« Erieblogging: The Final Day | Main | VAPs and Fellowships: Open Thread, 2012-2013 »
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Law School Hiring, 2012-2013, Thread Two
[Originally published 10/14/12; bumped 11/13/12; final bump, 1/31/13.]
We invite those on the market to leave comments on this thread regarding whether they have received:
(a) a callback from a law school and/or accepted it; or
(b) an offer from a law school and/or accepted it; feel free to also leave details about the offer, including teaching load, research leave, etc. A school listed as "offer accepted" may have made more than one offer and may still have some slots open.
Five miscellaneous things:
1. If you don't want your contact information displayed, enter [email protected] or something like that as an email address.
2. There is a separate thread, "A Clearinghouse for Questions," for general questions or comments about the teaching market. Please do not use the thread below for general questions or comments. (Such comments will be deleted, not out of hostility or in a judgy way, just to keep this thread focused.)
3. There's quite a cache of materials relevant to the law job market under the archive categories Getting a Job on the Law Teaching Market and Entry Level Hiring Report.
4. All information should come in through the comments. Our aggregator will use a spreadsheet to aggregate the information. 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, downloadable version below. 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. [As of 1/31/13, this thread is no longer being aggregated.]
5. This year's first hiring thread is here. Comments on that thread are now closed.
Here is the spreadsheet, which is downloadable.
Good luck!
Update: Here is a link to the last page of comments.
Update: As of 2/27/13, comments on this thread are closed. If you have information about entry level hires, please post that information in the comments to the entry level hiring data collection post.
Posted by Sarah Lawsky on January 31, 2013 at 06:12 PM in Getting a Job on the Law Teaching Market | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c6a7953ef017ee42bf27e970d
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Law School Hiring, 2012-2013, Thread Two:
Comments
Comments on this thread are now closed. If you have information about entry level hires, please post that information in the comments to the entry level hiring data collection post.
Posted by: Sarah Lawsky | Feb 27, 2013 3:28:58 PM
Delighted to have accepted an offer at Penn.
Posted by: jonah gelbach | Feb 27, 2013 3:20:14 PM
Seems like it might be a good time to start compiling the final list of accepted offers --
Posted by: Anon | Feb 27, 2013 9:35:12 AM
Is the hiring finished? Any outstanding offers left?
Posted by: Finished? | Feb 27, 2013 7:10:31 AM
White Male --
In case you're too lazy to go back through the thread, the argument goes like this:
White male candidate: It seems like similarly-situated women and minorities are getting a lot more interviews than I am.
Woman or minority candidate: I don't think that's true. Look at the professoriate. It's predominantly white males. How could there be a hiring bias against them?
Another woman or minority candidate: Besides, there may be a little bit of affirmative action getting AALS interviews, but that's all it gets you. First round interviews. Not callbacks and not jobs.
Another white male: Wait, just because current professors are largely white and male, current hiring preferences can't be biased against them? That doesn't make sense. And besides, even if it's only a preference in getting first round interviews, that's a huge advantage.
While male professor: The white guys are right. There are totally people at my school who won't vote for any white male candidates out of principle.
WoMC: Wait, white professor. What candidates did you hire in the past two years. Were they ALL non-white or women?
WMP: Well, ahem, you see, there were some real superstars that we couldn't pass up on, white male or not. But in general...
AWoMC: Aha! So white males can get jobs at your school, it's just a lot more competitive!
WMC: Hey, wait! Is that supposed to make me feel good? I have a lot tougher road to hoe than a minority or a woman?
WoMC: Yeah, but you come from a system with a lot of built-in advantages. It's easier for you to find mentors at schools and firms filled with white male professors and partners. You had an easier time in practice because you weren't seen as a ticking baby time bomb. Preferencing white or minority candidates just balances the scales a little.
AWMC: But how do you know if your tipping them too much? Should being a woman or a minority be worth one extra publication or three? Does it bridge the difference between Yale and NYU, or Yale and a non-T14 school?
On and on and on...
Posted by: Fellow white male | Feb 26, 2013 1:04:52 PM
Folks - just fill out the survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DHDZTNN
Let's get our stories told based on the facts we can aggregate without revealing anyone's identity or speculating as to why we didn't get a job. Let's just show the "world" our accomplishments and let those stand for themselves.
Posted by: another VAP out in the cold | Feb 26, 2013 12:56:30 PM
Can we please not have that debate again on here?
Posted by: anon | Feb 26, 2013 12:10:00 PM
Any other straight white males feel like they had an extra hard time on the market this year? I know it was a tough year for everyone, but it seems like "diverse" friends with similar resumes had an easier time. Perhaps it was my personality that cost me the jobs, but all of these affirmative action notices at the end of postings make me think I am the only type of candidate that is not wanted.
Posted by: White Male | Feb 26, 2013 7:19:25 AM
Charlotte has actually already done a handful of on-campus interviews, but I understand they are continuing to interview.
Posted by: Anon | Feb 25, 2013 10:36:49 AM
confirmation that Charlotte is starting to conduct screening interviews.
Seattle said they may bring back additional candidates for on-campus interviews, but also may (suggested to be more likely) offer people slots as visitors.
Posted by: VAP wannabe | Feb 25, 2013 9:01:30 AM
If you're a candidate who didn't place, please fill out this quick and anonymous survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DHDZTNN
Thanks.
Posted by: another VAP out in the cold | Feb 25, 2013 2:10:31 AM
Apologies, but ... back to the substantive business at hand?
Does anyone know if the few remaining law schools yet to be obviously done for the year have made any choices yet?
Does anyone know of lateral-moves-related Spring hiring?
Does anyone know of decisions made re near term hiring freezes?
Anyone else have tales from the on-campus pre-professor centers, like the poster a week or so ago?
Anyone have contrarian thoughts, that the future is not so bleak as some of the posters have suggested?
Posted by: Anon | Feb 24, 2013 7:17:20 PM
"just don't lie", that's a little bit too much "I can't say" to take it seriously...
Posted by: Anon | Feb 24, 2013 7:04:08 AM
I found out some information from a completely different source (i.e., not anyone on the faculty at the school) and figured it out. There's absolutely nothing I can do about it.
anon2 - If you really think so, maybe ask someone you trust who is outside of the school but might know the inside scoop anyway, or perhaps a very trusted member of the faculty, though if you really suspect the dean is lying to you, then perhaps you want to rethink whether you'd want to go to that school at all.
VAP wannabe - I can't say, sorry.
Posted by: just don't lie | Feb 23, 2013 4:27:32 PM
What sort of lies are we talking about? They don't really think that we are very qualified and wish they could hire us?
Posted by: VAP wannabe | Feb 23, 2013 10:54:22 AM
Just don't lie, how did you catch them in the lie? I think a Dean is probably lying to me, but have no way to find out if he is. This is the worst hiring process of my life. Schools really need to get their act together.
Posted by: anon2 | Feb 23, 2013 10:05:20 AM
It is my understanding that Buffalo is done with its entry-level hiring.
Posted by: anon | Feb 22, 2013 11:08:19 AM
Anyone hear from Buffalo or Fordham?
Posted by: Anon | Feb 22, 2013 7:11:57 AM
Who knows... better to say nothing at all than to fabricate something.
Posted by: just don't lie | Feb 21, 2013 2:55:00 PM
Why do they lie? Is it to protect their reputations? Or is it to get your to agree to do something after which they take advantage of you? I think the latter is worse.
Posted by: Anon | Feb 21, 2013 2:38:02 PM
I have no positive additions to this thread, so feel free to stop reading this comment now.
I recently found out that an important person in my hiring process straight out lied to me. Really?! And these are the people who are supposed to be teaching and modeling professionalism?! Committee chairs and members, deans, and everyone else out there involved with this process who has the upper hand by definition -- we deserve the truth, or at the very least, we deserve to not be told lies. We are professionals too. Treat us as such, with some basic level of respect.
I remember reading an earlier comment that a candidate had been lied to, and a string of comments followed saying that it wasn't a lie or that maybe there was another explanation. I remember thinking "come on... you've got to be making that up. You probably misunderstood."
Nope. Lying. Flat out lying. I'm confident it's not the norm, but the fact that it happens at all is horrific. And it does happen. I'm living proof.
By the way, fairly frequently, lying is how law suits start. But you must know this already since, you know, you're law professors.
To those faculty out there who *aren't* lying to candidates, you might want to instill some professionalism in your colleagues.
To the other candidate(s) who experienced this, you're not alone, and I'm sorry I ever doubted you.
[If you've read this far, you're probably wondering about the details of what happened. I can't disclose. Sorry.]
Posted by: just don't lie - it's not that hard | Feb 21, 2013 1:42:43 PM
Anyone hear from Victoria or Calgary?
Posted by: Anon | Feb 21, 2013 5:07:13 AM
anon @ Feb 19: if i may ask, which ones in particular?
Posted by: anon anon | Feb 20, 2013 12:21:27 AM
Anon @ 7:06 - If a school strikes out on landing a lateral in an area that it needs covered, then their main option for filling the gap is to return to the entry level pool and offer one of those candidates a visiting or full-time position. From what I've heard, there is at least some hiring of this type each year...but, given market conditions, who knows how much there will be this year.
Posted by: Max Helveston | Feb 19, 2013 11:50:16 AM
seconding statement by anon at Feb 18, 2013 11:08:07 PM....hearing thawing sounds from multiple top-10 schools
Posted by: anon | Feb 19, 2013 11:14:16 AM
Penn State's b-school has started interviews. UGA's b-school has finished its three on-campus interviews, but I have not heard whether an offer has been made yet. Any additional information would be appreciated.
Posted by: B-School 2 | Feb 19, 2013 10:09:07 AM
Anoni, Temple has said they've begun to review applications, and U. Wisconsin-La Crosse sent a request for more information. No other B-school jobs have given me any sort of update.
Posted by: B-school wannabe | Feb 19, 2013 7:50:40 AM
Thanks, Max. I am guessing that most schools will want to be finished with all hiring by March 15. Does anyone have information about whether schools routinely hire after that date?
Posted by: Anon | Feb 19, 2013 7:06:36 AM
To Anon, Feb 14 at 11:05 (asking about the lateral market):
Unless schools are going to break AALS's timing rule for lateral/visiting offers, all hiring on that front will be done by March 15.
AALS Statements of Good Practices:
Offer of Appointment. To permit a full-time faculty member to give due consideration to an offer and timely notice of resignation or request for leave of absence to his or her law school, a law school should make an offer of an indefinite appointment as a teacher during the following academic year no later than March 1 and of a visiting appointment no later than March 15.
Posted by: Max Helveston | Feb 19, 2013 12:16:25 AM
there seems to be some movement in the top 10-15 law schools now and more expected in the next few weeks.
Posted by: anon | Feb 18, 2013 11:08:07 PM
Belmont is done with hiring.
Posted by: G-Ice | Feb 17, 2013 11:57:29 AM
Heard that Saskatchewan did make an offer, have heard nothing on Calgary's six spots.
Posted by: Anon | Feb 15, 2013 8:04:49 PM
Savannah has started their first round of interviews, as has Charlotte. Is Belmont hiring? What areas?
Posted by: Anon | Feb 15, 2013 8:47:18 AM
Earlier posts asked about Calgary, Fordham, any news there?
Also several less prestigious schools were hiring down South, did anyone ever hear from those? Thinking Belmont and Savannah, are these new schools still adding faculty?
Has anyone on this thread made efforts to apply for the various B-School business law spots, how did that market go this year?
Must admit, trying to develop a statistical perspective as the news continues to, well, bear watching...
Posted by: Anoni | Feb 15, 2013 5:50:22 AM
Is the lateral market happening now, or is that even later?
Posted by: Anon | Feb 14, 2013 11:05:12 PM
Wow, that killed the thread.
Anyhow, the world continues. There are a variety of law postings from the last couple months.
Hope for some goes on ...
Posted by: Anon | Feb 14, 2013 7:36:32 PM
Anyone know what the story is with UConn? Which positions are filled?
Posted by: Anon | Feb 14, 2013 6:22:31 AM
Dudes, you killed the thread...
Posted by: Anon | Feb 14, 2013 3:50:26 AM
UCLA is making calls.
Posted by: go bruins! | Feb 13, 2013 6:05:32 PM
@Anonprof, it sounds like that strategy (creating incentives for older faculty members to retire or phase out) is being implemented in a lot of different disciplines--there was a pretty recent NYT piece about it. It sounds like it could lead to drastic measures at your schools, but isn't necessarily a bad sign everywhere-- some places do it so they can hire someone entry-level or just get rid of dead wood.
Posted by: bunhead | Feb 13, 2013 11:06:50 AM
On the question of getting pushed out of a firm (or the perception that you might have been pushed out or would not have made partner had you stayed), I found it very helpful to have a couple of partners ready to field calls from schools. They want you to succeed and have no qualms about raving about your work and intellect, and it puts committee members' minds at ease. (I had several schools request law firm references, including a top 75 school for a TT job and a top 10 school for a VAP job.)
Posted by: junior minted | Feb 13, 2013 11:04:48 AM
I would probably look at the experience when the candidate would start teaching. Again, different professors have very different views on this. Some professors, especially those who only have one or two years of practice themselves, tend to discount practice experience and even speak up against it. Others, especially those with more than average practice experience, talk about needing to reach the senior associate level, at the very least.
Personally, as someone with five years experience, I think experience can be valuable, but is not necessary to be a good professor. Even my colleagues with 15+ years of experience get "out of touch" after a few years in the academy. More important, in my mind, is keeping a toe in the "real world" so that you stay relevant throughout your career.
Posted by: AnonProf | Feb 13, 2013 10:50:40 AM
@AnonProf -- good points, but some of the VAPs/fellows on the market this year have exactly 6-8 years of practice (before becoming a VAP/fellow) and apparently are the few people who are getting TT jobs in this market.
I never really understood why being told one won't make partner at some big firm (where schmoozing and not intellectual merit really gets you places) is a dealbreaker for academia. It's not much different from the case of someone spending 6-8 years as an Assistant then Associate Professor at Harvard, then being told he/she won't make tenure and then landing tenure at another less prestigious but still great school. And actually not making partner shouldn't even be as big a deal as getting denied tenure at Harvard, since firms have a value system that is much different from academia, while at least at Harvard the standards are those of academia.
Posted by: Aanon | Feb 13, 2013 10:49:58 AM
@AnonProf or others who know--for practitioner candidates, are x years of experience referring to time of AALS interview or start date of teaching position (typically one year later)?
Posted by: anotheranon | Feb 13, 2013 10:16:38 AM
OTMA, it depends on the school, obviously. One fellow faculty member told me that people are looking to hire replicas of themselves, which I think is generally true. More professors at lower tiered schools have more practice experience and those professors tend to value practice experience more.
I could see some of my colleagues disliking only three years. Two years would make some very vocal. But four years wouldn't bother anyone on my faculty. Getting to six or seven years and you will get people saying that they are too much of a practitioner, even at my low end third tier school. Also, if they are at a big firm some faculty members will assume the candidate received notice that they were not going to make partner and are being pushed out.
Posted by: AnonProf | Feb 13, 2013 9:47:55 AM
I was told that 3 years was an INsufficient amount of practice experience for some lower tiered schools...
Posted by: on the market (again) | Feb 13, 2013 8:17:14 AM
Also, when I was on the market my advisors told me 5 or 6 years in practice was the tipping point, but I think that is changing and that there may not be a "tipping point" at most lower ranked schools.
Posted by: AnonProf | Feb 13, 2013 7:28:06 AM
My school is supposedly incentivizing older faculty members to retire, and we are not going to replace them. If none agree, we hear that things are going to be very difficult, which I take to mean salary/benefit cuts and/or layoffs. Granted my school is a private, third tier school; many schools may be better off. That said, over 50 schools are ranked below us and are likely in a similar or worse situation. My guess is that next year will be worse.
Posted by: AnonProf | Feb 13, 2013 7:25:33 AM
I don't think there's a tipping point at 8 vs 10 years out-- depends much more on whether/where/what you're publishing.
Posted by: bunhead | Feb 12, 2013 11:14:34 PM
@anon: I meant number of years out of law school too. People starting out in academia in their 40s and 50s are typically more than 8+ years out of school.
Posted by: kanon | Feb 12, 2013 9:28:50 PM
@kanon: its not age that matters, its number of years out of law school. People who miss out this cycle and the next because of the awful market who are 8+ years out of law school are unlikely to get a look next go round even if times are flush again.
Posted by: anon | Feb 12, 2013 9:20:54 PM
@ Giving up: I hear you and agree on the next two years being really bad to be on the market, based on what I'm hearing from faculty. However, I don't think age is as much a barrier to starting out in legal academia (as opposed to other academia). There are plenty of examples of people starting in legal academia well into their 30s, 40s or 50s.
Posted by: kanon | Feb 12, 2013 8:50:31 PM
I 100% agree with Giving Up.
Relatedly, early reaction to unsolicited offers of visits (traditional, not VAP programs) is terribly negative. Lots of quick, "sorry, we're not hiring this year"-type responses. To me, this suggests that next year will be catastrophically worse. If it were just bad, not hiring TT faculty might be enough. If there is no budget for visitors, it suggests (to me) that enrollment is likely to be down so far that they can just make do with TT faculty (or may even be looking to negotiate separation agreements with TT faculty).
In short, absolutely nothing suggests next year will be any better, but there is much to suggest that next year will be much, much worse.
Posted by: on the market (again) | Feb 12, 2013 8:15:57 PM
Oh, and SCOTUSblog just posted an opening for a summer internship with Nina Totenberg.
Posted by: Awesome | Feb 12, 2013 3:19:35 PM
Who are you calling old?!? Me, I guess. Le sigh. Thanks for sharing the view of the repeat players--I think that is very helpful in terms of figuring out what the consensus/mood actually is. There is so much anecdotal confusion out there.
I think this is a time of great opportunity for the entrepreneurial, rogue intellectual. Contact me off-line if you want my resume. Peace.
Posted by: Awesome | Feb 12, 2013 3:18:13 PM
curious2 --
I think someone else said it above, but the general consensus is that the real question is whether next year is just worse, or whether it's catastrophically worse. No one thinks it will be better, and I haven't heard anyone even say that it's going to be about the same. The big problem is that it's a perfect storm of schools not hiring, lots of holdover candidates unwilling to give up (rationally in many cases, because they don't have many other options after leaving practice to do a VAP/fellowship), and lots of professors at the shakier schools trying to lateral to safer places.
My alma mater is one of those schools with a pretty formal pre-academic advising program, and what they're essentially telling us is: (1) don't go on the market next year unless you are in the second year of a VAP/fellowship and have no other choice; (2) don't plan on the market improving -- at least not appreciably -- the following year; and (3) based on the first two, don't start a VAP/fellowship program next year unless you have a Plan B for if/when you strike out in fall 2014 (e.g., a PhD in a field that's hiring). They say that the best play now is to do something else for a few years, publish if you can, and then reassess in 2015 or so. And yes, it sucks because some people are old enough that they might miss their window completely -- but that's still better than being unemployed after a VAP/fellowship and a failed attempt on the market.
Posted by: Giving up | Feb 12, 2013 2:28:04 PM
I'll take "Emphatically, Yes" for $1000, curious2.
Posted by: apocolypse | Feb 12, 2013 2:21:43 PM
what a year indeed! i guess the question is - is it going to get worse before it gets better?
Posted by: curious2 | Feb 12, 2013 2:03:05 PM
That's a disturbing combination of information--the distribution of the bulletin with what is probably just a bunch of leftover ads from the fall (that's what they sounded like to me, anyway) and then simultaneous statement of cancelation. What a year.
Posted by: Awesome | Feb 12, 2013 1:11:20 PM
Yikes. That can't be good. Does it mean that there weren't enough applicants to warrant it or that there weren't enough schools still hiring to warrant it?
Posted by: sigh | Feb 12, 2013 1:08:44 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.