Welcome to the home page of the Program on Careers in Law Teaching. The Program provides current students and graduates of Columbia Law School with tools to explore the possibility of a career as a law professor, and support when they have decided to do so. The first couple of notices are for current candidates.
Sample Scholarly Agendas Now Available: As you may know (and as you will know if you read everything on this site), one key to landing an entry-level legal academic position is your "scholarly agenda," i.e., a methodology and set of linked problems that you plan to tackle as a scholar. The scholarly agenda is both an actual program that you can describe and a short document. Although most schools will not ask to see a written scholarly agenda, writing it up is a good way to organize your own thoughts. Click on the "Scholarly Agenda" link from the list on the left to see two sample scholarly agendas by CLS alums who recently completed successful academic job searches.
Preparing Your Job Talk! Now that you've been to the AALS Recruitment Conference, if things went well, you will have one or more job talks to prepare. We can help. First, check out this very astute advice from GW law professor Daniel Solove. Next, if you want to practice your job talk in front of real live law professors at Columbia, contact Ms. Mo Siedor, and we will try to set up a moot for you.
Recording of Panel on AALS Conference. On Thursday, October 11, three Columbia Law school graduates who were recently on the law professor job market talked about how they negotiated the AALS Faculty Recruitment Conference, call-backs, job talks, and interviews. Professors Sudha Setty, Thomas Healy, and Haider Hamoudi were joined by Professors Dorf and Sanger. If you missed the panel, you can listen to it via mp3 at this link.
On this site you will find resources for learning about how to write and publish legal scholarship, advice about the academic job market, announcements about our programs, and much more.
Services for current candidates include:
· Advice and Counseling
· AALS form & CV review
· Distribution of Columbia candidate CVs to appointments committees at all U.S. law schools
· Panels on Do's and Don'ts for the AALS Recruitment Conference (aka the "Meat Market"), featuring recent Columbia alumni currently in law teaching (available by streaming video for those who cannot attend in person)
· Hospitality Suite at the Meat Market
· Mock Job Talks
Services for prospective candidates include:
· Spring Semester Weekly Panels on Scholarship, Teaching and the Legal Academic Job Market
· One to six month fellowships, including a small stipend, for alumni to spend in residence while writing. Contact Professor Sanger or Professor Dorf to apply.
Resources for Students and Alumni Considering a Career in Law Teaching
Overview: Almost Everything You Need To Know About Law Teaching
Courses
Writing
Fellowships
Publishing
Job Search
Streaming Video of Panels on Law Teaching
Frequently Asked Questions
Links
Print Article bibliography