete issues apply here, and even then, it is a really competitive market. Knowing this information hurts, especially when jobs are on the line.
• Schools have made offers, but not to me (assuming a callback). Though I wouldn't like it, my ego can survive losing out to other quality candidates in a callback situation - there are some really talented people out there, and they can't all get hired. Even so, the offer slams the door (unless there are two offers?).

My point is that sometimes ignorance is bliss. Where the information will not help get a job, not knowing that schools are interviewing in your area but passed over you might a good thing.

Third, this leads to an important point that I think gets missed in the discussion about appointments chairs not responding to calls and emails. There is an important norm that I have learned of in legal academia -- one that I do not follow but have learned to accept without judgment. It is this: people often don't respond to emails. Sometimes ever. And not because they don't like you. I've sent emails to friends in the academy -- even at my own school -- that go unanswered for days, sometimes weeks, sometimes forever. And that's OKAY.

It's unclear why this happens. Perhaps people are busy. Or they are disorganized. Or they get way more email than I do. Or they don't feel like responding. Or they yearn for control over something in their lives, and email is it. Whatever the reason, I've gotten used to lack of email response from people who I know and especially people I don't know. And it doesn't stop at professors - law reviews quite often fail to respond to publication submissions.

My point is that while it might be nice for appointments chairs to respond to you (I would certainly like a response if it were me), you simply cannot read anything into a lack of response. It may be that you are not in contention. It may be that there is no new information. It may be that they are busy. It may be that they lost your email and you need to follow-up in the future when you need information. It may be that they are rude. It may be that they are on vacation. It may be that they are at a conference. It may be that they are busy scheduling callbacks for others. It may be....

If you don't accept non-response as a fact of life, you may be in for a frustrating time, and you will certainly have a bruised ego.

Fourth, this leads to my basic point. Because of all the reasons why you might not be getting called, knowing that others are getting called adds little to the mix. You could be out. You could be on the B-team for later hiring. The school could be spreading out the process. You just don't know, and if you try to act on a guess, you risk looking foolish. Instead, you wind up suffering in silence, and that's not helpful.

That said, there is one time that you might need this information for something productive. My recommendation (which I am certain will be ignored, and which in fact I would likely not be able to follow if I were on the market) is that you only look at these threads at this one time.

That time? When you need to make a decision. If you have an exploding offer from School A, then it is helpful to know whether Schools B-D are making callback. Even then, you could probably just call the other schools, tell them you have an offer (this is information they might want to know) and ask whether there is a likelihood at their school. The information about callbacks helps assess the amount of waffling in the response and your likelihood of getting a callback or offer there.

In short, knowing where you aren't getting interviewed is the kind of asymmetrical information that is only helpful when you might lose a bird in the hand, and not before.

I enjoyed my time blogging this month, and wish you all luck on the market this year!

Best Practices for Appointments Committees

Though it's been a few years since I had to go on the meat market, I'm still pretty keen to make the process for newbies as relatively painless as possible, and this blog has been one way to try to facilitate that goal.  I know a number of my perma-prawf colleagues are either veterans of or currently sitting on their schools' appointments committees (appcomm); the same is true for many guest writers and readers of the blog. To that end, I'd like to draw on the collective wisdom of folks here to compile a set of best practices for appointments committees for law school hiring, and to get the ball rolling, I've offered some thoughts below. 

In no particular order, I can think of 12, some of which are drawn from the queries/complaints in the job market threads we've been running on the blog. They can be found below, after the jump.

1.    Once you have asked a lateral candidate to see if they are interested in being considered, ask the person which three pieces represent their best work that they'd like the appcomm to read. Also ask which pieces signal which direction the work of the person is likely to take in the future. If the candidate is a rookie, ask the same thing if they have multiple pieces, and ask for a research agenda too.

2.    If you bring a lateral or rookie candidate in for a job talk, follow-up with an email or call to a) thank the person for traveling and doing the job talk, and b) let the person know when they can expect to hear any news. Set a default rule: if you don't hear from us within X weeks or Y months, you can assume we've moved on to other candidates. 

3.    Backgrounding: This is something I'd like to solicit feedback on. Some schools probably check only the references provided by the candidate. Other schools are more aggressive (or perform more due diligence?), and many people (both on the committee and off it) will make phone calls to people who know the candidate. These reports are then shared informally or formally at the faculty meeting, leading to discussions of personality (or background--are they likely to come? do they have family or friends in the area?) that may go beyond whether the person would be a good colleague.  How much backgrounding is enough or too much? How much prodding should people perform to see if the candidate? Are there good proxies to assess collegiality for laterals, e.g., the number of times they are thanked for reading other people's drafts? the number of times they've taught classes for sick colleagues?

4.    If you are inviting a rookie, let them know that you'll reimburse the rookie for all expenses associated with the travel to visit the school, including meals, parking, and other normal incidentals, (including internet at the hotel?).

5.    Before the meat market, Appcomm should ask all rookies they are interested in to send them a job talk paper to review before deciding whether to interview them at the meat market. Appcomm should be focused on whether the job talk paper is likely to impress their colleagues prior to deciding to spend 30 minutes of time with them in DC. Making sure the Appcomm only interviews people with papers prior to the meat market will also help Appcomm sift who is likely to be ready from day 1, at least from a scholarship and fire in the belly perspective. The offset to this point is that it assumes the transition rookies are making is from a place where they were able to prioritize writing. This is not true for all candidates obviously. But part of being a successful legal academic (qua scholar) is showing a passion for writing and ideas, and so if you're not in a position where you can write and read scholarship, it helps for you to find that time at the beginning of the day, or evenings, or weekends, etc.  You'll often hear that successful scholars are the ones who are thinking of writing and articles in the shower or buying groceries...

6.    Give people a reasonable amount of time to decide to accept the offer, but explain to them if you are budget-constrained or timing-constrained because you need to do a lot of hiring and can't necessarily wait for them. Consider the following strategy: Your offer (and proposed course package) is good for a month. However, if you can't accept within that period, check back with us later on, as we might still be interested, though if we are, it's possible your teaching package might have to be altered somewhat.

7.    If your school is open to lateral hiring, it's probably better to assign the Appcomm responsibilities from Feb/March to Feb/March rather than July/August to July/August. This allows Appcomm to do a good job of setting hiring priorities before the spring semester is finished and allowing them to scout for laterals (or perhaps misplaced rookies) to bring in for late August, September and October. If the scouting has been done by June for laterals, it still allows appcomm to go through the sheets in August and select which rookies to meet with in DC.

8.    If you're not in an intensely geographically desirable location for non-prawf spouses, consider hiring more couples (or trios, etc) on the market.

9.    This is primarily relevant to point number one. If you are looking at a lateral candidate, it is probably best to first reach out and ask if they are interested in being considered by your school (in terms of subsequent reading of the person's scholarship), rather than appcomm reading first and then contacting, when the person might not have been interested in being contacted. 

10.     Related to 1 and 9: lateral prospects will be less offended about being declined pre-campus visit than post-campus visit. Equally important, it is far better for your colleagues to be spared the cost and time of bringing someone to campus if the committee is not already enthusiastic about the work before the on-campus visit is scheduled. In other words, if a lateral is being invited, it should be because the committee fully expects to support that candidate based on their own views of the work and/or teaching evals, etc--and not wait to form those views based on "temperature reads" after the on-campus visit. If the committee doesn't do its homework up front, it costs the school a substantial amount of time and money. My sense is that each on-campus interview requires at least 125 person-hours for a faculty of 30-40 people, including committee time, candidate time, time at the faculty lunch, time preparing to read the person's work, informal post-visit chats, formal post-visit deliberations. The committee, which is already heavily taxed in terms of its own time, should be leery of bringing in people with any unknowns that are knowable; that is, the committee should recognize that the patience of the faculty is thin and the currency of persuasion with the faculty is subject to depletion.

11.    Related to 9 and 10: If you're contemplating looking at junior laterals, be clear up front about what your tenure clock rules are at your school and at the candidate's school. If your school requires time in rank before tenure of 5 years and you can't give more than 2 year's credit to the tenure clock, don't bother looking at people who are in year 3 or 4 at other schools. The odds are very high that they won't be interested in sitting at your school for an extra year or two, but chances are they won't want to broach this subject up front; perhaps they'll discuss it with your dean at the on-campus visit, but at that point, you've already potentially wasted 125 person hours...

12.    If slots are few in number, it might make sense to have just one large faculty meeting after all the relevant callbacks have been performed, and then have some kind of cumulative voting scheme in place to measure faculty intensity and preferences (something Ethan mentioned the other day in a post) and to rank the candidates in order. If there are more than 4 slots available, chances are it will be fine to have several waves of offers and meetings should be more frequent. 

Ok, I'll stop here. Tell me gently if you think I'm wrong, and please add others in the comments.   

Back from the hiring conference

Well, that was interesting and at least somewhat enjoyable. Of course, I have the beneift of being a member of (according to one anonymous candidate commenting at Faculty Lounge) a unique committee. Needless to say, I am free-riding on my colleagues on this one.

I concur in Michael's conception of FRC a series of "micro-workshops." Michael supplies the missing underlying key to my try-to-have-fun suggestion. Candidates can enjoy this not only because they can talk about themselves, but because they are doing, in miniature, one of the core fun parts of this job. And something they hopefully will get to keep doing once they join the academy.

I would add that Michael's perspective works for hiring-committee members as well. Being on the listening/interlocutor side in workshops also is a great part of this job, and that should be true for the micro-workshops we have invited each candidate to do for us. And at least we get some variety in our workshops--no two candidates even came close to talking about the same ideas.

A Law Conference Unlike Any Other

Our appointments committee just finished an exhausting two days - back to back to back interviews. They were scheduled for 25 minutes and most went the full half hour. I met a lot of great candidates, and it is a shame that we won't be able to call many of them back due to limited options.

They call the meat market the "Faculty Recruitment Conference," and I suppose it is - technically. It has many indicia of conferences: participation by many law schools, registration, nametags, receptions, meeting rooms, etc.

I think the conventional wisdom is that this is where the comparison with the usual conferences stops. After all, beyond evening get-togethers there is little opportunity to mingle with friends and colleagues from other schools or to showcase one's work.

Even so, I think the FRC might still qualify as a "law" conference, at least depending on the demeanor of the interviewing faculty. More after the jump...

My alternate conception of the FRC as a conference treats the candidates as participatants in a series of micro-workshops. They have half an hour to present their scholarship as well as (depending on the school) their teaching interests and ideas. Over the course of two days, they may present up to 28 times.

I'm quite sure that most candidates do not see it that way, and the stress of interviewing takes the fun out of workshopping. Even so, once they are hired interviewing candidates will seek out the very same pressing scholarly questions they are peppered with during their mini-workshops. How many of law professors get 10 or even 2 hours at any given conference to present our works in progress to diverse faculty from multiple schools?

The FRC as micro-workshop is, I think, behind the advice that candidates appearing to enjoy themselves will do better on the market. A detailed workshop (even a critical one) is the kind of thing one should relish as an academic, and candidates who enjoy it now are more likely to be good participants later.

Of course, it is tiring to present yourself for so long, but the FRC is only once per year, and it's not like the committee isn't tired as well. I wish all of the candidates who interviewed with us good fortune, and I look forward to seeing some of you again soon.

More AALS Advice...

Although this is my second year on the appointments committee, I am not ready to start dispensing advice on the meat market. However, I have gathered the best advice I found -- advice that I relied on while on the market -- in one place. It's been featured here before, but I thought I would re-point to it for nervous candidates.  The entry level advice links page is here.

I guess I have one piece of meta-advice. Take all of the advice with a grain of salt, and only do what makes you comfortable. If you are not yourself, it will show. Good luck!

Job Talks and Presentations on Film

There are many great articles that offer advice for conducting job talks, but there are very few films that come to mind that include presentations to watch for entertaining guidance on what to emulate and what to avoid. Two of the better-known presentations in the movies are found in films featuring Michael Douglas – Wall Street (1987) and Disclosure (1994). In Wall Street, Gordon Gekko delivers the “Greed is Good” speech to shareholders, and Disclosure crescendos with a presentation revealing a few key lies among colleagues. As an interesting bit of trivia, a Wall Street sequel is planned for release next year. So, my questions of the day are as follows: What are some other films and television shows that have featured memorable presentations? What makes a good job talk?

A Thread for Aspiring Prawfs and Current Prawfs.

I've received a few requests by aspiring prawfs asking for a thread that's not related to the AALS meat market and the timing of callbacks, etc. This can be a thread in which candidates could ask questions about the conference, interviews, clothing protocol, questions to ask/not to ask, etc. and professors or previous attendees of the market could respond with feedback. In general, it'll just be a place where candidates could go to get their random questions answered.

Feel free to raise somewhat random questions or share information, anonymously or otherwise. Just bear in mind that, pursuant to our general policy, we ask you to be decent persons in your comments; stuff that crosses a line of what I consider inappropriate might get deleted. Enjoy.

A Personal Touch

With all of the discussions about faculty recruitment, I started thinking about the documents that accompany the FAR and publications, particularly the C.V. Some candidates may have sections that highlight background information (i.e., marital status and children), while others list hobbies and personal interests. Typical C.V.’s for seasoned law professors often include this sort of information, but I can’t help but wonder about its value or appropriateness when applying for law faculty positions. I realize there’s no perfect answer, but this topic seems to be especially timely. Is personal information on C.V.’s seen as relevant and humanizing? How much is too much?

A Slightly Different Take on the Meat Market

First, thanks to Dan & PrawfsBlawg for the opportunity to guest blog this month.  Last year at this time, I was one of several hundred candidates who were camping out by the phone, checking emails for any signs of interest at every opportunity, and counting the days until the big show:  the entry-level hiring conference in D.C.  This year I am a newly-minted law professor at a wonderful school, work with brilliant and personable colleagues, teach subjects that I am passionate about, and enjoy the freedom to write what I want.  Still, I couldn't resist beginning my stint at PrawfsBlawg by revisiting my experience at the meat market while it remains somewhat fresh in my memory.

When law professors talk about the entry-level hiring conference, it often comes across as some excruciating rite of passage filled with potential pitfalls for the unwary.  My experience was far more positive, and not just because I received some very attractive offers.  I met several fascinating people, had multiple captive audiences for my scholarship, and generally had a good time during the conference.  Most of the people I met were genuinely friendly, even if they seemed dour and stand-offish at first.  In fact, I still talk and exchange personal emails with some of the other candidates and faculty I met at the conference.

That’s not to say that I wasn’t stressed out at times (I was), ignored the possibility of not getting a position after all of the sacrifices my family made so I could pursue this career path (not possible), and was in a good mood the entire time (fat chance).  I even had my own O.J.-style mad dash (along the lines of the old Hertz commercials, not of the “fleeing a vicious double murder” variety) from one tower to another on more than one occasion.  I also tanked more than one interview and took a nasty elbow in the elevator at one point.  Some of these make for good stories, but they are not representative of my overall experience.

Given all of the negativity about the conference that abounds this time of year, does anyone else care to share any positive stories about the meat market?

Law School Hiring Thread, 2009-10, Thread One

NB: This thread will be moved to the front every ten days or so.

This thread is for both law professors and people who are on the market this coming year for becoming a law professor. We invite those on the market and those who are prawfs to leave comments (anonymously if they prefer) regarding a range of things:

a) whether they have received a call from a particular school inviting them to an interview at the AALS meat market, and/or whether they accepted it; also whether the school has asked for a candidate's scholarship yet

b) whether they have received a callback from a law school and/or accepted it

c)  whether they have received an offer from a law school and/or accepted it; feel free to also leave details about the offer or info about teaching loads, research leaves, etc.

Law professors may also choose to provide information that is relevant to the entry-level or the lateral market.

Bear in mind: if you don't want your contact information displayed, please just enter in anon@anon.edu or something like that as an email address.

This post will be moved to the front of the blog once every ten days or so, and we will also try to provide updates in the comments that consolidate the various bits of information here. We hope one of you will volunteer to do the agglomeration work that Marc DeGirolami did last year. If you are looking for links on how to manage going through the job hunt, check out the posts under these three archives:here, here, and here.

To get things started: FSU (as of early August) has begun (but only begun) inviting laterals for the fall and will soon turn to exploring the rookies in the near future. FSU will be doing a substantial amount of hiring across a wide range of areas. If you are interested in joining FSU's faculty, please contact Manuel Utset at  mutset@law.fsu.edu

Update: Comments are closed.  Go to Thread Two to add information.

Another (Slightly Less) Innocent Question for AALS Interviews

So in my first installment in the gripping series "Innocent Questions in AALS Interviews," I suggested the question: "At [Your School], what percentage of the job are the different pillars of research, teaching, and service?"  But the commenters were right that it's probably not the best question to ask. I referred to the question as "moderately innocent," and the qualifier is because I did have something else in mind.

Which is this, my next, slightly-less innocent question: "How do you determine who to hire, and what information do you use to make judgments on the criteria you think relevant?"  OK, so in case it's not obvious, this is NOT a question one should actually ask. Because if one did, well, to quote the college football announcer Keith Jackson, "Whoa, Nellie."  Get ready for the awkward silences and people nervously looking at each other. Not so much because that's an unusual question to ask (though it is), but because the hiring committee may lack a consensus answer.

Here's my perhaps-overly-rationalist view on what the answer to the first half of the question should be that I offer more to spark discussion than with any kind of certainty that this is right. To simplify, assume you've decided a particular curricular need (as most schools do for most slots), just entry-level, some "bump" for diversity of whatever kind, and have narrowed candidates to 15-20 people through some combination of resume/publications.  Then what? (1) Take the faculty's view of what percentage of the job each pillar is (say 55% research, 35% education, 10% service), or should be for new hires. (2) After the AALS meat-market interviews and committee discussion, each committee member rates each candidate on a scale of 1-5, or 1-10, three times: for their potential for excellence in research, education and service.  Each member's ratings is shared with the rest of the committee. (3) The chair aggregates and appropriately weights the committee's ratings, and uses the results to decide who to invite back in.

Anyone know of committees that use this kind of approach? If not, what do they do? I realize there are political reasons why this might be resisted, but as an ideal, what's wrong with it? Separate and big issues on the second half of the question -- what information to use to predict future success -- particularly on education and service pillars. Likely a bit easier these days with research since you can just look at existing publications, and listen to their ideas for future work.

Innocent Questions for AALS Interviews

Hello everyone -- good to be back for a guest stint, and thanks to Dan for inviting and the rest for tolerating. I'm going to mostly be posting about issues in legal education, but since everyone loves a good navel-gaze and people on the market are thirsty for anything related to hiring, let's start with a perennial favorite this time of year: what questions to ask interviewers at AALS or callback interviews? 

Here's one that I haven't seen so much, and is a moderately innocent, reasonable question to ask in a job interview, but also might tell you something about a school and its faculty. "At [Your School] what percentage of the job are the different pillars of research, teaching, and service?"  Now the reality is that the percentages vary widely for most depending on whether it's summer, when research is often close to 100%, or during the semester. But assume we're talking a full year, averaged across the year, and assume we're talking after year one when you may be spending more time on class preps than you will later on.

I'm not sure what I'd answer to this question (speaking just for myself, not my school): put a gun to my head, maybe research 55%, teaching 35%, service 10%. What would you say in response, and is this a good question to ask?

Hiring Chairs for 2009-10: Announce Yourselves Here Please

N.B. This has been bumped to the front, and will be every couple weeks or so.

As is customary around this time of year, we are hoping law schools will use this space to share some relevant information regarding hiring for the coming year. Specifically, if you're a prawf, please share the following information related to the Fall 2009 and/or spring 2010 hiring season:

a) your school,

b) who's the chair and who are the members of your appointments committee (please also identify whether entry levels are separated from laterals, etc)

and, c) if there are any special areas you're looking to fill.

If you're on the market, or a prawf, please check out this thread here so you can share information regarding whether a particular school has begun making appointments for first-rounds or callbacks.

To get things started, Manuel Utset (mutset at law.fsu.edu) is chairing Florida State Law's unified committee (consisting of Jim Rossi, Beth Burch, Gregg Polsky, and Adam Hirsch). We are looking to hire both laterals and rookies across a range of fields and invite people who are interested to contact Manuel (or me, and I'll happily forward along your interest and CV).

The comments on the first page of this post only go to 50. Thus, if you are trying to get to the next page of comments, you have to click on the >>.

 

Conference for Aspiring Law Profs

The recent posts about the fall teaching market have reminded me about a conference for aspiring law professors that Arizona State will be hosting on October 17th. The conference is designed for people who are currently working as VAPs or Fellows, and who intend on going on the job market this fall. It will give attendees an insider's perspective on the job market, as well as an opportunity to give a mock job talk or participate in a mock AALS interview.

Faculty participants include Jack Chin, Brian Leiter, Prawfs' own Orly Lobel, Marc Miller, Doug Sylvester, and Brent White. More information about the conference and a link for registration can be found here.

Advice for Getting a Job on the Law Teaching Market

Thanks to a great resource by Michael Risch (WVA), one of our past and future guests, I thought I'd reprise some of the links people have found helpful in the past regarding the process of getting a teaching job in law.

TeachLaw-Resources for Lawyers Who Want to Be Law Professors (cache)
Considering Law Teaching - Cornell (cache)
Leiter's Law School Reports: Professional Advice (cache)
Leiter: Law school hiring practices (cache)
Concurring opinions: Law School Hiring (cache)
PrawfsBlawg: Teaching Law (cache)
Conglomerate Blog on law schools and lawyering (cache)
Becoming a law professor - Eric Goldman (cache)
Goldman blogswarm (cache)
So you want to be a law professor? (cache)
Instapundit (cache)
Bainbridge on conservatives in the legal academy (cache)
Law Crossing (cache)
Paul Caron on Teaching Fellowships (cache)
Daryl Levinson on the academic market (cache)
Jeff Lipshaw - How Not To Retire and Teach
Eric Goldman - Bibliography for New Law Professors (cache)
Madison on the Meat Market (cache)
Madison on the process (cache)
More from Madison (cache)
Gordon Smith - So you want to be a law professor (cache)

Getting New Prawfs Off the Ground

Earlier I received an email from someone about to start teaching. He asked:

This fall, I will begin teaching at ___.  As of writing, I anticipate that my classes will consist of torts, criminal procedure, and American legal history.  As I prepare for the academic year, I wonder whether you know of any source(s) for course outlines, syllabi, casebook recommendations, and other materials relating to these classes, as may have been provided and collected by other professors.  I intend on hitting up my future colleagues for these items, but I'd like to cast a broader net and thereby (hopefully) become aware of as many alternative course strategies as possible.  I would genuinely appreciate any guidance you might provide on this score.

 

Let's make this an open thread for prawf-folks to post links or citations to sources that will help the newbies hit the road running. Any thoughts? I know there's a AALS Criminal Justice bank of sources that Susan Rozelle has put together and I saw something recently that Joseph Tsai and some others are putting together for multimedia sources in criminal law.  I'm also quite certain that I've read a few things from J.Legal Educ on this topic (ie, with respect to helpful hints for the new prawf) that are somewhat useful, but I don't remember the titles or authors.  Throw a life preserver out in the comments.

Law School Hiring Thread, Part II: Callbacks/Offers Phase

Here's some of the info agglomerated so far from here. Please use the comments to this thread as a place to share info about callbacks and offers for the law teaching market. And feel free to note any errors and omissions.

Please note that I have been updating the information based on compilations previously created by Marc DeGirolami. I hope someone will step forward to carry on Marc's fine work through the spring semester and that more people (prawfs and wannabes) will share information.

updated 12/20

OFFER LIST

BU
Buffalo
Cardozo
Drake
Duke
FSU
Georgia State
Houston

Indiana U-polis

Loyola Chicago
Maine
Miami
Memphis
North Carolina
Oregon
Santa Clara
SMU
South Texas
Tennessee
UC-Irvine
USF
Wayne State
West Virginia
Widener

After the jump: callbacks list.

Here's a link to the most recent of comments.

 

CALLBACKS:

Albany
American (health)
Baltimore (IP)
Barry U

Baylor
Boston College
Boston University (offer and multiple callbacks) (health)
Brooklyn (health)
Buffalo (offer and callbacks) (property, environmental)
Capital
Cardozo (IP)
Case Western
Catholic (multiple, more scheduled) (criminal)
Charlotte
Chicago-Kent
Cincinnati (multiple) (comparative, crim)
Cleveland-Marshall (2) (health, crim)
Colorado (environmental, property)
Cumberland (IP)
CUNY (B-list letter)
Detroit-Mercy
Drexel (multiple) (business, tax, IP)
Duke (at least one offer made, multiple callbacks)
Elon (health, IP)
Emory (multiple)
Florida (2) (family law)
Florida Coastal
FSU (multiple offers made, multiple callbacks still scheduled) (health, criminal, IP)
Georgetown

George Mason
George Washington (multiple)
Georgia (2)
Georgia State (tax, business, criminal)
Golden Gate (multiple)
Hamline (health)
Harvard
Hofstra (IP)
Houston
Illinois
Indiana Bloomington
Indiana Indianapolis
Iowa (multiple) (business, tax)
John Marshall (2) (criminal, IP)
Lewis & Clark (multiple) (business, torts)
Louisville
Loyola Chicago (health)
Loyola LA
Loyola New Orelans
LSU
Maine (IP)
Maryland (multiple) (corporate, health law) (CBs through January)
Memphis (multiple) (civil procedure, evidence)
Miami (2) (offer-health and callbacks) (health, IP)
Michigan
Michigan State (IP)
Minnesota (IP)
Mississippi College (torts, health)
New York Law School
NYU
North Carolina (at least one offer made) (business, tax)
Northern Kentucky (civ pro)
Northern Illinois
Northwestern (2)
Notre Dame (2) (comparative public law, law & economics)
Ohio Northern
Oklahoma City U. (contracts)
Oregon (multiple) (offers in con law, ADR (accepted), and IP)
Pace
Penn State (criminal)
Pennsylvania
Pepperdine
Pittsburgh (tax, business) (finished with callbacks?)
Quinnipiac (2)
Roger Williams
San Diego (multiple) (business, tax, IP)
San Francisco (property, environmental)
Santa Clara (multiple callbacks) (property, environmental, criminal, IP)
St. John's (criminal)
St. Louis (2) (IP, Health)
St. Thomas (MN) (2)
Seattle (multiple) (IP)
Seton Hall (multiple) (criminal, health, environmental, property)
SMU (multiple) (environmental, property)
South Texas (done with callbacks) (business)
Southern Illinois
Southwestern (business law)
Stanford
Stetson (multiple)
Syracuse
Temple (multiple)
Tennessee (multiple)
Texas (2)

Texas Wesleyan
Toledo
Touro
UC-Berkeley
UC Irvine (environmental, property)
UCLA (multiple) (health, IP)
USC
Utah (IP)
Villanova (3) (criminal)
Virginia (2) (health)
Wake Forest (IP)
Washburn
Washington University
Wayne State (multiple) (IP, environmental, property)
West Virginia
Western State (multiple)
Whittier
William & Mary (multiple)
Wyoming (international, IP)
Yale

Heartening Hiring News

As I  mentioned on the other thread, this may be heartening news to some. Some schools (ranked roughly b/w 25- 75) have asked me who's still on the market because they are still engaged in hiring and want to find promising candidates who are still available. If you're still on the market or know someone good who is, please feel free to email me at my fsu account.  

Notes from the Faculty Recruitment Conference, 2000

I can't be the only prawf out there who gets heart palpitations reading this Law School Hiring Thread that's being hosted here on PrawfsBlawg.  Thinking about my experience going on the market eight years ago is about as pleasant as remembering the school dances I went to in seventh grade--awful experiences all of them, even when I didn't get sent to the principal's office for making out in the girl's bathroom.  Nevertheless, I thought that sharing a few memories might go at least some tiny way toward brightening the day of some of you out there suffering through the market right now.  I guess the point is that things can still work out great, even if almost all of the experience is painful.

What I remember most was the post-conference silence.  I must have looked much better on paper than I came across in interviews, because out of thirty or so AALS and pre-AALS mini-interviews, I got three callbacks.  But it's not like I thought that I had blown the interviews; I actually thought most of my interviews had gone really well (OK, not the one where the Dean told me my argument was wimpy and that my paper showed "bad topic selection on [my] part," but then again what would you expect from Chicago?).  With eight years of hindsight I think I get it now, but back then I was totally clueless.  For example, there was one great school that had called me right after the forms had gone out to express their interest, then arranged for me to have an interview with a faculty member before the AALS, and then interviewed me at the AALS.  I keep a journal, and so I know what I thought about my prospects at this school following the conference.  "Very nice," I wrote, "I think they'll call me back--said there's a big gap for law and religion."  Their rejection letter was the second one I received, preceded only by the form letter rejection I got from my alma mater.

Then there was the top-30 school that called me the day after the conference to tell me I was at the top of their list and to ask if I was really interested in them.  Were they kidding?  I called right back and said that of course I was incredibly interested.  I'm not sure I ever heard from them again.  I think I got an email at one point saying that their plans had changed or something.  It was like the time I was a summer associate at a law firm and a partner invited me over to a Fourth of July party at his house but then later, when I confirmed that I could go, told me he needed to think about it more and get back to me.  He never did.

This is a thing I did after the conference that still makes me want to bash myself in the teeth with a pair of pliers:  I typed up a list of the area codes of the various schools I had interviewed with and taped it to my desk next to my phone so that if I got a call, I could look at the caller-ID and figure out which school was calling.  Dear lord.

Looking back at my journal entries for the two days of the conference, though, has provided me with a laugh or two.  Here are some verbatim notes about two of the interviews: "Duke--good substantive conversation.  Had an out of body experience as I talked about my paper for the 24th time."  "Michigan--went very well, even though I got there 10 minutes late because they listed the wrong room and I woke up some woman who was in her pajamas."

Come to think of it, I never got an official rejection letter from Michigan.  Maybe I should go check my voice mail.  I wonder what the area code for Ann Arbor is!

What happens on a callback? What should happen?

There's a lot of ways different schools conduct callback interview days. I thought I'd invite some discussion in the comments about "best practices," starting with an example of what we often (but not always) do at FSU.

Evening before talk:
5:55 p.m.: X arrives in Tallahassee. Y picks up X at airport and brings X to hotel.

7 p.m.: Dinner at ___ (X plus 3 faculty members, sometimes 4).

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21:
8:30 a.m.: Breakfast at Tallahasse Center & transportation to law school:

one faculty member plus X; sometimes 2

9:30 a.m.: Office interview

10:00 am: Same

10:30 am: Same

11:00 am: Same

11:30 am: Prepare for Talk 1/2 hour of downtime (Room 206)

NOON: Lunch

1230: Presentation to Faculty (15-20 minutes of shpiel by X followed by questions)

1:30 p.m.: Office Interview

2:00 p.m.: Meet with Dean

3:00 p.m.: Meet with Director of the Research Center/Library

4ish: Transportation to Airport or if there's time, a drive around neighborhoods and then drive X to airport.

As you can see, we don't do meetings with students like at other schools, nor do we do a second big dinner. How does your school do things? Candidates: what do you think schools should do that they're not doing? What shouldn't they do?

A quick question about the FRC

Like Michael, I'm just back from the FRC, where I had a great time meeting a bunch of (intimidatingly) talented and accomplished people.  I was struck, during the conversations, that nearly every candidate, when asked (something like) "do you have any questions for us", asked "why do the Irish stink at football these days?" (not really) or (something like) "is there research support for junior faculty"?  And, my colleagues and I responded each time with what must have seemed like a canned recitation of our policies with reference to first-year teaching loads, pre-tenure leaves, internal workshops, travel and summer-research funding, etc.  Anyway, I wonder if we just made a mistake, and neglected to do what perhaps other schools do, i.e., include a description of these policies in the materials we send out before the FRC?  Or, is this just uniforming thought to be a safe question to ask?  If we were to take care of answering this question in pre-FRC correspondence, would we be doing candidates a favor, by answering their unasked question?  Or, would we be depriving them of a helpful go-to question for that inevitable "any questions for us?" moment during the interview?

AALS faculty recruitment conference: any objections to requesting photo on candidate cv?

I just returned from the AALS faculty recruitment conference, and I share Michael's general reactions, about the high quality of the candidates and about how strenuous the process can be, on both sides of the recruiting table.

One of my colleagues on the interviewing team had an interesting idea that might improve the process a bit.  Would it be inappropriate for the interviewing school to request that candidates provide photos on their cv's?  This would be a help not just in ensuring that every interviewer accurately distinguishes the candidates ex post (not that big a problem, in my experience), but also in assisting the interviewer's recollection of the details of each interview.

Are there any significant objections to this proposal?  (I have heard that some academic departments outside of law routinely use photo cv's, though I have no first-hand knowledge.)

Sponsored Announcement: UPenn Law Invites Applications for Sharswood Fellowships

To encourage scholars who plan to enter legal academia, the Editorial Board of Volume 155 of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review established the first Sharswood Fellowship in 2007. Penn Law has since expanded the program so that now each year the School awards two fellowships that each fund two years of research, writing, and teaching. One of the Fellowships continues to be generously funded by the Law Review.

Sharswood Fellows enjoy faculty access to Penn Law services and events, holding academic standing comparable to that of visiting assistant professors. Click here for a list of our fellows and visitors.

More details about the application for the fellowship below.

Writing and research

The Sharswood Fellow will be expected to produce at least one legal academic work of publishable quality during each year of funding. The work is expected to be of a length akin to a standard law review article.

Teaching: Academic Year 1

Spring - Fellows teach a seminar based on the subject of their research.

Teaching: Academic Year 2

Fall - Fellows teach the same seminar that they taught the previous spring.
Spring - Fellows teach a course to be determined in consultation with the dean.

Reflections on Doing an LRW Fellowship

This blog has many readers who are on the meat market.  One path to law teaching careers is through an LRW teaching fellowship—Stanford’s program, the Climenko, the Bigelow, etc.  This is the path I took, and if you are on the cusp of a law teaching career, but not quite ready, you might consider it.

It has been done before, but I thought I would offer some pros and cons of such programs.

Cons

•    It can be very difficult to produce scholarship while teaching lrw.  It is likely your first time teaching, and teaching LRW in particular is time-intensive as it requires you to constantly read your students’ work and give meaningful oral and written feedback;
•    Depending on the school, LRW instructors may not get much love from the doctrinal faculty, and your status may be low;
•    You may not have the opportunity to develop mentorship relationships with the faculty at the school;
•    Students may resent you for the amount of work you give them and any negative feedback that you might have to give them;
•    The pay isn’t great;
•    Teaching LRW is probably not what you really want to do.

Pros

•    If you work really hard, you may well be able to produce scholarship (I and all of my colleagues in Stanford’s program were able to do so);
•    Attending faculty workshops, symposia, and job talks will help you understand what makes for a good job talk;
•    You learn a lot about teaching;
•   If you are persistent and your timing is good, you may find some generous faculty members who will advise you, discuss your scholarship, and mentor you (as I did);
•    If you are lucky (as I was), you will have amazing and generous colleagues;
•   Teaching LRW can be incredibly rewarding, as it allows you to forge relationships with students, help them, and learn from them;
•    It can plug you into the law teaching network in a variety of ways (conferences, symposia, old-fashioned networking, etc);
•   It helps you on the tenure-track market because it demonstrates your seriousness about your aspirations, allows you to talk seriously about teaching, gives you time to find your voice and agenda as a scholar, and helps you adopt the persona of a law professor.

For me, despite the occasional complaining, the fellowship at Stanford was more than worth it.  On a purely functional account, it set me up very well for the teaching market.  On every metric, I did far better my second time on the market than I did the first (before the fellowship). 

Wholly apart from that, though, it was just a wonderful experience. I learned a lot about myself, mostly enjoyed the work, enjoyed working with students, and had great colleagues.  Not bad, as far as jobs go.

As I have indicated, I’m not convinced that the fellowship model is the best for LRW teaching, but that’s got very little to do with whether applying for such a position is the best idea for you.

A law school hiring thread: 2008-09

NB: Moved to the front and updated after the jump.

This thread is for both law professors and people who are on the market this year to become a law professor. We invite those on the market to leave comments (anonymously if they prefer) regarding a range of things:

a) whether they have received a call from a particular school inviting them to an interview at the AALS meat market, and/or whether they accepted it; also whether the school has asked for a candidate's scholarship yet

b) whether they have received a callback from a law school and/or accepted it

c)  whether they have received an offer from a law school and/or accepted it; feel free to also leave details about the offer or info about teaching loads, research leaves, etc.

Law professors may also choose to provide information that is relevant to the entry-level or the lateral market.

Bear in mind: if you don't want your contact information displayed, please just enter in anon@anon.edu or something like that as an email address.

Update: This post will be moved to the front of the blog once every ten days or so, and we will also try to provide updates in the comments that consolidate the various bits of information here. If you are looking for links on how to manage going through the job hunt, check out the posts under these three archives: here, here, and here.

To get things started: FSU has invited a substantial number of entry and lateral candidates to FSU this fall. The school has also extended a large number of invitations to AALS.

After the jump: a summary that will be revised every few days.

Schools reported to have made offers (as of 10/16):

UNC

Florida State

Schools reported to have made callback invitations:

American
Boston University
Buffalo

Duke

Miami
Santa Clara
St. John's
Villanova

Schools reported to have invited folks to the DC market. Those new to the list are asterisked. As of 10/16:

Akron
Albany
American
Arizona
Arizona State
Baltimore
Barry
Baylor
Boston College
Boston University
* British Columbia
Brooklyn
California-Berkeley
California-Davis
California-Hastings
California Western
Campbell
Capital
Cardozo
Case Western
Chapman
Charleston
Chicago
Chicago-Kent
Cincinnati
Cleveland Marshall
Colorado
Columbia
Cornell
Creighton
CUNY
Denver
Duke
Drexel
* Emory
Florida
Florida Coastal
Fordham
* Franklin Pierce
FSU
George Mason
Georgetown
George Washington
Georgia
Georgia State
Golden Gate
Hamline
* Harvard ("on good authority")
Hofstra
Houston
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana Bloomington
Indiana Indianapolis
Iowa
John Marshall
Kentucky
La Verne
Lewis and Clark
Louisville
Loyola Chicago
Loyola LA
Loyola New Orleans
LSU
Maine
Maryland
Memphis
Miami
Michigan State
Minnesota
Mississippi College of Law
Nebraska
New England School of Law
New York Law School
North Carolina
* Northeastern
Northern Illinois
Northern Kentucky
Notre Dame
Ohio State
Oklahoma City University College of Law
* Ohio Northern
Oregon
Pace
Pacific
Penn State
Pennsylvania
Pepperdine
Pittsburgh
Quinnipiac
Richmond
Roger Williams
St. John's
St. Louis
St. Thomas
San Diego
San Francisco
Santa Clara
Seattle
Seton Hall
SMU
South Carolina
Southern Illinois
South Texas
Southwestern
Stanford
Stetson
SUNY-Buffalo
Syracuse
Temple
Texas
Thomas Jefferson
* Thurgood Marshall
Toledo
Toronto
* Touro
Tulane
UC Irvine
UCLA
U. Conn.
USC
Utah
Villanova
Virginia
Wake Forest
Washington University
Wayne State
Western New England
West Virginia
* Whittier
Widener
William & Mary
William Mitchell
Wyoming
Yale

Please correct mistakes.

Guest Blogging on LRW, the Meat Market, and Whatever Else Strikes My Fancy

Thanks for having me back--glad to be here!

During this guest-blogging stint, I'm going to try to focus on three things:

1. I plan to do a series of posts on the role of Legal Research and Writing in the law school curriculum.  For reasons that I will explain, I think that this subject is unfortunately overlooked on blogs like this.
2. With the meat market upon us, I will likely do a post or two on the subject.  I went through the process last year and greatly appreciated all of the information available on the internets tubes.  If readers have questions or suggestions for posts, please leave comments.
3. One of the nice things about blogging is that I get to write whatever else I want.  (I promised that there would be three items of focus, so I guess this is like being granted three wishes by the genie and using the last one to wish for an infinite number of wishes.)

Tunes for Job Interviews

Since I quoted from the Death Cab for Cutie song, “I Will Possess Your Heart” below, I thought I’d highlight another lyric in that song that those of you on the AALS hiring market this year might want to sing in your interviews at the hiring conference in November: “How I wish you could see the potential, the potential of you and me.” 

Then again, maybe that’s a bad idea:  When I was on the market a few years back, I didn’t get a callback from the hiring committee to which I sang “Don’t You Want Me [Baby?]” (by The Human League). 

Life As a VAP, Some Thoughts for Law Schools

"VAP" (visiting assistant professor) programs seem to be gaining ground, as Mark Fenster pointed out in an earlier post below.  I do think that there are some big questions about the purpose of these programs (broadening the legal academy? filling curricular gaps without making permanent hires? etc.), but I suspect that most programs are motivated by mixed aims. 

Based on my experience as a teaching VAP, I want to suggest a few issues - from the VAP perspective - that faculties should think about before starting or as they develop their program.

1 - Remember that the VAP's real job is getting the next job. 

2 - Focus mentoring on research and writing.  You might even have a research adviser in the fellow's field.  We all know that publication is the coin of the realm.  It is also the price of entry.

3 - Decide whether you are going to fund job hunting expenses, especially attendance at the AALS conference.  Remember, this is one expense that VAPs are almost certain to incur.

4 - Decide on a clear rule about whether you hire out of your VAP program and communicate it clearly to candidates for a VAP position.

5 - Identify who hires the VAP (i.e., how much faculty-wide buy in you are looking for).

6 - Think about teaching load (for teaching VAPs, rather than research fellows, obviously).  The key semesters are the first one and when the VAP is on the market.  Both your students and your VAPs will thank you for being thoughtful about this.

7 - How long should the program be?  Because of the timing of the academic market, one year is likely too short, putting the VAP on the market before any academic life is under the belt.

8 - Do VAPs attend others' job talks?  A sensible rule may be that they are allowed to when they are not on the market themselves.  (Sitting in on job talks is an eye-opener, as permanent faculty well know.)

A Law School Hiring Wiki: Preliminary Thoughts

A person on the market writes:

I wonder whether your readers might have some insight into the curious phenomenon (or rather, non-phenomenon) of the law hiring wiki.  In many other academic disciplines, job hunters each year set up a wiki to report on how the process is progressing.  The typical wiki includes headings for each school that is interviewing or hiring, followed by dated (anonymous) remarks from candidates who have been contacted for an interview, asked for additional materials, given an offer, etc. See, for example, http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/FamilyStudies. While your blawg and others are very good about keeping up-to-date with hiring committee chairs at the start of the season and positions accepted at the end of the season, I wonder whether there’s any reason that the blawgging community hasn’t yet set up a wiki for the AALS hiring market. 

I agree that the commenter is correct to notice an absence of information. I recall being disappointed that this info wasn't circulated when I was on the market four years ago. And the absence of the info on the market largely helps only the schools and not the prawfs-to-be. As the aspiring prawf observes, the existence of these info-sharing sites exists in lots of other venues: students share info about firms and NALP shares info about salaries; there is a clerkship notification blog out there. It's time that we get our act together too. Before I create an informal wiki on Prawfs, however, I want to solicit some reactions by prawfs and wannabes to this.

I imagine there are two potential problems. First,  some hiring chairs/deans will be required to be more up front when they would prefer strategic non-disclosure or puffery of various sorts: e.g., You, precious candidate, are our first choice! This interest seems somewhat self-serving and probably can't be justified under a veil rule.

Second, if the info is not accurate, then it can serve a dis-information purpose, which would potentially benefit dishonest suppliers of such info whether they are candidates or schools. One solution to this it seems is to have signed comments; these would be especially welcomed. Another option is to permit info that is anonymous and readers will discount accordingly. A third option, maybe which is the best one, is for readers to send me info from their particular email addresses, and a couple times a week I will post the info without identifying information. This will provide info but make sure there's more incentive for people to avoid disinformation campaigns. The downside to that is: well, my time...and perhaps people won't want to email the private info.

What else should be on our minds? And if there are any readers who are savvy about getting this started (Grimmelmann!), please get in touch with me. If we go through with it, we'll launch imminently. Update (2d): Here's the link to our thread with this information. Please put your info here. We've decided to do a comment thread for now. We'll adjust later if there's a need to do so; having spoken with some tech people, it seems like if the numbers aren't huge, then a comment thread is pretty easy to maintain and search.

Update: after the jump, two early reactions.

One person, a prawf at a top 20 school writes:

For what it’s worth, I think a law hiring wiki would be invaluable.  When I was on the market last year, it would have been really nice to know, for example, how quickly after the meat market various schools were making calls to set up job talks. I’d suggest letting people post anonymously and immediately.  The problem with requiring signed posts is that no one will do it – most candidates are, I suspect, understandably very risk-averse, and if there’s any chance that posting, “School X is scheduling job talks” would annoy the hiring people at School X, then the candidate won’t want his/her name attached to it.  The problem with requiring signed emails to you which you then anonymize and post in batches (besides, of course, the extra work for you) is that some of this information (especially when schools are calling to set up job talks) has a very short window of usefulness.  (It’s also not clear to me why requiring them to email you would prevent the spread of misinformation, unless you plan to do a lot of verification work.) Besides, I suspect that at least some profs will read the wiki and might be willing to post signed comments correcting any disinformation about their schools.  I noticed that very little mis/disinformation was posted on the clerkship notification blog (at least during the two years I paid attention to it – the year when I was applying for clerkships and the year when I was clerking), and some false information was very quickly corrected by current clerks who read the blog. Anyway, that’s my two cents.  And thank you for doing the public service of (at least potentially) taking this on!

Another person, now a wannabe, writes somewhat in contrast:

I noticed your post on Prawfs just now about collecting and distributing information about the hiring process this year (which schools have called, requested scholarship, etc.). My own view is that this would be extremely helpful, and I also agree that the best option is the third, as this would both encourage honest reporting and not reveal to the world at large which on-the-market candidates were revealing information (which might be looked upon unfavorably by some law professors). I hope this goes through.  If it does, let me know, as I am most happy to share the information I've got so far.  Thanks for posting, and for volunteering yourself.

A 2008 Hiring Chairs Spreadsheet

In addition to the post here, which invites law schools to list who will be hiring chairs of their committees this year, I have recently received an Excel spreadsheet, which provides information for most of the top 100 law schools so far as I can tell. I make no warranties for the matters asserted therein and I have noticed at least one mistake--Leiter's at Chicago but listed on the Texas committee. But if anyone sees a mistake, he or she is welcome to add a correction to the comments to this thread. Signed comments only please.

Target Letter Advice

Hi Everyone.  Thanks to Dan and the rest of the Prawfs for inviting me back for another guest stint here.  I did a previous stint in April of ’07, as I was finishing my Climenko Fellowship at Harvard.  I’m now quite settled here at Arizona State, having started my second year of teaching.  For those of you who are just starting your first year, hang in there --- it really *is* much easier to balance teaching and everything else we are supposed to be doing the second time around.

It wouldn’t be fall if Prawfs weren’t giving advice to the big group of people who are hoping to land a law teaching job for next year.  I read the blog religiously, both when I was applying for my fellowship and when I was on the entry-level market, and I think that the advice is generally sound.  There is, however, one area where the advice here on Prawfs has been mixed: whether candidates should send a “target letter” or some packet of information to hiring chairs.

I ended up sending approximately 30 of these letters (a cover letter expressing interest in the school, a CV, and a short research agenda) when I went on the market, questioning whether hiring chairs read them.  The answer, unsurprisingly, is that it depends on the school and who is chair of the appointments committee.  But especially for those candidates who are interested in schools outside of the northeast or in schools that aren’t at the top of the US News rankings, I strongly recommend that they send target letters to those schools.  Having had the chance to talk to members of appointments committees at various schools, I was surprised to learn how many schools (a) use whether they received a target letter as a tie-break between various candidates, or (b) won’t even look at candidates that haven’t sent such letters.

Best of luck to all of you on the market!

jolly fellow

Paul Caron has compiled a list of pre-teaching fellowships and VAP programs, and Brian Leiter has responded to a question and invited commenters to respond as well regarding strategies for applying to these programs. I'm not going to reiterate the obvious advantages for candidates and hosting schools in these programs, so please assume that I take them as givens. With the increased number of PhD's on the market, I think the programs are likely to result in a more meritocratic academic job market, since decisions will be based more on performance than potential, and junior faculty will be better-trained and more experienced as scholars and teachers.

But what of the downsides for the legal academy? I'm not suggesting these outweigh the benefits, but they should be considered, whether by hiring committees, candidates, or the legal academy generally. Here are a few I've come up with:

A bonus becomes a requirement. When these programs were relatively few, coming out of, say, a Bigelow was a plus on the market. Will the sheer number of candidates on the entry-level market coming out of these programs, and the increased number of publications that they are able to generate during the year(s) in them, raise the entry-level bar, such that those without a PhD or a fellowship will be at a disadvantage?

Costs for candidates, and the effects of those costs for the credentials of entry-level market. Many fellows and VAPs have to move for a short-term position with no or little long-term prospects. Having spent the spring at another school (and having served as a VAP in an earlier academic career), I know that even a perfect moving compensation program doesn't take into account the time and hassle of moving, nor its effect on families, pets, etc. Do these costs in turn mean that some tenure track candidates are better able to take these positions than others? To the extent these programs serve as an increasingly important credential or means to credentialize, those best able to take advantage of them -- the single, younger, and more independently wealthy -- might have something of an edge in the entry-level market.

Lingering effects for tenure decisions. Assuming that the school that ultimately hires candidates post-fellowship/ VAP program doesn't count the program year(s) towards tenure (i.e., they start at year zero and don't go up early, except by choice), one might expect that folks coming out of fellowships in particular not only to have more completed publications out or in the pipeline (which becomes the basis for a hiring decision), but also a more fully developed scholarly agenda and additional work that's further along upon arrival at their tenure track position. This is more than hitting the ground running; in some ways, this is a head start, and unquestionably good for these tenure candidates and the institutions that hired them. Over time, this is likely to be another push towards raising tenure standards -- again, not something that's necessarily a bad thing given the relatively low standards for tenure in the legal academy (and yes, I now have tenure, so that's easy for me to say). But does this not further turn the apparent bonus of fellowships into a requirement, or at least a deficit to those who don't apply or get one?

The adjuncting of the legal academy. One pleasant difference between law schools and undergraduate education is that law schools don't rely on part-time adjuncts for teaching large, basic courses. Instead, the basic courses are where a school deploys its tenure-track faculty most heavily; adjuncts are used, when they're used, for advanced courses, and are usually active practicioners who don't depend on low, part-time pay for their income. Skills courses like legal writing are taught by full-time, non-tenure track faculty, many of whom are paid as much as many tenure-track faculty members in other parts of the university. To the extent that these programs farm out to a revolving door of neophytes coverage of certain courses that the tenure track faculty doesn't want to teach (such as the incredibly important job of teaching legal writing), does this adversely affect teaching?

Getting a job in the law teaching market

With Labour Day behind us, and all its delusions that summer may still be enjoyed, it's important to address the interests of those on the market for a law teaching job, or those who are thinking of making that move in the next couple years. Past prawfs guest Glenn Cohen (who himself nicely transitioned from a fellowship at HLS to a professorship at HLS) extended lots of advice during his past visits, which I thought I'd gather in one spot for those thinking about making the transition. Also check out Paul Caron's post which aggregates lots of useful links to various programs and resources for aspiring prawfs.

On doing a fellowship

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2007/02/why_notdo_a_fel.html

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2007/02/so_you_are_a_fe.html

Preparing for the meat market

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2008/04/job-market-time.html

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2008/04/the-meat-market.html

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2008/04/recommenders-an.html

What to ask before you have an offer

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2008/04/asking-question.html

What to ask after you have an offer

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2008/04/asking-questi-1.html

I've now created a category archive for this topic, so I ask Prawfs readers and writers to point out in the comments other posts on this site that they've read or written that might be helpful. My guess is that most of them will be either in the Teaching Law category or in the Life of Law Schools category. Thanks!