Assistant Director of the Center for Transactional Law and Practice

Emory Law School

Emory Law School seeks an Assistant Director of the Center for Transactional Law and Practice to teach in and share the administrative duties associated with running the largest program in the Law School.  Each candidate should have a J.D. or comparable law degree and substantial experience as an attorney practicing or teaching transactional law.  Significant contacts in the Atlanta legal community are a plus.

Initially, the Assistant Director will be responsible for leading the charge to further develop the Deal Skills curriculum.  (In Deal Skills – one of Emory Law’s signature core transactional skills courses – students are introduced to the business and legal issues common to commercial transactions.)  The Assistant Director will co-teach at least one section of Deal Skills each semester, supervise the current Deal Skills adjuncts, and recruit, train, and evaluate the performance of new adjunct professors teaching the other sections of Deal Skills.

As the faculty advisor for Emory Law’s Transactional Law Program Negotiation Team, the Assistant Director will identify appropriate competitions, select team members, recruit coaches, and supervise both the drafting and negotiation components of each competition.  The Assistant Director will also serve as the host of the Southeast Regional LawMeets® Competition held at Emory every other year.

Additionally, the Assistant Director will be responsible for the creation of two to three new capstone courses for the transactional law program.  (A capstone course is a small, hands-on seminar in a specific transactional law topic such as mergers and acquisitions or commercial real estate transactions.)  The Assistant Director will identify specific educational needs, recruit adjunct faculty, assist with curriculum design, and monitor the adjuncts’ performance.  

Besides the specific duties described above, the Assistant Director will assist the Executive Director with the administration of the transactional law program and the Transactional Law and Skills Certificate program.  This will involve publicizing the program to prospective and current students, monitoring the curriculum to assure that students are able to satisfy the requirements of the Certificate, and counselling students regarding their coursework and careers.  The Assistant Director can also expect to participate in strategic planning, marketing, fundraising, alumni outreach, and a wide variety of other leadership tasks.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE:  

Emory University is an equal opportunity employer, committed to diversifying its faculty and staff.  Members of under-represented groups are encouraged to apply.  For more information about the transactional law program and the Transactional Law and Skills Certificate Program, please visit our website at: 

http://law.emory.edu/academics/academic-programs/center-for-transactional-law-and-practice/index.html

To apply, please mail or e-mail a cover letter and resumé to: 

Kevin Moody

Emory University Law School

1301 Clifton Road, N.E.

Atlanta, GA  30322-2770

[email protected].

APPLICATION DEADLINE:  April 30, 2015

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In a short story sure to enrage the scambloggers, and already on AboveTheLaw, note this:

Law schools are in crisis: Enrollment is plummeting, bar exam pass rates are declining, and the employment rate for fresh graduates is abysmal. There's one area, however, in which these institutions still outpace the rest of academia: how much they pay. Tenured law professors pulled in a median salary of $143,509 in 2014, more than professors in any other discipline, according to new survey data.

Here's a chart:

This is a case where medians are ... appropriate?  Tons of business school professors, who finish second on the list, make not so much.  But there are way more business schools than law schools, and the variation in quality, and pay, is high.  It looks like the law professor ranks include legal studies professors at colleges and business schools, and that might be a reason to suggest that the median for the salary of tenured law professors in law schools is higher than the listed number.  And don't even get me started on a conflation of biological and biomedical sciences.  

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In the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the central academic unit and where Theidon works, female professors had a 66 percent success rate gaining tenure in the last five years, compared to three-quarters of men.

That is the tenure rate for Harvard's faculty of arts and science, which presumably includes the economics and government departments.  Which means the tenure rate at other departments must be high indeed - or that everyone is hustled out the door before a tenure decision is made.

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Earlier today my friend Steph Tai at Wisconsin got me thinking about academic debates. She was writing about the live debates that are a staple of FedSoc and ACS events, but the thoughts may also apply to written debates. While the debate format has some virtues, the key shortcoming of debates is that people are cast in roles that require disagreement and that lead -- often ... perhaps inevitably, if we really want to win -- to distortion and misunderstanding. Debates are sometimes fun and often interesting, but if the goal is to advance understanding, they are too often unproductive or even counterproductive.

All of this reminded me of the "principle of charity." Although this has religious overtones, I am talking about the idea from philosophy, defined on the linked page as "a methodological presumption ... whereby we seek to understand [a point of] view in its strongest, most persuasive form before subjecting the view to evaluation." This is a useful principle, even for debaters, though my experience has been that it is often ignored.

Maybe the format of our events can make a difference here. Next week I am participating in the annual Law and Entrepreneurship Retreat, hosted this year by Usha at the University of Georgia. One of the features of this event that I really appreciate is the format because we present each other's work. For example, I have a work in progress this year, but it is being presented by Bobby Bartlett at Berkeley. I will get a little time to talk after he presents, but authors mostly just listen and respond to questions during the Q&A. It's not an attempt to reach consensus but an attempt to understand. I am quite certain that everyone at the Retreat will learn more about my topic in this way than they would from a debate.

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In advance of the US News rankings to be published tomorrow, my friend Dorothy Brown (Emory) has a provocative post at WaPo titled Law schools are in a death spiral. Maybe now they’ll finally change. 

She makes some interesting points, but her concluding prediction, that "In three years, a top law school will close. Then watch how quickly things change" seems to come out of left field.  I have been waiting for law school closures for some time now, but I expect them to come from the third- and fourth-tier schools.  As Dorothy points out,

Law schools are currently in a bidding war for the students with the highest LSATs and GPAs because U.S. News heavily emphasizes those factors in its rankings. Students with higher LSATs tend to have a higher socioeconomic status; poorer law students lose out on scholarships and end up paying full tuition, financed through student loans, subsidizing their richer classmates. And law schools are still struggling to break even. Most JD programs are hoping their central administrators will remember a not-too-distant past when law schools subsidized the greater university.

But these pressures seem to me to strain to the breaking point at the low end of the pecking order. My instinct is that a "top law school"--meaning, even by a generous metric, a top-50 law school--will try to ride out the current economic situation and trust that it can ride out a storm that will take out lower-ranked schools.  We'll see...

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Redyip has returned, and by virtue of my new role as Associate Dean for Faculty Development, I'm more interested than usual in the annual springtime flood of submissions to the newly minted law review editorial boards (although I do have an article out this cycle.  And it's totally awesome).

The problem is one of volume: ExpressO and Scholastica have lowered the cost of submission to each additional journal to mere dollars, giving an author the incentive to submit to dozens and dozens of journals.  The fall cycle is diminished, and so more and more submissions funnel into the weeks of February and March.  For years this system limped along mostly on expedites, where authors submitted to large numbers of journals.  Once an author received an offer from a journal, she would expedite up, and law reviews in the tier above the offering school would use those expedites as a screening mechanism.  But anecdotal reports suggest that the sheer volume of articles may be overwhelming students, and expedited articles are going unread.

The typical law prof response is to tut-tut, and murmur approvingly about peer reviewed journals.  But a peer review journal means exclusive submissions, the torture of revise and resubmit, and a whole lot of work from the peers (i.e., us).  I think most professors, when alone with their thoughts in the dark of night, would admit that they like the ability to submit simultaneously, and the closure of knowing where their piece will land come April. So what to do?

ExpressO's now offers two limited forms of relief to student editors: First, it allows law reviews to set a maximum number of simultaneous requests for expedite.  Second, it allows law reviews to select "peers" from which to receive expedites.

Here's a bolder solution: what if authors could credibly commit that they were only offering to 10-20 journals at a time?  This would reduce submissions significantly, and also allow journals more comfort in knowing that the authors really are interested and that their offers, while being shopped, aren't being shopped to every single school ranked higher than they are. 

The problem is that it would be hard for authors to credibly commit, since any individual is best served by cheating.  But what if the system's intermediaries--ExpressO and Scholastica--offered this feature?  That is, allowed authors to signal that they'd only submitted to a limited number of reviews at any one time, and then flagged those pieces as "exclusive" (or at least, semi-exclusive) for law review editors?  If the reviews collectively stated a preference--even a mild one--for such submissions, maybe we'd all be better off. 

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The business law group there is extremely strong, and the way to apply can be found here.  The announcement:

Fellow - Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy (BCLBE)

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I hope everyone is having a great Oscar Sunday!  Scholastica and ExpressO tell me that I have successfully submitted my latest paper, but I think they mean that I have successfully uploaded my latest paper.  Anyway, months before it is published (if at all), you can get <i>The Limited Liability Partnership in Bankruptcy</i> here.  Here is the abstract:

Brobeck. Dewey. Howrey. Heller. Thelen. Coudert Brothers. These brand-name law firms had many things in common at one time, but today have one: bankruptcy. Individually, these firms expanded through hiring and mergers, took on expensive lease commitments, borrowed large sums of money, and then could not meet financial obligations once markets took a downturn and practice groups scattered to other firms. The firms also had an organizational structure in common: the limited liability partnership.

In business organizations classes, professors teach that if an LLP becomes insolvent, and has no assets to pay its obligations, the creditors of the LLP will not be able to enforce those obligations against the individual partners. In other words, partners in LLPs will not have to write a check from personal funds to make up a shortfall. Creditors doing business with an LLP, just as with a corporation, take this risk and have no expectation of satisfaction of claims by individual partners, absent an express guaranty. In bankruptcy terms, creditors look solely to the capital of the entity to satisfy claims. While bankruptcy proceedings involving general partnerships may have been uncommon, at least in theory, bankruptcy proceedings involving limited liability partnerships have recently become front-page news. The disintegration of large, complex LLPs, such as law firms, does not fit within the Restatement examples of small general partnerships that dissolve fairly swiftly and easily for at least two reasons. First, firm creditors, who have no recourse to individual partners’ wealth, wish to be satisfied in a bankruptcy proceeding. In this circumstance, federal bankruptcy law, not partnership law, will determine whether LLP partners will have to write a check from personal funds to satisfy obligations. Second, these mega-partnerships have numerous clients who require ongoing representation that can only be competently handled by the full attention of a solvent law firm. In these cases, the dissolved law firm has neither the staff nor the financial resources to handle sophisticated, long-term client needs such as complex litigation, acquisitions, or financings.  These prolonged, and lucrative, client matters cannot be simply “wound up” in the time frame that partnership law anticipates. The ongoing client relationship begins to look less like an obligation to be fulfilled and more like a valuable asset of the firm.

Partnership law would scrutinize the taking of firm business by former partners under duty of loyalty doctrines against usurping business opportunities and competing with one’s own partnership, both duties that terminate upon the dissolution of the general partnership or the dissociation of the partner. However, bankruptcy law is not as forgiving as the LLP statutes, and bankruptcy trustees view the situation very differently under the “unfinished business” doctrine. The bankruptcy trustee, representing the assets of the entity and attempting to salvage value for creditors, instead seeks to make sure that assets, including current client matters, remain in partnership solution unless exchanged for adequate consideration, even if the partners agree to let client matters stay with the exiting partners. This Article argues that the high-profile bankruptcies of Heller Ehrman LLP, Howrey LLP, Dewey & LeBeouf, LLP, and others show in stark relief the conflict between general partnership law and bankruptcy law. The emergence of the hybrid LLP creates an entity with general partnership characteristics, such as the right to co-manage and the imposition of fiduciary duties, but with limited liability for owner-partners. These characteristics co-exist peacefully until they do not, which seems to be at the point of dissolution. Then, the availability of limited liability changes partners’ incentives upon dissolution. Though bankruptcy law attempts to resolve this, it conflicts with partnership law to create more uncertainty.

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It's got to be the school that is the shortest total distance from both midtown Manhattan and Wall Street - the perfect deanship for our financially-minded readership!  Here's the announcement:

The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law is beginning a search for a new Dean.  The new Dean would succeed Matthew Diller, who has served with distinction for nearly six years, and who will be stepping down this summer.  The law school will post a formal search announcement in the near future.  In the meantime, immediate nominations, inquiries, and expressions of interest are welcome and encouraged.  Please send them to the Cardozo School of Law Dean Search Committee via Kathleen Horton, Director of the Cardozo Dean's Office, at [email protected]. 

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This morning on NPR, I listened to a short report on how people tend to lose trust in computer algorithms much more quickly than we lose trust in humans.  We compare a world of computer mistakes to a false world of zero human mistakes.  For example, if driverless cars get popular and one causes an accident, trust in driverless cars will plummet, even if driver-ful cars cause more accidents.  The report was merely interesting until Steve Inskeep and Shankar Vedantam used a hypothetical example far closer to home:  law school admissions.

INSKEEP: I wonder if there's another factor that comes into play here because you said one other reason that we trust humans is we presume that humans can learn. Aren't we entering a world in which the algorithms themselves will be learning more and more?

VEDANTAM: In fact, I think we've already entered that world, Steve. Algorithms not only learn, but they learn very well. So one of the things that computers are very good at doing is quickly learning how much weight to attach to the different components of a decision. So if you have students applying to law school, the computer might be able to say, here's how much attention you pay to their grades in college, to their LSAT scores, to their recommendation letters. Now, of course, many of us are comfortable with algorithms making decisions for other people. We just don't like it when algorithms make decisions about us.

INSKEEP: (Laughter) Don't make a decision about my law school application.

VEDANTAM: Precisely. Because we think we're unique and special, how can it possibly be that an algorithm can judge us? 

First, I'm very interested in why Vedantam used this example -- does he know of a law school that uses an admissions algorithm?

Second, if Vedantam does know of a law school that uses an admissions algorithm, I'll bet a lot of money that the algorithm isn't weighting and using factors that we believe will predict a student's future success, whether in law school or in the practice of law. I'm willing to bet that the algorithm judges whether the law students will improve/weaken their class profile of USNEWS purposes.

Finally, I wish we did live in the false world that Inskeep and Vedantam believe we live in -- where admissions committees not only are interested in the "whole file" of a candidate and treat them as unique and special and not as numbers, but also the second-best world that Inskeep and Vedantam are predicting -- where committees use algorithms to predict candidate success in the classroom and beyond based on markers and proxies.  I was talking to a physician friend who serves on the admissions committee of his medical school alma mater.  (Can you imagine a law school having practicing attorneys on admissions?)  He said they were not that interested in grades.  He said they looked for "hungry" and proxies for that.  He said his ideal med school candidate was someone who worked 40 hours a week during undergrad.  That sounds like a good world to me.

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I saw this week at Tax Prof Blog a link to this article about the high numbers of transfer students that George Washington School of Law is accepting from oher schools, namely American University's Washington College of Law.  American's Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs has some choice words for this practice, which of course stems from the fact that a law school can bring in additional revenue with transfer students, whose LSAT/gpa's might otherwise have been reportable to ABA/USNews if admitted as 1Ls.  Theoretically, a school could shrink the entering class to maintain good stats, then increase transfers to make up the revenue.

One might criticize the practice as rankings gamesmanship, but Dean Varona seems to say the practice is "predatory" and unethical (he praises GW's new dean as being "ethical," so by reverse implication. . . .).  And, transfers obviously create categories of those who benefit, with those who have their best students skimmed off the top each year.  And, some law schools will be both the poached and the poachers.

So, I've had this debate with several of my professor friends at different schools, both the poaching and the poached.  And, of course, we wouldn't even be having this conversation without the USNews rankings.  (Back in the day, transfers were for fiancees and students with transferred spouses).  Even in today's climate, I think I come down on the side of the poached student.

First, I don't agree that ethical law schools have a duty not to take transfers in large numbers.  This comes close to a "gentlemen's agreement," which are usually nonagreements by nongentlemen.  I think there are enough regulatory monopolies at play here without adding more anti-competitive restrictions.  I also don't think students are being disloyal.  If they have performed especially well and have the opportunity to transfer to a school that has more on-campus interviews, networking possibilities, course offerings, and name recognition, then I say so be it.  I say let the market play out.

But, if we don't like this practice, what (legally) should be done?  (Abolishing the rankings being put aside.)  The NCAA has eligibility requirements that limit transfers, but what's a law school without a football team to do?

Feeder Schools could contract with law students.  Presumably, some of these top students are receiving scholarships from their 1L school.  Could that school require an incoming student to agree that, should the student transfer after 1L year for a non-emergency reason, then the student would have to repay the scholarship?  Would that scare off students or not?

Feeder Schools could make it administratively more difficult.  This seems pretty sneaky, but feeder schools could make their first-year curriculum different than recruiting schools so that transferring is hard.  For example, School A could leave off Con law until the second year.  Then, students transferring would be told that they have to take Con law with the first year students.  It might not stop the transfer, but it might give the student pause. I'm sure someone more creative could create a thornier transfer problem.

The ABA could require reporting of transfer students, whose statistics would be included in the statistics of the incoming class the year they transfer.  This would take away the benefit of shifting part of the X Year incoming class into the X+1 Year 2L class.

The ABA could create standards for the number of transfers as a percentage of the class.  I think this one is baloney, but I can imagine others disagreeing.

Of course, all of these suggestions are anti-student -- they restrict the student's decisionmaking on some very important decisions.

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I'm looking forward to seeing some of you at the meat market, Wharton is interviewing (and the deadline for applications is yet to come!).  We're not the only business law place, and I like to post the hiring notices of our competition for those inclined to peruse them.  After the fold, a few more, all in quite desirable locations.

CLINICAL PROFESSOR IN ETHICS

The Boston University School of Management is now accepting applications for a full-time, non-tenure-track Clinical Professor in Ethics, effective July 1, 2015.   Successful applicants will be a senior faculty member who possesses an international reputation in business ethics.   Successful candidates will have an established record of teaching and writing in the area of ethics that may include any business discipline; demonstrated teaching abilities at the graduate level; and a terminal degree in business, management, or related areas. Applicants are welcome from business academic disciplines including: accounting, organizational behavior, finance, business law, information systems, marketing, strategy and strategic management, and operations management. The position will be housed in a department within the School based upon the successful candidate’s discipline.

We anticipate that this position will serve as the inaugural Academic Director for the newly created Harry Susilo Institute for Ethics in a Global Economy (http://www.bu.edu/today/2014/harry-susilo-institute-for-ethics-in-a-global-economy/), as well as serve as advisor to other institutional organizations. 

Interested candidates should electronically submit a letter of application, curriculum vita, and representative publications and teaching materials by November 15, 2014 via [email protected]  and addressed to: 

Professor Karen Golden-Biddle, Chair

Ethics Search Committee

Boston University School of Management

595 Commonwealth Avenue

Boston, MA  02215

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We are a VEVRAA Federal Contractor.

GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY:

Robinson College of Business, Department of Risk Management & Insurance

TENURE TRACK and/or NON-TENURE TRACK POSITIONS IN LEGAL STUDIES

GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY invites applications for one or more tenure track and/or non-tenure track appointments in Legal Studies for openings effective fall 2015 in the Department of Risk Management and Insurance at the Robinson College of Business.  Rank is open but we expect to hire at the level of Assistant Professor (tenure track) and/or Clinical Assistant Professor (non-tenure track).

JOB QUALIFICATIONS

Candidates for a non-tenure track position must have significant professional experience as a lawyer, the capability for publishing research in refereed professional or pedagogical journals, evidence of excellence in teaching preferably in an accredited AACSB business school, and an earned J.D. from an ABA accredited law school.

Candidates for a tenure track position must have an earned J.D. from an ABA accredited law school, have the capability of significant scholarship in law reviews as well as peer reviewed journals, and capability for high quality teaching.  Candidates for more senior positions must have a significant and current scholarly research record consistent with appointment at the appropriate rank.

For all candidates we are particularly interested in those who study the relationship between law and risk. Applications from those with specific interests in the areas of life and disability insurance, employee benefits, and/or financial planning are especially welcome, but candidates in all areas of business law will be considered.

ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT

The mission of the Department of Risk Management and Insurance at Georgia State University is to better understand how risks faced by individuals, institutions, and societies can be more accurately measured and more efficiently managed. Faculty members have risk-related research interests including behavioral economics, experimental methods, actuarial science, mathematical finance, econometrics, household finance, corporate decision making, legal risk, and insurance economics, among others. 

The department is one of the oldest and most influential risk management programs in the U.S. and has a distinguished history of serving students, alumni, and the risk management profession for more than 60 years. We are currently rated #4 in the U.S. News and World Report ranking of RMI programs; we hold a Center of Actuarial Excellence designation from the Society of Actuaries; and we are an Accredited Risk Program according to the Professional Risk Management International Association (PRMIA).

The salary level and course load are competitive. 

Positions are contingent on budget approval. Applications received prior to November1 may be given preference, but applications will be accepted until the position is filled. To apply, send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, three recommendation letters, teaching evaluations, if any, to ademicjobsonline.org (strongly preferred) or mailed to Ms. Carmen Brown, Department of Risk Management & Insurance, Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, PO Box 4036, Atlanta. GA 30302. Be sure to indicate in the cover letter that you are applying for the legal studies position (tenure track) or the legal studies position (Non-tenure track).

Georgia State University is an equal opportunity educational institution and an affirmative action employer.

Associate or Full Professor, Tenured

Legal Studies/Law

Departments of Legal Studies and Political Science

University of Central Florida

The University of Central Florida invites applicants for a faculty position at the rank of tenured Associate or Full Professor in the area of Legal Studies, International Law and/or National Security Law to begin August 2015.  We are seeking applications from distinguished senior scholars of law, who have exemplary records of research and publication, the potential for continued research and publications, and documented commitment to both undergraduate and graduate level teaching. 

The University of Central Florida (UCF) is the second largest university in the United States located in Orlando, Florida, with a student population of approximately 60,000 students.  The primary appointment for this position will be with the Department of Legal Studies, with a secondary joint appointment with the Department of Political Science. The Department of Legal Studies is within the College of Health and Public Affairs and the Department of Political Science is within the College of Sciences, two of twelve academic colleges within UCF.  The successful candidate will teach equally in both Departments and be expected to maintain a robust research and publication agenda.  The successful candidate will teach courses on international law and be expected to develop national security law courses and offerings for both the Legal Studies and Political Science Departments.  The University of Central Florida stresses the importance of community engagement and partnerships, and offers the unique opportunity for collaborative funded research and work with the community in a wide range of policy and management areas.

Qualifications:  The successful candidate must hold a J.D. and Ph.D. in Political Science, or a J.D. and LL.M. in International Law, National Security Law, or other closely related discipline (e.g., Military Law, Foreign Affairs Law, et cetera).   The successful candidate will be eligible for appointment as a tenured associate or full professor upon hire and must have a distinguished record of scholarly achievement and teaching experience commensurate with a tenured faculty appointment at the rank of associate or full professor.  Preference will be given to those candidates who have a strong background in undergraduate, graduate and/or professional level teaching and an active and well documented research record and agenda, as well as experience with funded research.  The successful candidate will also have the ability to effectively maintain productive collaborative relationships with the faculty of both Legal Studies and Political Science and mentor students from both programs. 

Application Process:  To apply, candidates must complete an online application at www.jobswithucf.com. Please also attach the following information:  1) a curriculum vitae; 2) a letter of intent succinctly describing your experience as related to the candidate qualifications delineated above; and 3) the names, addresses, and phone numbers of five professional references.  Applications for this position will be accepted October 30, 2014.

NOTE: Please have all documents ready when applying so they can be attached at that time. Once the online submission process is finalized, the system does not allow applicants to submit additional documents at a later date.

For further questions about the position, please contact Dr. Carol Bast, the Search Committee Chair, at [email protected].

UCF is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.  All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply, including minorities, women, veterans and individuals with disabilities.  As a Florida public university, UCF makes all application materials available to the public upon request.  For further questions about the position, please contact Dr. Carol Bast, the Search Committee Chair, at [email protected].   

Assistant or Associate Professor

Department of Management, College of Business

The Position:  The Department of Management is inviting applications for a full time tenure-track position in Business Law / Legal Environment of Business beginning in Fall 2015.  Position is contingent on funding.  As a university that educates students of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds, we value a diverse faculty and staff. The University is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate against persons on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, age, disability, genetic information, gender, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, medical condition, National origin, sex, sexual orientation, covered veteran status, or any other protected status. We also welcome those who share a passion and commitment to the University's Strategic Priorities-http://www.csuchico.edu/vpaa/wasc/StrategicPrior/.

Minimum Qualifications:  The minimum education requirement for appointment to this position is a Jurist Doctorate (JD) from an ABA-accredited law school.

Preferred Qualifications:  Preference will be given to applicants with strong oral and written communication skills, excellent interpersonal skills, prior teaching experience, an undergraduate degree in business or a related field, an MBA from an AACSB international-accredited school, and a strong record of practicing law in areas relating to business. Preference will also be given to applicants with Membership in the State of California Bar.

Responsibilities: This tenure-track position carries responsibilities in the areas of teaching, scholarship and service. Primary teaching responsibilities will include undergraduate courses in legal environment of business/business law, employment law, labor law, and law for the entrepreneur. Successful candidates must have demonstrated ability or a high potential for outstanding teaching and the capacity to conduct publishable research in refereed pedagogical, practitioner, or disciplinary journals. Faculty typically teach three sections per semester, fulfill service obligations, and publish in double-blind refereed, peer reviewed journals. 

Salary: Salary commensurate with education and experience.

The Department:   The Management Department is the largest of the four departments within the College of Business (http://www.csuchico.edu/cob/) and offers several degree options as part of the B.S. in Business Administration:  Management, Human Resources Management, Project Management and Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management, as well as minors in Managing Diversity in Organizations, Managing for Sustainability, Entrepreneurship and Project Management.  The department also offers several of the required courses for students pursuing their MBA.  The primary focus of California State University, Chico is teaching, and the College of Business’ mission statement emphasizes a student-centered learning environment. The College of Business is accredited by AACSB International.  

The University offers an excellent comprehensive benefits package.  For a detailed description of these benefits, see http://www.csuchico.edu/hr/benefits/. Scholarship is supported by the college and university through attractive research incentive programs, professional and pedagogical travel support, access to databases, grant writing support, and professional development funds. 

The city of Chico is located in beautiful northern California at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains – just hours away from San Francisco, Napa, Lake Tahoe and the Redwoods. 

Closing Date:  Formal review of applications will begin on October 3^nd.  Applications received after that date may not receive full consideration.

How to Apply:   All applicants must complete (with original signature) the Application for Academic Employment Form, which is available on-line at http://www.csuchico.edu/faaf/facultyrecruit/facultyapplication.pdf  to be submitted with the following:

• A cover letter clearly stating the candidate’s teaching and research experience and interests and that addresses the duties and qualifications articulated in the position description;

• A current curriculum vitae;

• Three references, with contact information;

• A research writing sample (manuscript, publication, etc.);

• A statement of teaching philosophy;

• Sample course syllabi and official student evaluations, if available

Finalists for the position will be required to:

• Make a research presentation;

• Make a teaching presentation.

Electronic submissions are highly preferred and should be addressed to the Department of Management Search Committee for Business Law.  Please address all nominations, inquiries, and hard copy application materials as early as possible to:

Tess Hocking  [email protected]

For the Chair, Department of Management

College of Business

The California State University, Chico

Chico, CA 95929-0031

Phone:  (530) 898-5663

Fax:      (530) 898-5501

An annual security report disclosing crime statistics for California State University, Chico

can be obtained by contacting the Chico State University Police Department (530-898-5555)

or by accessing the following website: www.csuchico.edu/up/clery_report.shtml

The person holding this position is considered a “mandated reporter” under the California Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act and is required to comply with the requirements set forth in CSU Executive Order 1083 as a condition of employment.

For disability related accommodations please call ADA Coordinator at (530) 898-5959.

CSU, Chico is EOE/M/F/Vets/Disability Employer and also only employs individuals authorized to work in the U.S. Final candidates will be required to undergo a background check using LiveScan Screening at the CSU Chico police department.

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So, I have thought a lot during my teaching career about the Bluebook.  I wrote down some of my thoughts here and here, and even co-authored a book and some online exercises here.  So, when I saw a headline on my feedly feed today that reads "Is The Bluebook About To Be Killed Off?" that was link teaser I couldn't ignore.

Almost 15 years ago, the Association of Legal Writing Directors attempted to kill off the Bluebook with the ALWD Manual.  Like the Maroon Book before it, the ALWD did little to knock the student-edited Bluebook off its lucrative pedastal.  The newest challenger is not a competitor, but its own Tenth Edition.  (As an unabashed collector, I have my own copy, pictured here.)

According to ATL, Professor Christopher Sprigman (NYU) has sent a letter to the holder of the Bluebook copyright, the Harvard Law Review Association, asserting that the copyright of the Tenth Edition (1958) has fallen into the public domain.  Furthermore, Publicresource.org is planning on making electronic copies of the Tenth Edition available to everyone.

Will the availability of the 124-page Tenth Edition kill sales of the Nineteenth or the upcoming Twentieth Edition?  Hard to say.  Most folks who practice law or who produce legal scholarship have already internalized the basic rules found in this volume.  I would hazard a hypothesis that law graduates turn to the modern edition for the hard questions, the esoteric sources, which the Tenth Edition doesn't cover.  Another reason I pick up the Nineteenth Edition is to check the appendices -- what's the form of the statutes in [insert state here]?  The Tenth Edition doesn't have those appendices, listing every reporter and statutory publication in every jurisdiction ever.  That is why the Tenth Edition is only 124 pages long.  I also pick up the modern edition to see if I need to abbreviate words in my case name, etc. according to T.6.  The Tenth Edition "Table 6" is embedded into Rule 1:1:3 and basically one short page.  But, if you are dealing with a "steamship" or a "Telegraph," it can really help you out.

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They've been doing some interesting hiring at OSU, lately, and this year they will be doing some more. The position announcement is after the jump.

Oklahoma State University, Department of Economics and Legal Studies, Stillwater, Oklahoma, seeks outstanding applicants for a tenure-track position in legal studies at the rank of assistant professor beginning August 2015, contingent upon available funding. 

Qualifications: a J.D. or LL.M. from an ABA-accredited law school is required. Membership in a state  bar association, previous experience teaching law at the university level, a history of scholarly research  and publications, law review membership, and an undergraduate degree in business and/or an MBA degree from an accredited college or university are highly desirable. 

The Spears School of Business is AACSB accredited, and applicants should be academically qualified under AACSB standards and willing to maintain that qualification. The successful applicants will have strong potential for outstanding research leading to publication in highly-ranked journals and for teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Successful applicants will be expected to teach the legal and regulatory environment of business and other business law courses. The teaching load is two classes each semester. 

We especially welcome applications from individuals who would contribute to the diversity of our faculty. 

Applications will be accepted online at https://jobs.okstate.edu. Please search for listing number 11073 under faculty positions. Only the Personal Information section of the application needs to be completed. Applicants should upload a curriculum vita, law school transcripts, evidence of teaching effectiveness, a research sample and contact information for three references. Applications must be received no later than October 15, 2014, for full consideration, but will be accepted until the position is filled. 

Oklahoma State University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity/E-verify employer committed to diversity. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and 

will not be discriminated against based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. OSU is a VEVRAA Federal Contractor and desires priority referrals of protected veterans for its openings. OSU-Stillwater is a tobacco-free campus. 

Inquiries for additional information should be sent to Lee Adkins, Head, Department of Economics and Legal Studies, Oklahoma State University, 339 Business Building, Stillwater, OK 74078; phone (405) 744-5195; e-mail [email protected].

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So, I guess the Illinois law faculty was just waiting for me to leave to start a blog!  Congratulations on their new arrival, which promises to be very interesting and informative.  The first post I read was definitely link-worthy.  My friend and former colleague Rob Kar writes on another Urbana-Champaign development that I am out-of-the-loop regarding:  the non-hiring of Steven Salaita.  The Salaita affair has drawn a lot of writing from First Amendment/Academic Freedom quarters, but Rob analyzes it from a contract law perspective.  Good reading!

UPDATE:  In finally getting a chance to do some blog-browsing today, I notice that Dave Hoffman has also been thinking about the contracts angle to this case.  Here and here and here.

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