Why Not/Do A Fellowship?

In this post I discuss the major reasons to do (and not do) a fellowship, and along the way tell you a little bit more of what the life of a fellow (at least in my fellowship) is like.  Why do a fellowship?  There are a few major reasons:

(1) To be Competitive For Hiring:  Larry Solum is doing his usual yeoman's service by collecting entry level hiring data for this year, but if past data is any indication the market (especially in the top tier, however that is defined) is increasingly dominated by PhD-JDs.  In the 2006 data only, of the 161 candidates who were reported to have received a first tenure-track teaching job, only 40 had only a JD (that is, no advanced degree or fellowship/VAP).  Solum reports that 43 candidates of these had an advanced doctorate such as a PhD, SJD, or DPhil, and 43 candidates had some other advanced degree, usually a masters, while 88 candidates had done some kind of post-doc/pre-tenure program (including VAPs and fellowships).  This last number is a bit unrepresentative because, as Solum notes, some individuals have both advanced degrees and fellowships/VAPs (hereinafter just "fellowships").  But if you scroll through his listing of schools it reveals that very few candidates without a Supreme Court clerkship, a PhD, or a fellowship are being hired, especially at top tier institutions.

l For those of us not willing to devote another 4-6 years to a doctorate degree, or for whom practice had some allure as well, fellowships appear to be a way of catching up.
This is not to say it is the fellowship is itself doing much of the work (though at the margin it may act as a signal of an independent rater valuing the candidate enough to offer him or her a fellowship). What I have been told by those on the hiring side (and I'd love to hear more from those who are doing hiring in the comments) is that the fellowship mostly gives individuals the opportunity to write a great job talk and gain the other advantages I am about to discuss.

(2) Write: Writing a good job talk is a lot of hard work and time-consuming.  When I was working at the Justice Department's Civil Division, Appellate Staff, after a day of drafting my own Circuit court briefs, drafting initial version of Supreme Court briefs to be altered by the Solicitor General's Office, and preparing for oral argument, the last thing I wanted to do was more legal research and writing.  And (to give a plug to my old office, a place to work so good it gives legal academia a run for its money,) this was working very reasonable hours with a really intellectual group of people who would love to talk about any big idea in the law.  I have no idea how those writing job talks from large law firm life do it.
A fellowship gives you the time to write.  If you budget your time correctly you should be able to get both a good job talk and perhaps another publication ready in the first 12-16 months before the meat market.  I am trying to finish some work on an Article on the "right not to procreate" myself. 
Post-meat market it also gives you time to write 1-2 other pieces (and see Dan's earlier post about holding off on publishing those to get tenure credit).  One of my favorite law profs put it succinctly when we had lunch a couple of months ago -- "so you get to spend as much time as you want writing and you do not have to teach, where can I sign up?" (I equally succinctly reminded him he was getting paid 2-3 times my salary and that I'd trade him if he liked).

(3)  Learn: A fellowship gives you an opportunity to brush up on areas of law (and other disciplines) you'd like to know about but never had the chance, or to immerse yourself more deeply in an area you already know well.  Say empirical work has always interested you but you don't know what the differences within differences methodology is?  It turns out Elizabeth Warren is teaching an empirical methods class you could sit in on at Harvard Law School, or harder core individuals could arrange to sit in on similar classes at the economics department.
To expand my knowledge base about public health law I am sitting in on a class being offered at the law school by Harvard Public Health School Prof. Michelle Mello.  That's not to mention all the informal stuff going on.  So, to give just the example of a typical week.  On Tuesdays I sit in on a weekly reading/discussion group with the Division of Medical Ethics faculty and their post-docs and PhD students at the Med and PublichHealth Schools (the discussion leader rotates every week, including amazing people like Norm Daniels, Dan Brock, Dan Wikler, and Frances Kamm).  On Wednesday, Elizabeth Warren presented work at my center on the effect of medical crises on bankruptcy.  On Thursday, Jennifer Arlen, who was visiting Harvard in the fall, presented work on contracting out of medical malpractice liability.  On Friday, Bernard Lo, who teaches and is a policy adviser as to California's Stem Cell initiative gave a presentation on on the domestic use of stem cell lines and research developed in foreign countries under conditions that do not meet U.S. research ethics standards.  These are only the events I attended, there were many more health law, bioethics, biotechnology ones I just didn't have time for (including a weekly health economics workshop series).  Particularly in my field (something I'll talk about in a further post) where there is so many disciplines at work, the opportunity to immerse yourself in the methods and research of other disciplines is really essential.

(4)  Backers/Advisers: Some of us had close relationships with certain members of the faculty as law students, but particularly at a place like Harvard it is hard to really develop those kinds of relationships in any great number.  A fellowship gives you an opportunity to cement (if returning to your home institution) or develop good relationships with faculty members who can advise you what to work on, comment on and critique your work while it is still in development, and support and advise you while on the job market.  How much you'll be able to do this depends a lot on your personality and the character of the institution.  Just as when I was a student, at Harvard the faculty is quite open to meeting you, talking about ideas, even reading drafts, but they definitely will not seek you out; you have to be a self-starter in this regard, and if the thought of emailing a prof you don't know and asking them if they have time to sit down with you is unappealing, you maye have a problem.

(5) Quack Like A Duck:  Legal academics write, present, and talk about their work in a particular way.  As a student you can get acculturated to some of it, but there really is no substitute to sitting through the presentations done by visiting faculty as lateral job talks to get a sense of how the game really works.  At Harvard, there is also an opportunity for fellows to give mock job talks in the fall they are going on the market, which faculty attend, and that helps a great deal in geting ready for doing the real thing.

(6) Network:  In her more cynical moments my mother likes to say that career success is "not what you know, but who you know."  While I am too much of a believer in merit to fully buy into this, it really does help to know the people who work in your field of law and for them to know you.   A friend who was on the job market last year tells me he was immensely helped by meeting people at conferences from a particular school he was interested in and expressing his interest to them.  They had him in for an early pre-AALS job talk, and he ended up having this school, one of his top choices, extend him an offer very early into the process, which was a great position to be in  (he ended up accepting their offer and is thrilled).

(7) Get Used to Teaching:  If your fellowship offers teaching opportunities, it gives you a good opportunity to get used to the classroom, especially if you've never taught before.  It may also give you a good opportunity to assemble and try out a syllabus, as well as to compile your 'lecture' notes if you get to teach a course that will be part of your teaching duties as a faculty member.  A number of friends who are in their first and second years of law teaching have told me that preppnig a new course is a really time-consuming activity.

Why Not Do It?  If you have a great job talk ready to go and feel ready without a fellowship/VAP.  If you cannot take the  pay cut.  If your partner is not thrilled with the idea of relocating for a one to two year gig, only to have to relocate again.  If you are unsure whether you'll end up with an offer from a place you'll likely accept: going on the market from a stable job is one thing, you can always just stay at the job if you don't get what you want; going on the market from a fellowship necessitates a job interruption, and while most candidates good enough to get fellowships/VAPs will have no trouble finding a legal job to return to if it does not work out, there is obviously costs in time, money, and career to this strategy.

Those are my general thoughts on the matter, but I am happy to answer more specific questions in the comments section, and I'd be thrilled to hear from people on the hiring side, or from those who administer these fellowships.