AALS on Entry Level Hiring

Update, 7/16/19: I have been directly in touch with AALS, and they were extremely willing to update the site. I am going to leave this post up, because I'm generally opposed to putting things down the memory hole, but I will close comments.

I have long hoped that the AALS would report on entry-level hiring. After all, they are the ones who collect all the information. They are well positioned to do true statistical analysis on the candidate pool and the successful candidates. (They used to do so but stopped for some reason and scrubbed the information from the website, though of course it's available through the Wayback Machine.)

So I was happy to see that they have created a new website, which will, they promise, "mak[e] the process of obtaining a teaching job as transparent as possible, and provid[e] as much information to potential candidates as we can."

Imagine my surprise when I clicked through to the website and found, not statistical analysis based on actual information to which they have direct access, but rather the data and graphs that I, Sarah Lawsky, have been posting on this blog for the past ten years. My work is acknowledged through a single asterisk, which leads to this text at the bottom of the page: These data, which are self-reported by recently hired law faculty or, in some cases, their schools, was collected by PrawfsBlawg and provided as a downloadable spreadsheet. PrawfsBlawg data include “information for tenure-track, clinical, or legal writing full-time entry level hires.” (There is a link to the spreadsheet through the words "downloadable spreadsheet," but there's no formatting to indicate it's a link.)

To be clear: I want people to use this data. That's why I make it downloadable. But it would be nice if AALS would name me, because PrawfsBlawg does not actually collect anything: it's a website. And it would be nice if they link to the website, as well as to the data. It would have been really nice if they had reached out first to talk to me about the data, using it, and perhaps even collaborating, but I guess I understand why they didn't(?).

I've sent an email to AALS, and I hope they make changes to their webpage. More importantly, I really, really hope that instead of just taking self-reported hiring information, they use their vast store of information and give us accurate information about the pool of potential hires, the success rates of various groups, and so forth. They are uniquely positioned to do so.