Going on the Academic Job Market - Part 2: The Faculty Appointments Register (FAR)

This is the second post in a series that details my experience going on the legal academic job market in Fall 2022 and pieces of advice I've derived from that experience. My first post is here, and went into strategy and considerations underlying the move to an initial teaching position such as a visiting assistant professorship or fellowship. As I mentioned there, this series of posts is aimed at applicants who may not be standard or traditional entry-level academic candidates. My target audience is folks who didn't go to one of the top law schools known for producing academics, those without prestigious clerkships, and those without PhDs or other advanced degrees. Folks like me!

This post focuses on the Faculty Appointments Register or "FAR," including the preparation of the FAR form and supporting documents. As with my last post, I'll describe my own experiences, along with strategies I used and advice I received while getting my materials together. Unlike the last post, there will be points of advice in each subsection relating to each document submitted in the FAR process. I then move on to a section that gives points of general advice derived from these experiences.

One disclaimer before getting into the weeds: my points of advice are based on my own experiences and are derived from advice I received from others throughout the application process. I do not consider myself an expert on the legal academic hiring process, and I do not have any inside information regarding the process. I write based on my experience, advice I've received, and information I've been able to track down in the hope of demystifying certain aspects of the process and sharing my perspective as a non-standard applicant. For those interested in advice from more experienced people and institutions, and updated list of general resources is included at the bottom of the post.

Preparing the FAR Form

Early on in getting my application materials together, I learned about the FAR. You can find basic information on it here, including crucial dates and deadlines if you are planning on submitting your information. In short, in exchange for the $290 registration fee, you fill out a form that includes your name, educational history, selected publications, clerkship experience, teaching/fellowship experience, and teaching interests. This is all transferred to a one-page form, which is then submitted to all law schools that subscribe to the FAR (the vast majority of all law schools). The schools then use these forms to narrow down applicant pools, and often contact applicants who they think meet their hiring needs for initial interviews.

With a process like this, it's therefore important to get that one-page form right, as it may be the primary (or only) document a hiring committee reviews in deciding whether to schedule an initial interview. But it's not the only thing the AALS circulates to participating schools. In addition to the one-page FAR form, your submission will likely also include a resume or curriculum vitae, a research agenda, a DEI statement, and a statement of teaching philosophy. I'll get to these other components of the application in a bit.

On the FAR, much of the information you input is standardized, but there are still a few areas where your discretion is important. One of the most important is your list of five "Preferred Subjects," where you list out in order of preference the subjects you are interested in teaching. There are many unwritten rules of strategy for the preferred subjects section, and I'll share here the ones I was told:

• Consider School Needs: Prioritize high-need topics on your list, such as subjects in the standard 1L courseload. Consistent needs include criminal law, civil procedure, contracts, and torts.
• Constitutional Law?: While I have a fair amount of scholarship on constitutional law and taught multiple constitutional law courses in my time at Idaho, I was told to de-prioritize constitutional law. One person told me that there is always a high supply of people willing to teach constitutional law, and not as high of a supply of constitutional law positions. Another was a bit more frank, staying that if you didn't go to Yale, Harvard, or Stanford, you shouldn't put constitutional law at the top of the list--it's simply to heady of a subject. I'm not sure how correct this advice was, but all offers I eventually received were for criminal law / criminal procedure teaching positions.
• Complementary Subjects: List subjects that complement one another. For instance, if you are interested in teaching criminal law, you should consider listing criminal procedure as well. There's a tradeoff here: you're sacrificing another one of your precious few five spots, rather than diversifying your subjects. But the advice I received suggested this tradeoff is worth it, as it's better to appear more invested in a particular area so as to lend credibility to your list of subjects. And while it may seem good strategy to list a diverse array of topics, doing so carries a risk of appearing unfocused. It is probably better to commit to one or two topic areas with a core list of subjects, rather than throwing everything at the wall.
• Have a Reason: Relatedly, you should list topics only if you can point to something that explains why the subject is on your list. This can include prior practical or teaching experience in the area, research into the subject, or some other explanation for why this subject was important enough to you to make the cut. My list, for example, included "Civil Procedure," alongside the criminal subjects of criminal law, criminal procedure, and evidence, as well as constitutional law. My reason for doing so? I'd been a litigator for over seven years before going on the market, and civil procedure was my life. In crafting your list of preferred subjects, keep school needs and success in mind, but don't let strategy lead you to paint an inauthentic picture of yourself.

Beyond the teaching preferences, you will also be asked to list your "Major Published Writings." The rule I've generally heard for the publications is to lead with the paper that will be your job talk piece, and follow it with a group of papers that are both solid placements and which evidence your interest in the subjects you are seeking to teach. I've heard scattered anecdotes that some hiring committees may give less value to coauthored pieces. If so, this is probably a practice they ought to reconsider, as there's value in coauthoring. Still, it's a good idea to have a job talk piece that is a solo-authored article, and you should probably include at least one other solo piece if you have the option. 

Another piece of advice I received was to include any other pieces you want listed in the "Comments" section of the FAR form, which is a good way of expanding your publication list if that is your strong suit. My publication list was fairly extensive for an entry level hire when I submitted the FAR, and I used the comments section for this purpose.

Finally, you are asked to include references on the FAR form. I received fairly uniform advice that these references should tend toward academic references--which may be a challenge for those who've been in practice for more than a few years. To that end, I reemphasize my earlier advice about maintaining connections with prior law professors, including reaching out to them for feedback on scholarship or early advice before going on the market. If this isn't feasible, this is all the more reason to find a visiting position prior to going on the market, as professors at that school may be willing to serve as references. Two professors at Idaho were willing to sit in on some of my early courses and serve as references as I went on the job market. Not only did they serve as references, they also gave me valuable early feedback on my teaching techniques.

The Job Talk Paper

As part of the application process, you will hopefully receive several callback interviews, in which schools invite you to campus for a daylong series of meetings, interviews, and tours. One of the key components of any callback is the job talk, in which an applicant presents a paper and fields questions and comments from an audience of law professors.

I'll have more to say about the job talk itself in later posts. But at the initial application stage, you are expected to submit what will end up being your job talk paper. This paper should match up with your list of preferred subjects on the FAR form. It should also be a well-polished, substantive article, as it will undergo the most scrutiny and be used to judge your scholarly potential. Additionally, the paper should be one you are comfortable living with for many months as you present it repeatedly.

The job talk paper is often unpublished, although I think it helps to have it accepted for publication by the time you are on the market. I say this because, especially for non-standard applicants, the offer of publication may be an indicator of quality or credibility for the piece. Timing is therefore important--for a paper to be at that key stage of accepted, yet unpublished, it may need to be submitted to the journals in August. This isn't a hard and fast rule: publication can take a while and I've had some articles accepted in the spring that don't get initial revisions back until well into the summer or fall. For those submitting a piece in the spring that they think may be a future job talk paper, you can work with the editors to see if they can delay the publication process to line up with your anticipated job search. 

For these reasons, you should keep in the back of your mind what project (or projects) have the potential of becoming a job talk paper down the road. Given the time it takes to research and write a solid article, the job talk paper may require the most advance planning and preparation of all of your application documents.

My job talk paper was Countermajoritarian Criminal Law, which I wrote in summer 2022 and submitted to journals that August. Of the articles I submitted that summer, this was the one article on criminal law that I'd written. Having listed my top teaching interests as criminal law and criminal procedure, it made sense to present an article that aligned with these subjects. I also chose the article because it veered at points into other areas of law, including constitutional law, state and local law, and analysis of political processes. This, I thought, would attract attention from professors with work outside of the criminal sphere and prompt more questions and comments from a broader audience in the job talk presentation. 

The Research Agenda

I was lucky enough to receive advice in law school that having a scholarly narrative uniting my overall work was a key element to an eventual career in legal academia. For that reason, I'd held off on even the initial step of applying to visiting positions until I was in a spot where I felt that my existing and planned projects told a consistent story. Even so, there were challenges. My scholarship had developed (and continues to develop) along two lines: criminal law and constitutional law. While you might think that I'd try to bridge the gap and write about constitutional criminal procedure, things hadn't (and still haven't) gone in that direction yet. As a result, I ended up drafting a bifurcated research plan--laying out my recent, ongoing, and planned work in criminal law, then doing the same for constitutional law.

Some general tips for the research agenda, based on what I did and the advice I received, include:

• Maintain a Narrative: Your research agenda should demonstrate how your scholarship has built on itself, and will continue to proceed in a certain direction. At the basic level, this means you should present your work chronologically: begin with a recent paper or your job talk piece, and then move into future work. I've found that you can enhance the narrative by also moving from specific to general--begin with concise descriptions of your recent and ongoing projects, and as you move farther into the future, your discussion can turn to more advanced concepts and how the work you've already done will lead into these areas.
• Remember Your Voice: Your agenda should not only demonstrate your scholarly promise, it should also communicate your personality. To the extent possible, keep it clear and approachable, as hiring committees will likely consist of people from different scholarly backgrounds. If you are a nonstandard applicant who's spent more time in practice than in graduate school, clerkships, or fellowships, consider adding a sentence or two indicating what, if any, of your work arose from your practical experiences. 
• Avoid Over-Abstraction: If you begin to discuss concepts that are too general, it will be difficult for those reviewing to see what you're adding to the discussion. Make sure that discussion of broader issues and the literature incorporates or relates back to the specific directions you want to take with your scholarship.

The Teaching Philosophy

It's been a while, but if I recall correctly, the teaching philosophy was not a document that I submitted with the FAR. Still, I think it's worth special attention--especially since there may be others like me out there with little to no recent teaching experience at the time they applied.

While I spent last year visiting at the University of Idaho, classes hadn't begun while I was preparing my application paperwork in July and early August. And even though the FAR did not require it (again, those applying this year should check to make sure of this), many schools to which I was applying directly asked for a teaching philosophy as part of the initial submission. Additionally, several schools that contacted me through the FAR invited me to submit direct applications, rather than requesting an initial interview, and these direct applications often required a teaching philosophy.

As someone who hadn't ever taught a law school class, and whose last classroom teaching experience dated back to early 2014, the teaching philosophy was a bit of a challenge. Those whose experience tends toward practice rather than fellowships and advance degrees may find themselves in a similar spot. I addressed this issue by looking to experiences I'd had in practice that might be transferable to the classroom. As it turned out, I found quite a few examples. Revising work done by a law clerk or a junior associate, getting someone new to a case up to speed on the facts and the parties, and explaining complex legal concepts to clients were all examples I cited of experiences that--while not precisely the same as teaching students--had honed my abilities to distill complex notions and answer questions on the fly.

Another strategy that I found helpful was to include aspirational language in my teaching philosophy. I suspect that nearly all applicants--even if they aren't from the most elite schools--have attended law school themselves, and have likely had a few professors who stood out as great teachers. In my teaching philosophy, I shared examples of some of these professors and how I hoped to incorporate their techniques into my own teaching. Another, constant source of aspirational examples is Michael Hunter Schwartz's, Gerald Hess's, and Sophie Sparrow's book, What the Best Law Teachers Do, which compiles a vast amount of interview, questionnaire, student feedback, and other data to provide a vast set of teaching best practices.

One last point on teaching which will not apply to everyone: I've only been teaching for a year, but I've found that conducting witness depositions and direct examinations involves a wide range of skills that transfer to the question-answer style of law teaching. My class notes tend to reflect the notes I used to prepare for depositions and direct examinations--often a list of questions with expected answers and citations, along with notes on where the line of questioning may diverge depending on the answer. The skill of re-asking a question is also crucial, especially for those students who may not initially have the right answer. Knowing when to let a witness keep talking and when to cut them off translates well to knowing how long a discussion should persist before it stops being fruitful. Backing up and asking incremental, easy questions to lead to a desired answer is a frequent occurrence in witness examinations, and this same skill can be used to lead a student who initially thinks he or she doesn't know the answer to figure things out--which I find to be a particularly rewarding classroom experience.

The Curriculum Vitae

I don't have much to say on this front other than to recount a few points of advice I received that may be helpful. The CV I submitted to law schools differed from the usual version to the extent that I included a brief summary of each article underneath each entry. Doing so made the CV a one-stop document for reviewers, rather than requiring them to track down the article abstracts themselves. 

To make things easier for those in hiring committees interested in tracking down my work, I made each article's citation a hyperlink to a page with the final publication version, or to my SSRN page for those articles that were still forthcoming. It seemed to help, as I received several questions specific to some of my articles in screening interviews.

The DEI Statement

I'm a white heterosexual male, and while I'm the first in my family to go to law school--I'm not the first in my family to go to college. Accordingly, in preparing my Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement, I emphasized my educational and practice experience that were relevant to DEI goals. I had the fortune of attending UCLA School of Law--a school with a fantastic Critical Race Theory program, which gave me opportunities of taking classes from professors with CRT expertise and to see how these considerations were connected with other legal doctrines.

Here, as well, practice experience is relevant. As a civil litigator and prosecutor, I had to be attuned to how people along a broad range of races and backgrounds may react to the facts of a case or a particular argument, because those are the people who will be on the jury if a case gets to that stage. An effective lawyer must keep these perspectives in mind from the earliest stages of a dispute in order to predict chances of success, whether a case is worth pursuing in the first place, and how to frame a case to appeal to a broad audience. In my statement, I emphasized this experience, as well as the need to teach students to keep broader questions of credibility in mind rather than simply identifying all the possible arguments (a version of this point appeared in my teaching philosophy as well).

Beyond these examples, I don't have much in the way of advice to give on the DEI statement, as so much of it will be dependent on one's own experiences and background. My hope is that these examples provide suggestions of potential directions applicants may take.

General Advice for the FAR Stage

Contact Your Law School for Advice on the Hiring Process: I didn't include this advice in my last post, but I probably should have. I suspect that many law schools have personnel devoted to advising former students on navigating the job market--even if this resource isn't publicized all that much. For me, a meeting for coffee with a UCLA Law professor shortly before my departure to Idaho resulted in a referral to other UCLA professors who ended up providing me with ongoing advice, feedback on materials, and even a mock job talk as I went through the application process. Anyone considering a career in academia should reach out to their law school--either to a former professor or to the career center--to see what resources are available.

Submit Your Information to the FAR: During the 2022 hiring phase, I heard many anecdotes about applicants who were interviewing with schools outside of the general FAR process. Some of these interviews began far earlier than interviews of FAR candidates, which aren't scheduled until after the first distribution in August. I think similar things were happening in 2021, although I'm less sure about this. Even if this is the case, many schools still rely on the FAR to hire and you should still submit to the FAR. Many of my screening interviews (probably more than half?) were schools to which I had not directly applied--they contacted me after reviewing my FAR to schedule the screening interview. To maximize your chances of an interview, submit to the FAR.

Consider Submitting Outside the FAR: While submitting through the FAR is still, in my view, a necessary part of the hiring process, you should keep an eye out for postings and apply directly to those that are of particular interest. Schools with certain academic strengths or focuses that would benefit your work and to which you could contribute may be worth a direct application. Ditto for schools in regions where you would rather work.

Pay Attention to Deadlines: As noted above, the initial FAR submission deadline is one of the most important dates to keep in mind during the application process. While there are multiple distribution dates, the uniform advice I received was that you need to get into the initial submission if you want to be considered at the vast majority of schools. Beyond this, some schools that solicit direct applications may have dates that are even earlier than the FAR. Some of these schools will note that these early deadlines are only for those who won't submit through the FAR. But others may not be so clear. I was generally told that schools with earlier application deadlines will still consider those who submit through the FAR at a later date, but I still think it wise to meet these earlier deadlines if the school is one that is of particular interest to you.

Keep an Eye Out for Job Postings: Schools often post hiring announcements prior to the FAR deadline. You should follow these announcements so that you can identify potential schools for direct applications. The blog, The Faculty Lounge, is a good place to spot these announcements, and from a quick check, it looks like there's a couple weeks' worth of hiring announcements posted there already.

"Standard Applicants?"

Based on a fruitful Twitter exchange with Richard Heppner after my first post, I want to clarify that my understanding of the qualifications of the typical entry-level applicant is limited to information available to me as an applicant. This information--particularly entry-level hiring lists that Sarah Lawsky compiles--tends to be limited to successful applicants. As a result, when I make inferences over applicant qualifications and the frequency of qualifications, I tend to draw on the pool of applicants who ultimately get positions. To be sure, this is a limited dataset. The AALS, which administers the FAR, forbids the use of applicant information for analysis by recipient schools. 

Still, I still think it's worth noting what qualifications tend to exist among those applicants who ultimately succeed. One may object that many applicants don't hail from top law schools or have advanced degrees, clerkships, and fellowships. But if those applicants uniformly fail to get jobs and, as a result, aren't reflected in the data regarding those who are ultimately hired, it seems that these qualifications tend to be treated as necessary to a certain extent. To that end, perhaps my use of "standard applicant" ought to be "standard successful applicant." I'm still hesitant to make this change absent data to the contrary, especially in the wake of a year where there were far fewer applicants--an environment which some observers suggested a concentration of more highly-qualified applicants compared with years past.

Noteworthy Thoughts on the Academic Job Market

In this section, I flag points that I've seen raised (mainly on Twitter) regarding the academic job market that may be helpful for applicants.

Tiffany Li notes that she served on a hiring committee and that her experience taught her "how much of a job search is really out of your control as a candidate. You could be incredibly qualified, but whether you get hired might depend on factors you have no idea about at all." Considerations include budgets, hiring priorities, "internal politics," and other issues. Still, she urges that this shouldn't dissuade people from applying--rather that people on the market shouldn't take rejection as indicating they are poor candidates.

Orin Kerr also mentions that hiring committees should be more open to non-traditional candidates, a point with which I strongly agree. 

Additional Resources

Here I continue to copy a set of general resources that I think may be helpful to applicants. This list will keep expanding with each post as I receive additional suggestions and become aware of more resources.

Yale Law School provides pointers for those preparing job talk papers, CVs, scholarly agendas, and references--advice backed by the knowledge of some of the most effective job applicants in the biz--and therefore well worth reading to expand on my suggestions above.

Sarah Lawsky's compilations of entry-level hiring information and hiring plans and committees are invaluable to those entering the job market. Her data relies on her own investigation and self-reporting and, while therefore incomplete, captures a lot of information regarding the layout of the job market and available positions. Follow her on Twitter, or look for her posts on Prawfsblawg to stay up to date.

Orin Kerr's podcast/video series, The Legal Academy, is a collection of interviews with various legal scholars with a consistent focus on the nature of legal academia and strategies for those seeking to enter academia. I especially recommend his interviews with Emma Kaufman and Sarah Lawsky.

The AALS--especially their information regarding the Faculty Appointments Register (FAR), which you will need to fill out if you are seriously considering going on the market. This is a centralized set of one-page summaries of applicants that gets sent out to all member schools. By registering and inputting your information, your information will be included in this distribution. I'll go into more detail on the process in a dedicated post, but make sure to register before the first distribution deadline (this year: August 11, 2023).

Brian Leiter provides great advice for people on the market in various places. At his Law School Reports Blog, his string of "Advice for Academic Job Seekers" posts are worth checking out--particularly his early 2023 post on considering and negotiating tenure-track job offers. At his Leiter Reports blog, he provides detailed advice for those considering joint JD/PhD programs--specifically for those interested in pursuing a PhD in philosophy.

I'm happy to chat with anyone interested in entering legal academia--especially those who may not be typical candidates. You can find my contact information on my faculty page.