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AALS Faculty Recruitment Services
The following article about the FAR and the FRC was published in the Journal
of Legal Education in 1988, but much of the advice is still pertinent.
Some information has been updated with notes in brackets. The article has
been separated into eight parts for the website.
AALS Faculty Recruitment Conference
For those yearning to be a law professor, who would
gladly trade clients and collectibles for students and scholarship, the main
"hiring hall" is the Association of American Law Schools' (AALS) annual fall
Faculty Recruitment Conference. The "Meatmarket," as it is ingloriously known,
can be an opaque, exhausting, and sometimes disappointing experience, both
for candidates and for recruiters.
Several of us who have been recruiters-ranging from
a rank neophyte of one conference to a veteran of a dozen-thought we might
break through the seeming but unintentional "conspiracy of silence" surrounding
this bizarre tribal ritual. Our article, then, is an attempt at "full disclosure"
for the newcomer who wants to break into legal education. All standard
disclaimers apply. We all have idiosyncratic perspectives. All schools may
not look for the same things. In our experience, however, there are common,
predictable patterns.
As we exchanged ideas, experiences, and endless redrafts
of this article, two themes emerged. This first is how poorly some very
well-credentialed candidates handle the hiring process. The second is how
little guidance is available on what is expected of candidates. Naturally,
we suspect that a postconference gathering of candidates would also agree
on how poorly most faculty recruiters interviewed and how little sense many
faculty members had of what they should be doing. We cannot write that article.
But we can write the first.
Contents:
- Introduction
- Thinking Seriously About a Teaching Career
- The AALS Hiring Process
- The AALS Resume
- The Interview Selections
- The Interviews
- Support Services at the Conference
- Preparations for a Visit to Campus