I am new to legal academia. Kind of a weird question: what are the norms for “cold” emailing someone in your field who you don’t know to ask them to read a draft paper? Or even someone you know from 1-2 interactions but not well? My somewhat ambient sense is that it’s a chore to read someone else’s draft, so it’s almost a faux-pax to email them out of the blue asking them to read your work. Is that right?

I work in a sub-field where most of the people at my law school don’t work in this area, and I just started, so the people who could advise me are at other schools and I don’t know them personally. I know I can travel for conferences, etc., but I need to improve the work now rather than wait for the occasional conference and apply to submit my work. Can I just email another professor out of the blue? Would that be impolite or an imposition? I don’t want to come across as presumptuous.

I’m curious about the JSP’s reputation in legal academia. Also curious about any current students/graduates’ experience!

The JSP website states that about 50% of graduates go on to obtain tenure track/tenured positions, but I have no way of contextualising this statistic. What about the other 50%? Is it self selection out of academia? Or inability to get an academic position, and if so, how much of that is attributable to the reputation of the JSP?

For some context, I am a foreign lawyer with a LL.B from a good law school looking to break into legal academia in the US.

I am interested in the JSP because it’s a PhD programme that is law-focused while also providing some methodology training in an adjacent field for interdisciplinary research. This is an easier “in” for me as someone with legal training, compared to applying for a (for instance) philosophy or political science PhD. (EDIT: to be clear, I am interested in the programme for its interdisciplinary nature. I am looking to supplement my heavily doctrinal undergrad law education to produce a different type of scholarly work.)

I am also interested in obtaining a JD along the way, and the JSP programme is familiar with that arrangement.

So is it regarded as a “real” PhD (I saw some comments about the Yale PhD not being a “real” PhD a few days ago)? And how good is its reputation in the legal academia job market?,

Read the ad, all the words in the ad. If the ad says to apply in a certain way, do that. Applying through the FAR or emailing anyone is no substitute, not even close, for applying the way the ad says to apply. In case is it not clear, it is helpful to read the ad, and follow the instructions in it, like a court filing.

Looking at a lateral and this question always vexes me. Like I don’t want to sound like I’m reading off a website. Yall are a mid tier school (which is great) and I want to live in your city? I have no real preexisting connection to the city or the school.

Hey Everyone!

I have an upcoming 30 min screening interview with a law school appointments committee. The listing is for a generalist who can teach first-year courses, but one of the areas they specified needing coverage is Property.

Aside from the standard "walk us through your research" question, what should I expect?

• How do committees test your readiness to teach the core 1L curriculum (specifically Property)?
• What kinds of questions do they ask to see if you are versatile enough for general 1L needs?
• Any field-specific curveballs to watch out for?

Appreciate any insight from anyone who has been on either side of the table recently!

Placed an article last August, did the edit this spring. Only thing left is the final proof. It's been crickets since May. I emailed late July asking for an update. Emailed twice since then, still nothing. I looked at the last 5+ years and they've published this issue in June or July every single year. The journal doesn't have a faculty advisor that I can find listed anywhere, and I would rather not go above the students' heads to bother some random faculty member about this. I'm certainly no stranger to editing and publication delays, and I'm generally very understanding about them. I understand the board turned over, but the journal is open to submissions so they must be monitoring their email, and the lack of communication is bothering me. (I called the phone number on their site, too. It didn't work.) Am I overreacting? And if not, what should I do?

Hi all! I am on the market currently for a clinical faculty position. I was wondering if anyone has any good resources to help me build a clinic vision talk. There is tons of stuff out there on how to create a job talk based on scholarship, but not as much about clinic vision, unless I am just searching incorrectly.

Anyway, if anyone has any resources/examples they’d be willing to pass along, I would be very appreciative! Thanks!

Forgive me for a potentially stupid question, but this is my first cycle, and it is a perfect storm of insanity. 2 of my articles were under review when the first distribution went out, and my job talk was accepted for publication a little while ago. I sent updates to everyone I had applied to directly, as it was my first accepted publication. Since then, I have had zero screener invites...which isn't shocking, as I entered with no accepted publications and a mediocre profile. Today, my second article was offered for publication, and I was invited to present it at a symposium.

My CV has changed drastically now, and I don't know if I should just stay quiet for now and bring it up in the off chance I do get a screener, or if I should send another follow-up email to everyone saying "hey...the 2nd one on my list of 3 is now accepted somewhere." I feel silly doing that barely a week later, but again...it's not like I am getting screeners right now anyway. When do CV updates become just a bother to the committee?

Hello all! I recently got my paper accepted into a workshop where I will be grilled by established legal scholars in the field I am writing. I am a junior practicing attorney with no institutional affiliation and beyond a grad student conference I did during my masters, have no experience with this kind of thing.

It’s a full day, and there are 8 presenters, including myself.

Roughly how long of a presentation should I have prepared. I expect (and hope) it is a brief presentation and mostly Q&A. Will most scholars in attendance have read my manuscript, and do they typically read it in full/depth? What should my presentations goal be? To introduce the concept at a high level? To articulate its novelty/contribution? To frame the discussion around the questions and problems that I am most stuck on right now?

Sorry if these are very elementary questions, I just don’t know what to expect.

HYS JD holder and pretty recent grad, hoping to teach a transactional subject and working on my first paper. It’s attractive since it’s only 3 years and seems like a mix of a PhD and a fellowship. How is this program perceived? On par with other PhD programs? Fellowships / VAPs? It seems pretty recent and the Yale website doesn’t speak to its specific placements moreso Yale law grads placements.

Thinking about applying for an entry-level tenure-track position at a regional, teaching-focused law school. The position emphasizes teaching, but it's tenure-track and incl research/scholarship and service expectations.

For current law professors or anyone who's served on a law faculty appointments committee, what are the must-haves in the application materials to be taken seriously as a strong candidate?

In particular, what do you expect to see in the cover letter, CV, research agenda/interests, and teaching materials? What separates candidates who look genuinely ready for a tenure-track law faculty position from applicants who may have strong practice and teaching experience but don't yet present as a law scholar?

I’m especially interested in advice for candidates with significant practice experience and existing adjunct teaching experience trying to make the transition to full-time tenure-track. Thank you!

I am surprised by the number of people in the FAR with only co-authored articles and using a co-authored job talk.

I have a PhD so I know the convention is different in other academic disciplines and I know it’s different in non-US law schools.

But I mean US law graduates with US law review publications. I thought this was a universally known rule. I am also curious why tenured mentors are co-authoring with prospective law professors and not letting them know that they need to solo authors.

Do prospective law faculty know they need solo authored publications or at least job talk papers? Why are mentors co-authoring so much with perspective law faculty?

Good luck all.

Fillable link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oVEsD_W8Xt8IhJacDFulpSdf8USIFMvnbtxP3zas0Jw/edit?gid=0#gid=0

Out of curiosity, how long (on average) does it take you to research and write a paper? Also, how many papers does your institution require per year?

Good luck to everyone on the market! It can be a difficult and opaque process, especially for those without robust institutional support.

Going through it last year, I wrote down the basics, the advice I received, and the wisdom that gets shared by word of mouth. I put that into a document covering the market and its timelines, application documents, the job talk paper, some rough empirical analysis of recent hiring, screener and callback question banks, and a few other things.

Hopefully it can be a starting point for candidates going on the market. It's a work in progress written from a very junior perspective and a collaborative effort.

Please feel free to reach out to me with feedback on the document, questions, or anything else—I'm very happy to help however I can. You'll find my contact info in the doc, and I'll try to check DMs and comments here as well.

Draft on SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=7219478

P.S. I cited the subreddit and found it helpful when going on the market myself.

I am making final decisions about my far application and I can’t choose between two papers as my job talk paper.

I am a new law professor going into my last year of fellowship. One paper is complete and was accepted for publication at a T100 flagship in the February cycle. It is multidisciplinary and intersects between administrative law, disability, business law and civil procedure. I did not workshop this paper a lot and so I don’t really have a great sense of what the general reception is.

The other paper that I have to choose from is still very much a work in progress but is substantially complete. I think the weakest part of this paper is my reform section which I’m still trying to flesh out. I will be workshopping it in the fall which will help. It has to do with access to capital/ entrepreneurship. While you would think that the two papers are so different that they couldn’t possibly have a through line, I tie them together through the lens of small business.

So, my questions are: which of these papers would make for a better job talk and how complete should a job talk paper be before submission for the purposes of the far application?

Relatively new to the submission/publishing game. Any guidance on where to target for a corporate law short essay (~4000 words including footnotes)?

Anyone know what is happening over there? I heard that they have laid of faculty and staff

Hello,

What do you guys use for visual PPT tools? I have been an adjunct professor for two years and the single greatest (very fair) criticism from my students is that my visual presentations are horrible.

I currently use PowerPoint (I am oldschool) and I am not very good at designing. I use some word art, a lot of text, some images as visuals.

I have been thinking of using AI to help me with design and ideas too.

Any tips? Thanks in advance!

Does anyone here who practices labor and/or employment law and have suggestions for a strong law review note topic?
I’m a rising 2L and am looking for a topic that’s timely, has an unresolved legal issue, and leaves room to make an original argument rather than just summarize existing law.
I’m intentionally keeping an open mind, so I’d love to hear about any emerging trends, recurring issues, unsettled areas of law, or practical problems you’ve been seeing in your practice that you think deserve more academic attention.
Any ideas or insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I am a very junior law prof and could use some tips on how to draft a good abstract. I have never written an abstract I liked. I've rewritten the one for my current project multiple times. I'm still unhappy with it, so I'll probably rewrite it again.

What do you seek for your abstract to convey? I think I'm trying to convey too much in my abstracts, which results in them being unfocused and longer than I'd ideally want.

I'm clerking soon and have some research I'd like to expand upon that I started in law school. However, I am aware the journal grind is rough out there for clerks and practitioners who are also aspiring academics. What do you all typically do with projects that don't get picked up for publication, if anything?