Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Another List of Fellowships for Aspiring Law Professors...

...which includes a helpful spreadsheet.

How Long After the "Meat Market" Before Teaching Candidates Can Expect to Hear From Schools?

A post on this subject two years ago is timely again.

Good luck to those interviewing at the 'meat market'!

There are a few paragraphs here about these interviews you might want to review.  It's clearly a tighter year than usual on the academic job market, though the situation is clearly better in academic law than in other fields.

Workshops in Which Students Enroll for Credit: Approaches

I presented two different papers at back-to-back law & philosophy workshops/seminars this week, at Columbia (run by Joseph Raz) and at Michigan (run by Scott Hershovitz and Don Herzog).  (I don't generally like to discuss the details of academic events on the blog, so suffice it to say that both sessions were very rewarding, and I was grateful for the opportunity to discuss my work with the faculty and students in attendance.)  In both cases, students were taking the workshop for credit, and in both cases the students discussed my paper with the instructor the prior week.  That seems to be fairly typical in these kinds of workshops, in which outside speakers present work on a particular topic or theme.   But at Columbia, after discussing the paper with the students the week before, Raz prepared a set of questions (about 4-5 pages) based on that discussion, which were then sent to me prior to my visit.   At Michigan, the students prepared short (3-4 page) "reaction" papers, which were also sent to me prior to the visit.  At Chicago, the students typically send the instructor(s) questions based on the speaker's paper, and then the instructor(s) help the students reformulate some of the questions for the session with the speaker.

Are there other approaches to involving students in the discussion and examination of papers by visiting speakers?  Do readers, faculty or students, have views about which approaches work best?  Signed comments will be strongly preferred, but only comments with at least a valid e-mail address stand any chance of being approved.

Do We Need More Law Schools?

Gary Rosin (South Texas College of Law) looks at the data.

Law School Hiring Thread...

...over at Prawfs.  I'm not sure whether these supply useful information, useless misinformation, or just increase anxiety--or maybe all three.  But in the hopes that it will be more of the first, I post a link.  Good luck to all job seekers.  And remember that chance plays a huge role in this process, and that you will almost never figure out what is going on in the "black box" of a hiring committee, so don't even waste time worrying about it.

Fellowships for Aspiring Law Professors--Updated List!

Here's the latest helpful list, courtesy of Blog Emperor Caron.

"Information and Advice for Persons Interested in Teaching Law"

This document is finally revised and updated and back on-line at Chicago.  In revising it, and as someone new to Chicago, I was particularly struck by the distinguished group of Chicago alumni who made contributions to legal scholarship over the last century (there is a full list of those currently teaching here).  Although the document is Chicago-centric, most of the advice should be of value to students and alumni elsewhere.

And remember to contact us if you want to learn about the next generation of Chicago academics!

"Aspiring Law Professors" Conference at Arizona State

I don't usually do conference announcements, as longtime readers know, but I'm speaking at this one and it's of course directly relevant to one of our main topics/audiences.   Interested readers should contact Professor Sylvester at ASU for details about the conference.  I'll be giving a faculty workshop the Friday afternoon prior on a scholarly topic for those who are around.

Hiring Chairs are Still Announcing Themselves...

...here.  Many also mention particular areas of interest, which is especially useful for job seekers.  Area-specific needs drive hiring at 90% or more of all law schools each year, so knowing area priorities is very useful information.