Law school faculty hiring has been in the news of late. The recent lawsuit against the University of Iowa College of Law over a charge of anti-conservative political bias in faculty hiring resulted in a partial jury verdict: a finding of no violation of the plaintiff’s First Amendment claims and a hung jury on her due process and equal protection claims. The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) annual Faculty Recruitment Conference (affectionately known as the “meat market”), where prospective law faculty interviewed for jobs, recently concluded in Washington. As you are reading this, those same applicants are being flown all around the country for full-day interviews in the hopes that they will land a coveted tenure-track job.
Just like the market for lawyers, the market for law faculty is extremely competitive. There are far more applicants than available slots. As our students struggle to get jobs, prospective law faculty struggle to get hired. But why should the average American care about who becomes a law professor?
