Welcome to the home page of the Careers in Law Teaching Program (CILTP). 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. 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.
Career in Law Teaching Discussion, Sept.10, 2008
Professors Christina Burnett and Jamal Greene offered insight and advice to those interested in pursuing a career in legal academia. The panel was open to all students and the focus was on the job market process. You may view this discussion at http://media.law.columbia.edu/aals/aalstalk080910.htm.
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 Prof. Carol Sanger, and we will try to set up a moot for you.
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 for the purpose of researching and writing a scholarly publication. This fellowship has been extremely useful to graduates transitioning from practice to the academy. Contact Professor Carol Sanger to apply.
Resources for Students and Alumni Considering a Career in Law Teaching
"Blazing a Trail to the Legal Academy" Panel Discussion at the AABANY Fall Conference
The "Blazing a Trail to the Legal Academy" panel at the Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY) Fall Conference is on Saturday, September 17th. The precise time for our panel is 10:45 am to 12:15 pm and the conference location is Skadden Arps, at 4 Times Square, NY, NY. Here are special weekend access instructions: Please note these important instructions for weekend entrance to the building: please use the 43rd St. side entrance (between B'way and 6th) as the 42nd St. entrance is closed on weekends.
There are three substantive goals for this panel: (1) to talk about the continuing challenges of being a minority in the legal academy; (2) to describe what our jobs are really like; and (3) to describe strategies and pathways into the legal academy with particular advice for minority candidates.
The panelists are:
Shane Dizon, Assistant Director of the Academic Success Program and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Hofstra University School of Law. A noted business immigration scholar, he was the Kauffman Foundation Legal Research Fellow at New York University School of Law for the 2010-2011 academic year, focusing on the intersection of immigration law and entrepreneurship. Professor Dizon is also co-author with Anna Marie Gallagher of Immigration Law Service 2d, a multi-volume immigration treatise published by Thomson West. His prior professional experience includes employment as an Associate at the New York office of Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen, & Loewy, LLP, as well as scholarship and invited presentations on business, family, and survey immigration topics. Outside the classroom, Professor Dizon has had teaching experience in a variety of settings: as a law school teaching assistant in immigration law, legal writing, and academic support; as a tutor, curriculum developer, and study aids author in the academic and test preparation industry; and as a CLE speaker. He also serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Business Law and Negotiation at Brooklyn College and on the Advisory Board of the Pro Bono Project’s Federal Legal Assistance and Self-Help Center for the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California’s San Jose Division. Shane obtained his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Yale University in 2000 and his J.D. degree, cum laude, from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in 2005. He is a member of the state bars of California and New York.
Anjum Gupta, Assistant Professor of Law, Seton Hall School of Law. She received her B.A. with high honors in psychology and women’s studies from the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor and her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was an Equal Justice America Fellow, Director of the Temporary Restraining Order Project Domestic Violence Clinic, Director of the Rebellious Lawyering Conference, and an editorial board member of the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism. She also worked at the ACLU Immigrant Rights Project and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Professor Gupta clerked for the Honorable Chester J. Straub of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Honorable Charles P. Sifton of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty, Professor Gupta served as Assistant Professor of Law and Director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law, where she supervised students representing immigrants seeking various forms of relief before the Department of Homeland Security, the immigration courts, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and the federal courts of appeals. She also served as a Clinical Teaching Fellow in the Center for Applied Legal Studies at Georgetown Law, where she supervised students representing asylum seekers. She began her law teaching career as a Clinical Fellow at the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall University School of Law, where she supervised students and represented clients in cases involving asylum, human trafficking, domestic violence, immigrant labor rights, and criminal immigration issues. She also authored an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court and traveled to Haiti as part of the Haiti Rule of Law Project. Professor Gupta’s scholarship focuses on immigration and refugee law, with a particular focus on gender-based claims for relief.
Adil Haque, Associate Professor of Law. He joined the faculty in the Fall of 2008 as an Assistant Professor of Law. His scholarship focuses on criminal law, international criminal law, and the law of armed conflict. Professor Haque received his J.D. in 2005 from Yale Law School, where he was executive editor of the Yale Journal of International Law and senior editor of the Yale Law Journal. From 2005 to 2006, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Jon O. Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. For two years prior to joining the faculty at Rutgers School of Law–Newark, Professor Haque was an associate in the New York office of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where he focused on white-collar criminal investigations and prisoners’ rights litigation.
Alanna Rutherford, Adjunct Professor at University of Connecticut School of Law and Partner, Boies, Schiller & Flexner. Her primary areas of practice are antitrust and complex civil litigation. She works for several of the Firm's major clients including American Express, Barclays Capital, E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., Goldman Sachs, and the New York Jets. Prior to arriving at the firm, Ms. Rutherford clerked for Judge Charles Wilson on the Eleventh Circuit. Ms. Rutherford attended Columbia University School of Law, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and senior editor of the Columbia Law Review, Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, and the Institute of Political Studies ("Sciences Po") in Paris, France.
Note that one does not have to be of Asian descent to attend the conference.
Arizona State University is hosting its third Aspiring Law Professors Conference for Fellows, Visiting Assistant Professors, Clerks, and other law professor hopefuls. The Conference is designed to help participants:
Learn to succeed in the entry-level law teaching market;
Obtain an insider’s perspective on the appointments process from faculty who’ve been there; and
Conduct a mock interview and/or mock job talk and gain feedback from law professors.
This year’s featured speaker is Eugene Volokh, the Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. In addition, the Conference will include panels of law professors who will explain the entry-level appointments process and provide their insider perspective, including remarks about the clinical hiring process from Ann Cammett, Co-Director of the Family Justice Clinic at the UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law (and former Georgetown Clinical Teaching, Women’s Law and Public Policy, and Skadden Fellow) and me. Conference attendees will also have an opportunity to conduct a mock interview and/or a mock job talk. Every attendee will receive individual feedback on her or his performance from a faculty member familiar with the entry-level appointments process.
Careers in Law Teaching Program Meetings & Spring Lunchtime Workshop Series
We have set up the weekly Spring semester workshops, one component of the Columbia Careers in Law Teaching Program. These are lunchtime workshops on a range of tailored topics that follow a larger overview session on becoming a law professor. The animating idea is that there are things a student can know and do while in law school and thereafter that will make success on the academic job market more likely. Students report that they appreciate these sessions very much. We also send out the schedule to New York area alum who have expressed an interest in teaching. If you would like to receive these notices or if you currently are on the list but would like to unsubscribe from it, please contact the Program Administrator, Mr. Gabriel Soto.
The weekly workshops are held each Wednesday in Room 940 JGH or 807 (the Introductory Session takes place in JGH 106). The audio recordings of these workshops are available by clicking on the highlighted link at the bottom of this page (CLICK HERE FOR AUDIO RECORDINGS - login required). You will need your active Columbia Law School LawNet username and password to access the recordings. If you experience problems accessing the recordings or if you currently do not have an active Columbia Law School LawNet username and password, please contact the Program Administrator, Mr. Gabriel Soto.
Additionally, Co-chairs Carol Sanger, Jamal Greene and Vince Blasi periodically hold meetings to discuss the AALS process among other topics related to job searches and tactics. For example, they held a meeting on July 14, 2009, for those who are submitting their materials for the first AALS FAR distribution in July, as there are often questions that come up and it sometimes helps to hear other people’s concerns. There was another meeting on September 14th to discuss specifically the upcoming FRC in November. The meetings are listed below and the audio recordings are included in the audio links. Workshops from previous years, including audio recordings, are now located to the left under "Past Workshops."
Spring 2012 schedule is:
Wednesday, January 18, 12:10: "Introductory Session" (Room: JGH 106) Speakers: Christina Duffy Burnett, Jamal Greene and Peter Strauss
The Introductory Session is intended to introduce Columbia students to the ins and outs, ups and downs, and whys and wherefores of an academic career. It is the first of a series of weekly lunch workshops held throughout the semester on the subject of academic careers. At this session, Professors Burnett, Greene and Strauss will provide an overview of the mechanics of going on the market as well as a discussion of what teaching is like, why we do it, and why you might want to consider it too. All students who are interested in teaching, or students who think they might be in the future, are encouraged to attend. There will be plenty of time for questions.
Wednesday, January 25, 12:10: Paths to Legal Academia: VAPs, Fellowships and Publishing! (Room JGH 940)
Speakers: Kathryn Judge, Michael Kavey, David Noll and Irene Ten Cate
Is practicing law necessary or helpful for entering legal academy, or for developing a research agenda? Is it possible to publish while practicing? How can fellowships and Visiting Assistant Professor programs help you transition into academia? Are there important differences among the different fellowship and VAP opportunities? Come learn about these things and more.
Wednesday, February 1, 12:10: From Public Interest Practice to Teaching (Room: JGH 940)
Speakers: Suzanne Goldberg and Olati Johnson
Learn from people who have made the transition from public interest law to law teaching for a discussion of questions such as these: How does practice differ from teaching? Why might one prefer to teach? What steps should one think about and begin to take to get ready to go on the teaching market while still in practice? How does one plan a scholarly agenda from the trenches of practice?
Wednesday, February 8, 12:10: Beyond Law School: Clerkships and Ph.D.'s (Room: JGH 940)
Speakers: Ariela Dubler, Bert Huang and Ed Morrison
Are clerkships the ticket to a teaching job? Can getting a PhD before, during, or after Law School help? Other graduate degrees? Come learn about these things and more.
Wednesday February 15, 12:10: Developing a Research Agenda (Room JGH 807)
Speakers: Vince Blasi and Elizabeth Emens
Long ago, law schools filled entry-level faculty positions based on credentials such as law school grades, journal experience, and other badges of accomplishment. Although formal credentials remain important, increasingly in recent years appointments committees have sought candidates with a scholarly track record that shows promise of blossoming into a full-scale set of research projects. If and when you try to obtain a law teaching job, you will be expected to have a "scholarly agenda," i.e., a set of themes or topics that connects your initial and future projects in a way that will, if all goes according to plan, establish you as a legal scholar with a distinctive voice and something to say. This session will focus on how you develop a scholarly agenda -- or at least how to think about having one -- before you have had a sustained opportunity to work as a legal scholar.
Wednesday February 22, 12:10: From Private Practice to Teaching (Room: JGH 940)
Speakers: Michael Gerrard, Jeffrey Gordon and Alex Raskolnikov
Learn from professors who have made the transition from private practice to law teaching for a discussion of questions such as these: How does practice differ from teaching? Why might one prefer to teach? What steps should one think about and begin to take to get ready to go on the teaching market while still in practice? How does one plan a scholarly agenda from the trenches of practice?
**Monday, February 27, 12:10: The Psychology of Being a Legal Academic (Room: JGH 646)
Speakers: Jody Kraus and Peter Strauss The point of this panel is to explore the tension between succeeding according to the external standards of the legal academy and preserving a secure sense of your own academic identity, especially at the beginning of a legal academic career. As you begin your career, you will be aware of the norms your students and colleagues will use in assessing your teaching and writing. But how do you preserve your own professional and personal values from capture by these external norms, important as they are? "Achievement" is not the measure of a successful and satisfying academic career; it would be a mistake to sacrifice your own sense of important questions, professional mission, and self-worth to the external norms and judgments of our profession. Doing so risks transforming a career of intellectual self-discovery into an empty, purely instrumental exercise. We hope to offer a healthy alternative that, sensitive to your need for external success, may help you maintain an internally independent sense of mission, scholarly values, and self-worth—a sense that, in our judgment, is in fact more likely to secure your success in the world's eyes as well as your own. We will also consider both how you can explore your academic self-conception through initial writing projects (such as notes or comments), and how you might handle the stresses and changes that experienced lawyers can face in moving from practice to the legal academy.
Wednesday, March 7, 12:10: Careers in Government and the Legal Academy: Can You Get There from Here? (Room JGH 807)
Speakers: Abbe Gluck, James Liebman and Matthew Waxman
Members of the panel will discuss their work in federal, state and local government and the prospects and process for moving from there to careers in the legal academy (and back).
SPRING BREAK: Wednesday, March 14, no workshop.
Wednesday, March 21, 12:10: Exploring Law Librarianship: An Alternative Academic Career (Room 940)
Speakers: Jody Armstrong, Kent McKeever and Alison Sherwin
Do you enjoy legal research, teaching students, and working with faculty? Come learn how law librarianship can be a fulfilling and challenging career. Law librarians who enter the profession come from a wide variety of law-related backgrounds. Join Columbia’s Law Library Director Kent McKeever, Associate Director Jody Armstrong (CLS ’83), and Reference Librarian/Lecturer Alison Sherwin in a discussion about what librarianship entails and its benefits as a career option.
Wednesday, March 28, 12:10: Teaching at Law Schools Other Than Full-time Faculty Positions (Room: JGH 807)
Speakers: Ellen Chapnick, Michelle Greenberg-Kobrin, Edward Greene and Susan Kraham
Want to teach at law school while practicing law? Don't want to write law review articles? Want to teach outside of the formal classroom? Then come hear from Columbia Law School faculty and staff who have taken creative paths to law school teaching.
Wednesday April 4, 12:10: Newbies Speak: What I Wished I Had Known or Thought Harder About Before I Went on the Market (Room JGH 940) Speakers: Elizabeth Sepper and Nicholas Stephanopoulos
Join a current CLS Fellow and an Associate-in-Law who have recently been through the teaching market for an informal discussion of steps aspiring professors should take while in law school, practice, or fellowships, such as: developing a research agenda, forming relationships with recommenders, developing contacts with schools, and mentally preparing for what can be an exhausting process.
Wednesday, April 11, 12:10: Getting into Clinical Law Teaching (Room: JGH 940)
Speakers: Alexandra Carter, Philip Genty, Barbara Schatz, Mary Zulack
The discussion will focus on the ways one might prepare for a career in clinical teaching and how this is similar to and different from other types of teaching careers. We will also talk about the various types of clinical teaching positions that are available.
Wednesday, April 18, 12:10: Teaching Abroad Or in the U.S. With a Foreign Law Degree (Room: JGH 940)
Speakers: Katharina Pistor, et.al.
The idea of this panel is to provide information about teaching in countries in which one may not have obtained a law degree or other qualifications. The first question is, whether this is possible at all, and if not, whether there are other opportunities in academics, such as research, Ph.D. programs, or visiting fellowships. The next question is what the qualifying standards are, and third, how to get access to information about any job postings.
