Posted by Orin Kerr:
The Changing Entry-Level Market for Law Prof Jobs:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_03_22-2009_03_28.shtml#1237831258
Over at [1]CoOp, Corey Yung has an analysis of new entry level hires
at law faculties, as collected so far by[2] Larry Solum. As Corey
notes, the really big switch based on the numbers so far is towards
more candidates with fellowships and Visiting Assistant Professor
gigs: Of the 95 new hires so far with bio info, 58 were fellows or
VAPs. That's a huge shift in just the last few years.
On the whole, I think this is a very good change. The culture of
most law schools makes tenure a very low hurdle, meaning that entry
level-hiring is hiring for an entire career unless the candidate
decides to go elsewhere. It makes sense for law schools to get as much
information as they can before making such hires: An extra year or two
of preparation provides more recommendations, more writing, and usualy
some teaching to help that decision be at least a little bit more
informed.
Plus, it's certainly rational for a candidate who can afford it to
do a VAP or fellowship. The one or two years of training often
provides a quantum leap in a candidate's marketability: You learn to
walk the walk and talk the talk. If a candidate's goal is to go to the
highest ranked or most prestigious school they can, it's very much
worth it: It's much easier to get noticed as an entry-level than as a
lateral. I don't like the fact that this favors wealthier candidates
who can afford to take a low-paying fellowship for two years, but so
it goes.
The one concern I have from a school's perspective is that I suspect
the new norm of the VAP/fellowship encourages more entry-level hiring
than is optimal. Schools often debate the right mix between
entry-level hiring and lateral hiring: entry level candidates are the
folks who have never had a tenure-track job, while lateral candidates
are usually tenured stand-outs from other (typically lower-ranked)
schools. My own view is that schools that can get away with it should
do as much lateral hiring as possible: The best way to build or
maintain a top faculty is to hire proven scholars with known records.
My sense is that the high numbers of VAP/fellowship entry-levels
encourages more entry-level hiring, however, because it leads to the
entry-level candidates being much more polished than the laterals.
This may seem odd at first: How can a newbie be more polished than an
old pro? The trick is that entry-level VAPs have been preparing their
jobtalks for 2 straight years. They are quite likely to provide a very
polished presentation after many moots and rounds of edits. The
substance may be lacking, but the style is likely to be strong.
In contrast, laterals candidates may be sitting at their office one
day, get a call, and then may be giving a job talk in a few weeks that
they have never given before or really thought through. It may be a
decade or more since they went on the market or worried about these
sorts of presentations. As a result, they'll tend to give much less
polished presentations than entry-levels with VAP experience. Given
the importance of polish and presentation to the hiring process -- not
a good thing, in my view, but my sense is that it's a reality of the
hiring process -- I fear that this will l lead to more entry-level
hiring than is optimal among the schools that have a clear choice. Of
course, this creates a market opportunity for the schools who
recognize that to pick up strong laterals, but it's easier to
recognize the market opportunity than to move a faculty to take
advantage of it.
References
1.
http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/03/early_returns_o_1.html"";
2.
http://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2009/03/2009-entry-level-hiring-report.html
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