Recent Links Concerning Job Talks

From PrawfsBlog:

More job talk thoughts

The guest post from my colleague Joelle Moreno with tips for giving a non-sucky job talk generated quite a bit of interesting discussion, both here and in some email exchanges within our faculty. Sitting here in the heart of callback season, I wanted to offer a few further observations, questions, clarifications, and additional suggestions.
First, the observation/question: Is unnecessary PowerPoint use in decline? Only two of our speakers have used PowerPoint--and of those, one had photos and proposed statutory text and the other had maps. Everyone else just got up and spoke (needless to say, it has been a pleasure). Are other people seeing the same thing? Has the word gotten out about the uselessness--indeed counter-productivity--of PowerPoint when all you are doing is showing text or bullet points of the talk? Has the word gotten out that reading PowerPoint slides does not make a talk more engaging?
Second, one of Joelle's tips was "Don't Be a Suck up." A good tip that dovetails with a related one: Don't name-drop, either people on the faculty or people in your area. Unfortunately, there is a ridiculously fine line between name-dropping and showing a grasp of the legal literature. And where you fall on that line may vary among faculty members; what is annoying name-dropping to one faculty member is "wow, she knows the literature and is comfortable talking about it" to another. All of which goes to show that applying tips in this process is not as easy as it sounds.
Third, an additional tip: You must be ready to talk not only about the precise (often narrow) subject of your paper, but also about broad concepts in your area. If you present a paper about the  estate tax, you better be able to answer questions about the tax code and tax law more broadly. "I haven't looked into that" or "I haven't thought about that" is not an acceptable answer if the question is about your field generally. Even if you haven't researched the specific question, you must be familiar enough with it that you can compose a reasonably thoughtful answer on the spot. Again, there are fine distinctions at work. If you are presenting a paper on the jurisdictionality of the ministerial exemption, you shouldn't necessarily have to answer a question about tax law. But anything closer to that is fair game. You must be prepared not only to talk about your paper, but to talk about the broad subject matter in which you are writing and in which you purport to have a scholarly interest.

Nailing the Job Talk: Tips for a Terrific Talk

1. Preparation is the Key

 As Prof. Enquist and co-authors put it so well:  “do investigation and discovery, do your research, create your theory of the case, and moot your presentation.”

2.  Discovery

   --Find out everything you can about each school’s interview process. 

The best way to learn this is by asking your contact on the Faculty Appointments Committee (maybe the chair of the Committee or a faculty member who seems enthusiastic about your candidacy—they invited you for a call back and they want you to succeed).

You need to know what is the school’s format for the job talk—length of presentation, the physical location of the room in which you will give your job talk, and, most important, what kind of technology and IT support does the law school offer.

Although I am not a power point person myself, I think a good power point can help you keep the attention of your audience (all of whom are very bright, but many of whom are easily bored and unfamiliar with your topic).

3. Topic Choice 

       --choose a topic that is interesting, but not overly controversial. Stay away from the culture wars, and especially avoid same-sex marriage, gay rights and abortion like the plague. Never forget that you are an exile in Babylon, seeking employment at Babylon School of Law. Consider who your audience is and remember that your goal as a job applicant is to win friends and get an offer, not to change minds nor win a debate.

       --choose a topic that you know inside out. The best topic may be a work-in-progress that is almost finished, but not yet published.

       --choose a topic that is accessible to your audience. Topics that are overly technical or obscure may make great law review articles, but they are not great for job talks because your goal is to get as many faculty members interested and excited about your topic as possible.

       --choose a topic that is theoretical and analytical, one where you have an interesting idea or theory that you are prepared to present and defend. And remember, you only have 20 minutes to explain and develop your theory, so keep it simple and cut to the chase right away. Stick to the big story, and leave the subplots for the published piece. Tell your audience from the get go what your theory is and why you think it works.  Shoot for a good but brief overview of your paper--you can develop a lot of the finer points in the Q & A session in response to questions or challenges.

4.  Moot Your Job Talk

      --as many times as possible and before as good an audience as possible.

      --Consider this good advice from Prof. Glynn: "This is not because you don’t know what you are talking about – if you don’t, practice won’t help. It is because, despite your knowledge, you need to be able to 1) communicate your ideas effectively in a short period of time and 2) answer questions from, and engage in give and take with others who may see your subject through entirely different lenses. The only way to ensure that you are doing these things is to practice. Your best option is to arrange a mock with a group of professors (your mentors or others). If you can’t, put together a panel of colleagues, and make sure they know to interrupt you with difficult, wide-ranging questions within about fifteen minutes and to critique you at the end."

      --Another bit of advice I have heard several professors share is to schedule your call-back interviews so that your top choices are later in the schedule. This enables you to get some real practice presenting your job talk in a real--not moot--context at some of your less-favored law schools. But remember, the job market is tough and your "last choice" school may turn out to be your best actual opportunity. So do your best, even at schools that are not high on your personal list.

5. Claim Your Turf

       --"We who are about to die, salute you." To know the Coliseum, is to live to fight another day.

      --You have arrived in Podunk, Nebraska for your interview. You had dinner last night with some faculty members who told you what a great law school dear old Schiz is and what a great and cosmopolitan town is Podunk, a wonderful place to raise a family yadda, yadda, yadda. 

      --Now it is the morning of your interview and someone picks you up and drives you to the law school. Make sure that your tour of the law school includes a tour of the room in which you will give your job talk. Check out the room carefully, figure out where you will be and where your audience will be. If time permits, ask your friendly tour guide to demonstrate the technology in the room. 


    --the idea here is to become as comfortable in the room before giving your talk as possible. Familiarity breeds confidence, not contempt, and you need as much confidence as you can muster.

6. Twenty Minutes To Strut Your Stuff

    --unless the particular law school has a different tradition, you should plan on limiting your presentation to about 20 minutes. You want to leave time for Q & A, because responding to questions from faculty members is the most important part of your job talk.

     Here is some good advice from Daniel Solove about the body of your talk:


     --"Don’t try to deal with every issue in the talk.  If there are some objections or responses to your thesis that you anticipate, let them come out in the discussion...  In many cases, it is better to let the faculty raise the objection and you respond to it than to try to weakly preemptively address it in the talk. Remember, you don’t need to do everything in the initial 20 minutes.  The talk should just set up the discussion."

    --"Have an idea.  Many job talks don’t really have much of an idea.  Or they have an idea, but it is so muddled or unclear that people have a hard time figuring out what it is.  At the end of your 20 minutes of setting forth your idea, everybody in the room should be able to know what your thesis is."

   --"Choose a topic where you know the law and issues inside and out.  You want the job talk to be on your turf.  You’re leading the discussion.  Although the topic should be accessible to all, you must know what you’re talking about.  Many a candidate has faltered by not knowing a key case or a key article in a field."

   --"The bottom line according to Solove is this: "At the end of the job talk, the faculty should walk out of the room thinking: (1) I had a great hour; this was fascinating stuff to think about; (2) the candidate had an interesting idea; (3) the candidate could speak in a clear and articulate manner that was engaging; (4) the candidate was respectful of the questioners; (5) the candidate was able to respond intelligently and thoughtfully to the comments and questions; (6) this candidate is the kind of person that I’d like to talk with more and that I’d like to have commenting on my scholarship."

7. Q & A

Almost everyone agrees that the Q & A session, which could last anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes, is the most important part of your job talk. It is here that offers are often won or lost. The following are some tips:

    --listen carefully to the question (if you don't understand it, re-phrase it and ask the questioner if that captures his or her points)

    --take your time to think about your response. Just like a pitcher on the mound at a crucial point in a baseball game, pause, breathe, slow the game down and take control of the situation)

     --never, ever, evade the question or dismiss it flippantly. Don't be defensive and don't lose your cool. The job of a professor is to take ideas seriously, his own and those he disagrees with.  Even stupid questions (and you will get stupid questions, because law profs like to talk even when they don't know what they are talking about) should be treated with respect and given a thoughtful and respectful reply.

     --if you are in charge of "calling on" questioners, make sure you include everyone, especially women and minority professors.

     --your answers should be thoughtful but brief. Leave time to field many questions.

     --if there are some obvious challenges to your thesis, anticipate them and have a thoughtful answer prepared. But it should not look like you are reading it off a teleprompter. Prepared spontaneity always wins friends and influences people!

     --as one commentator on a law prof blog put it, acknowledge the weaknesses in your argument and "give a thoughtful response."

     --here is some great advice about Q & A from Daniel Solove (link):

As I said above, the Q&A is generally the most important part of the job talk. Some candidates spend too long on the lecture part, leaving an insufficient amount of time for the Q&A. Bad idea. It is how you respond to the Q&A that the faculty wants to see. The tougher the questions, the better. You should want the faculty to bring it on. If the discussion is energized and lively, then you’re probably doing a good job.Some candidates grow very hostile and defensive when they are challenged. That’s a big no-no. It shows a lack of confidence, a lack of courtesy, and it is a big turn-off for a discussion. Respond to the questions. Welcome them. Engage with the challenge. Try to enjoy it — after all, this is what you’ll be doing for a living. Don’t think of it as a session where the faculty is out to get you. What they want is to see you think on your feet. They want you to succeed, not fail. And answer the questions. Far too often, candidates just dodge the question and never really answer them.
If a question goes into territory outside the four corners of your paper, it is best to attempt to answer that question rather than state that it is beyond the scope of your project. If the question is very tangential and goes into an area where your knowledge is weak, then you might try to deflect it. But otherwise, engage with the question. For example, suppose a question challenges a fundamental assumption in your paper that you take as a given. You might be tempted to say that the paper isn’t really a defense of that assumption; rather, it is an argument based on the consequences of taking the assumption as given. But that might not appease faculty members who want to see how well you understand the arguments relating to that underlying assumption. So engage with them and show that you’ve at least thought about the assumption even though you don’t address it in your project. Candidates are often afraid to answer such questions because if the assumption is proven wrong, their entire paper might fall like a house of cards. But ignoring such questions makes you look as though you haven’t really thought your project all the way through. So explain why you made the assumption you did. Even if you don’t have time to fully justify it, demonstrate that you’re aware of the arguments supporting and undermining the assumption.

8. Mock Teaching
     --Beware that some law schools may ask you to conduct a mock law class rather than (or in addition to) the job talk.

9. Have Fun

    --Embrace the world of ideas. Demonstrate your passion for law and scholarship and living in a very special world, the world of ideas and intellectual discourse. If the faculty you are interviewing senses this joie de vivre of yours for their world, how can they not want to hire you as a colleague.

Nailing the Job Talk: Must Reads

If you only have time to read one article on Job Talks, this is the one to read:

1. Enquist et.al., From Both Sides Now: The Job Talk's Role in Matching Candidates With Law Schools (free download at SSRN).

The following are also worth reading:

1. Orin Kerr,  Getting a Teaching Job: The Job Talk (link)
2. Daniel Solove, Law Teaching Interview Advice: How To Ace The Job Talk (link)
3. Daniel Solove, More Job Talk Advice (link)
4. Timothy Glenn, Law Teaching Interview Advice I (link)
5. Timothy Glenn, Law Teahing Interview Advice II (link)
6. Columbia Law School Program on Careers in Law Teaching (link)
7. Stanford Law School, How To Get A Job Teaching Law (link)
8. Cornell Law School,, Careers in Law School Teaching Handbook (link)
9. Christine Hurt, Job Talking (link)
10. Brian Leiter, Advice on "Fly Back" Interviews at Law Schools (link)
11. The IHS Guide to Careers in Lagal Academia (link)
12. Jeff Lipshaw, Job Talks (link)
13. AALS Advice (link)
14. Prof. Levinson Demystifies the Path to Legal Academia (link)
15. Brad Wendel, The Big Rock Candy Mountain: How To Get A Job in Law Teaching (link)
16. Chin & Morgan, Breaking Into The Legal Academy, 1 Mich. J. Race & L. 551 (1996) (no link available)
17.  Here is a link to many other links.

Some Links For Prospective Law Profs

Here is some information that should be helpful to Blackstone Fellows interested in academic law  jobs:

First, this is a relatively old list of VAP positions, but it is probably still pretty accurate. And, it has some articles that might be interesting:  http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2007/12/teaching-fellow.html

Second, this is a little more up to date and has some really helpful thoughts from a broad range of people:  http://legalscholarshipblog.com/law-teaching-resources/

Here is more good advice from Eric Goldman.

Is There Life Beyond Con Law?

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive your inheritance as your reward. Col. 3:23-24

Yes, there is life in academia beyond Con Law.

You can glorify God mopping floors, you can certainly glorify Him teaching Professional Ethics, Property, or Corporations!

Here are a few suggestions that I think are particularly useful:

I. Christians need to fly under the radar a bit in the secular progressive world of legal academia


-- Never forget that you are an exile in Babylon, seeking employment at Babylon School of Law. Consider who your audience is and remember that your goal as a job applicant is to win friends and get an offer, not to change minds nor win a debate. 

Quick Quiz: This is based on a true story about a young, Christian friend of mine trying to break into law teaching as a Con Law Prof. He was asked at a call back interview to name a Supreme Court Justice he admired. And he replied enthusiastically, "Justice Thomas." Good choice, true or false? Did he get an offer, yes or no? What am I telling you about myself when I say my favorite Justice is Clarence Thomas?

What do you think I told him to answer next time such a question was thrown at him? 

(Holmes is always a safe choice, and he had one of the best explanations of adverse possession ever spoken: "The true explanation of title by prescription seems to me to be that man, like a tree in the cleft of a rock, gradually shapes his roots to his surroundings, and when the roots have grown to a certain size, cannot be displaced without cutting at his life.")  Imagine if my friend had said Holmes and shared this quotation, rather than Thomas.



--Alan Dershowitz of Harvard once said that an out-of-the-closet evangelical Christian could not get an offer to teach at Harvard Law School. A lot of this has to do with the gay agenda--the CLS was driven from Hastings because of its views on unrepentant homosexuality, not because it excluded non-Christians from leadership

--it is hard to stay under the radar if you are teaching and writing about Equal Protection and the Right to Privacy; it is easy to stay under the radar if your subjects are Corporations or Torts or Secured Transactions under UCC Article 9.

II. Think about expressing your interest in teaching First Year courses and other basic law school offerings, such as Corporations, Professional Ethics, Article 9, and Bankruptcy.

--my original package was Property, Corporations, and Creditors' Rights. Although I have moved out of Corporations and Creditors' Rights, I still teach Property and it is a wonderful opportunity to teach lots of Con Law subjects such as religious land use (RLUIPA), Equal Protection (racially restrictive covenants and exclusionary zoning), and Takings. If you are a Christian Libertarian, as I am, what better course to teach than one that stresses the importance of property rights to ensuring that we are a nation of free men and free women.

--who better to teach ethics than one who believes in God's law.

--as in my case, once you have established yourself on the faculty you can express your interest in teaching Con Law if an opening should arise. Pay your dues first by teaching what needs to be taught, and then move on and let someone else pay her dues.

--sometimes, if you agree to teach 2 or 3 basic courses, the Dean will be happy to allow you to teach one course of your choice--and even if Con Law is not open, maybe a specialty course such as Religion and the Constitution would fit in the curriculum.

--Frankly, it may even be better to avoid teaching about abortion and same-sex marriage until you have been granted tenure. Christians sometimes need to fly under the radar in the secular, "progressive" legal academy.

III. Here is some good advice from others:

--From Orin Kerr:

What to do?   Well, it's hard to come up with a one-size-fits-all solution to this, but here's one answer that might work for some people.   Long before you go on the teaching market -- at least a year, better two or three or four -- take a look at the law school curriciulum at a  typical school and pick one first-year course and one vaguely-related upper-level course that you think would together be an interesting set of topics to teach and write about.  For example, you might pick contracts and corporations; or maybe torts and law & economics;  or property and legal history; criminal law and criminal procedure; con law and federal courts; civil procedure and professional responsibility, etc.    Start reading up on these two subjects, going over your notes and casebooks on them from law school, and pick one or two topics in those areas to write about.   By the time you go on the market, you'll have a specialty area and you'll more easily fall into a slot.

--From Mike Madison:

In your list of courses you’re willing to teach, don’t be so broad that you sound desperate; don’t be so narrow that you exclude yourself from all but a tiny handful of schools; don’t list a specialized seminar as your first choice; include at least one first-year course, preferably *not* Constitutional Law, unless that’s your core competence. Everybody wants to teach Constitutional Law, including a lot of my colleagues. I want to talk to the person who’s willing to get excited about teaching Torts, or Civil Procedure. Your group of “first choice” courses either should have some coherence to it or should be backed up by your record, and preferably both: Criminal Law and Professional Responsibility is coherent; Criminal Law and Commercial Paper sounds strange (at least to me), but maybe your background backs it up.

--From Peter Henning:

As an aside on the issue of specialization, I agree with many others that it's important to put down courses in which you have expertise and are willing to teach that fit in at least in part with the core courses every law school offers. It is usually the case that Deans & Associate Deans need people to teach first year courses, at least occasionally, so pitching one of those is never a bad idea. Given that we have at least 8 Con Law teachers on our faculty, there's a tendency here to see a desire to teach that (coupled with the usual interest in First Amendment, Jurisprudence, and International Human Rights) as a negative.

--From Ben Barros:

I've now seen the hiring process from both sides over the past two years. Here are a few thoughts:
(1) The "top line" on the AALS form (your top three teaching choices) is very important. The truth is that most schools are hiring to fill a specific need. If the school wants to hire, say, a property person, that school will choose to interview someone who has property in their first three choices over someone who has listed property as something they would be willing to teach if asked. My top two slots were property (what I write about) and corporations (I worked at a big firm). All of my interview schools were looking for either property or corporations. And, surprise, I now teach property AND corporations.

Look hard at your experience and think about how you can best market yourself. I've been stunned at the number of big firm associates who go on the market wanting to teach con law. How about corporations, contracts, secured transactions, sec regs, bankruptcy, UCC etc.? Sure, everyone really wants to teach con law. But this is a _really_ good job. People who really want to be law professors have a better chance of getting a job than people who only want to teach con law.

--from Tim Zinnecker

A personal comment based on what I've seen in the market over recent years: a candidate that has an interest in teaching (and has written in the area of) commercial law should be attractive, particularly if the interest extends to two or more of the following: secured transactions, payment systems, consumer bankruptcy, business bankruptcy, electronic commerce.

 --From Frank Snyder:

First, Professional Responsibility is a hot area because most law profs find it a god-awful course to teach. The rules are either so obvious you feel stupid talking about them ("don't lie, don't steal") or so technical that the students' eyes glaze over. There are some who love it, though, and if you do, it's a great addition to your package.
Second, the idea of the "package." You need to appear to be someone who has a definite niche, although you also want to make it clear you're a team player who'll do whatever the administration wants you to. Certain courses seem to run together, although they can be fitted together in different ways. A friend of mine who went on the market to teach family law had prepared herself by developing interests in property and estate taxation (both obviously related fields), which made her a powerful candidate, even though there's not usually a lot of demand for family law people. Another, who wanted to do employment law (where demand is usually weak) developed interests in tort and administrative law, both of which fit nicely with employment discrimination and greatly broadened her appeal. So try to think about what fits with the area you're interested in. You don't actually have to demonstrate expertise in these other areas if you can articulate the reason why you think they're important to your work and your commitment to master them.
Third, once you're on a faculty, and particularly once you're tenured, at many schools you'll get first dibs if a course you're interested in opens up. Where you start doesn't necessarily mean where you'll finish. (Although I'm a contracts/corporations guy, I've also taught Professional Responsibility, Family Law, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and Legal Research & Writing.) Nevertheless, if you think a field is "god-awful," don't even attempt to compete in it. There are people who really do think that, say, contracts and corporations are far more interesting than Justice O'Conner's views on affirmative action, and it's hard to fake enthusiasm.
Fourth, think seriously about the things you list at the top of the FAR form. I've never understood it, because I always assumed I'd teach whatever people wanted me to teach, but I've been at three law schools and at all three the particular courses noted were extremely important with respect to whether or not a candidate even got a screening interview. So of the top six "wish list" selections on your FAR form, I'd advise you to make sure five of them are bread-and-butter courses that schools regularly offer.

--From a law prof at UT:

I would second Orin's basic point about the importance of specialization. I've advised UT alumni on the teaching market for about 8 years now, and while there are always two dozen or so schools each year who seem to be looking for "the best athlete," without regard to specialization, the vast majority have very particular curricular needs that drive the process (though in some cases, these schools are content to get a "best athlete" who can teach the needed course, even if it is not a primary area of research interest). However, as Orin also notes, what those needs are change year to year. Still, my impression from the last half-dozen-or-so years is that the following areas have pretty steady demand: corporate law, securities regulation, tax, intellectual property, wills & estates. Note, though, that in each case, the candidates that fare the best are the ones with *real* qualifications in these areas, not those who throw it on the list of things they might teach. This is particularly the case, it strikes me, in IP, where far more candidates claim competence than have it.

--from an anonymous law prof:

Based on my observations, I think that "Property/T&E" is a package that a lot of schools look for. If you're thinking about property, and can credibly call yourself a T&E person too, that makes an attractive FAR form.

Here are some good links on course selection:

1. Orin Kerr, Getting a Teaching Job: The Role of Specialization (link)

2. Mike Madison's Advice (link)

Some Advice About Job Talks

From Eric Goldman:

• Practice your job talk before friendly law professors before doing it live.  This was very helpful to me.
• If you do get interviews after AALS, think VERY carefully about their sequencing.  You will likely improve your interviewing and job talk skills after doing it a few times, so you may not want to schedule your top choices in the early part of the process.  Timing is also important; being the last candidate interviewed on-campus can be a favorable position.
• Have your job talk generally well-thought-out before your first screening interview.  You’re likely to be asked about the talk in some detail at screening interviews.
• Get a set of law professors as consultants.  Multiple professors are better, because each professor has their own perspective on the world.  They can help you understand the sometimes perplexing experiences you’re having and, in some cases, run interference for you when you need a neutral source of information.
• Be flexible about your willingness to teach courses that aren’t popular to teach.  Professional responsibility is an obvious choice.
• There is a huge element of luck involved in getting a position through AALS.  Don’t let your self-worth be influenced (down or up) by the vagaries of the process.  Any failures—or successes—you experience are not likely to be based solely on the “merits.”

From Timothy Glenn:

 Do One or More Mock Job Talks Before Your First Real Job Talk. This is not because you don’t know what you are talking about – if you don’t, practice won’t help. It is because, despite your knowledge, you need to be able to 1) communicate your ideas effectively in a short period of time and 2) answer questions from, and engage in give and take with others who may see your subject through entirely different lenses. The only way to ensure that you are doing these things is to practice. Your best option is to arrange a mock with a group of professors (your mentors or others). If you can’t, put together a panel of colleagues, and make sure they know to interrupt you with difficult, wide-ranging questions within about fifteen minutes and to critique you at the end. BTW, now is the time to set this up if you have not done so already.


 Do Get to the Point Quickly. When discussing your scholarship in an interview or while giving your job talk, remember that you will have less time than you want. While background is important, getting out your main point – your new conceptual framework, finding, approach, normative takeaway, etc. – is essential. How you do this will depend on the circumstances, but consider moving right to your conclusion after describing the problem or inquiry, and then developing the details thereafter.

Do Answer Questions (and Answer the Questions Asked). Answering questions will consume most of your interview time and probably most of your job talk. You will get questions you have a hard time answering because you don’t understand them, you have never considered them before, they are completely out of left field, or there is no answer. There are some questions you ought to understand and be able to answer. For all others, if you don’t have the answer, that is okay. First, it is perfectly acceptable to ask for a clarification (in different ways at different times). It is also acceptable to respond that you don’t know the answer. But don’t be defensive about it – and complimenting the asker about the acuity of her insight isn’t a bad idea (okay, this is sucking up, but . . . .). And where appropriate, take this opportunity to talk about the question and what you do know, e.g., why you chose not to explore that particular aspect of the problem, how you might approach finding the answer, your plans to explore related matters in later scholarship, or why an answer might be difficult to find. What is unacceptable is not answering the question by, for example, obfuscating or answering instead the question you wish had been asked.

From Daniel Solove: "Law Teaching Interview Advice: How to Ace the Job Talk"

From Brian Leiter:

Advice on Job Talks

Daniel Solove (George Washington) makes a number of sensible points.  One thing he doesn't mention, which is crucial, is to find out in advance of the job talk what the format will be!  It's true that the normal format is 20-30 minutes of presentation, followed by 30-40 minutes of discussion.  But confirm that with each school!  Also, find out whether you should circulate a paper in advance, whether it is reasonable to expect the audience to have read a pre-circulated paper, whether the school is equipped with whatever AV needs you have for your presentation, and so on. 

From Legal Writing Prof blog:

Advice for Your Job Talk

It's hiring season at U.S. law schools.  Candidates are now visiting campuses to present job talks.  Many candidates would like some straightforward advice on how to give a job talk.  That advice is now available, thanks to an article by Anne Enquist, Paula Lustbader, and John Mitchell (all of the Seattle University School of Law).  The article is called From Both Sides Now: The Job Talk’s Role in Matching Candidates with Law Schools, and you can download a copy for free by clicking here.  Here's the abstract:

In the heavily competitive law school teaching job market, the so-called “job talk” has assumed increasing importance in the ultimate hiring decision. Nevertheless, there is little published information to assist a law school faculty in structuring or evaluating the job talk and a similar paucity of information for candidates to guide them in creating and preparing for the presentation of their talk. This article is intended to fill that void. The article guides the preparation of faculty and candidates for both the job talk itself and for the crucial Q&A period that follows the talk. The article represents the authors’ collective 87 years of experience seeing both successful and unsuccessful job talks, as well as the experience of 15 colleagues around the country who reviewed our initial draft and commented on it from the perspective of their various law schools.

The article has helped a good number of candidates already and will likely be a popular article for years to come.