Useful NLJ Piece on This Year's Hiring Convention ("the meat market")

Here.  An excerpt:

Approximately 142 law schools registered to attend the AALS hiring conference—a 14 percent decline from the 166 that attended last year and a 21 percent decrease from the 179 schools that participated during pre-recession 2007. The schools that do attend won't necessarily hire—some use the conference to scout teaching talent for the future. (It's difficult to tell how many open teaching spots actually exist, as some schools advertise specific positions in an AALS-published bulletin but many do not.)

At the same time, the number of aspiring law professors has held fairly steady during the past five years. Thus far, 750 candidates registered for the AALS' faculty interviews, although that number does not include the final list of candidates, which will come out in February. The total number of registrants has fluctuated between 824 and 901 in recent years, according to the AALS.

Sad to say, my prediction during the summer has been borne out.  Dean Wu at Hastings is clearly correct that this year is a buyer's market, though, based on the candidates we are working with, there will still be candidates for whom the schools will be competing.  But it is definitely a great year to be able to hire new faculty.