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. You might begin from the bottom up. What papers have you written and/or do you plan to write? What common themes run through them? If you can't find any common themes, you may want to think about modifying your medium-term scholarly plans so as to present a more coherent package. No one will treat your scholarly agenda as set in stone. Law school hiring committees want to see that you have a sense of what it takes to succeed as a scholar.
Still unsure what a scholarly agenda looks like? Take a look at the samples at the bottom of this page.
