DeanWuBlog

Faculty Hiring

Faculty hiring is crucial to our continued success. Our strategic plan calls for the addition of seven tenured/tenure-track professors, one clinical professor, and one legal research and writing instructor. This is the most ambitious program of faculty hiring in our institutional history. The goals are as a net gain, meaning accounting for any departures of professors.

Faculty hiring is crucial for several reasons. When I arrived in July 2004, our student-faculty ratio was one of the worst among the 190 or so ABA-accredited law schools in the United States. When we are done, our student-faculty ratio should be among the top 75.

Most importantly, new professors expand our curriculum coverage. Students complain from time to time, with good reason, that we do not offer as many classes as we should in different areas and at different times. Each new professor will teach, in a typical year, two courses per semester, for a total of four courses per year. Our faculty hiring has been so successful that we are now using every available classroom during our peak periods, plus rooms not previously used for instructional purposes -- this space problem is why we must undertake the Keith Building, a subject to be taken up later.

In addition, new professors enhance our reputation. We have a strong tradition of academic excellence that is based on the scholarly work of our faculty whether through casebooks, treatises, popular books, law review articles or interdisciplinary research. Each new professor who is tenured or tenure-track is expected to publish regularly, and as they do so they will raise our national profile.

Finally, new full-time professors reduce our reliance on part-time teachers. The ABA and the AALS (Association of American Law Schools) have rules that emphasize the importance of full-time professors. We have enjoyed the benefits of a terrific part-time professors as well, many of them our alumni, but we must have better ratio of full-time to part-time professors. Indeed, with more tenured/tenure-track professors, we also will be able to maintain our current level of adjunct professors without violating the relevant rules.

We are already making significant progress. In 2005-06, we welcomed four individuals to the full-time faculty (Erica Beecher-Monas, Jocelyn Benson, Paul Dubinsky, and Noah Hall). There has never been as much hiring as was done last year. For 2006-07, we welcome eight individuals who are new and welcome back two individuals who have long-standing relationships with the Law School. They are as follows, in alphabetical order.

Derek Bambauer is a professor who specializes in intellectual property. He joins us from Harvard University, where he was a Research Fellow.

Linda Beale is a professor who specializes in tax. She joins us from the faculty of University of Illinois, where she was the Richard W. and Maria L. Corman Scholar and where she had taught since 2001.

Susan Cancelosi is a professor who specializes in elder law and ERISA. She joins us from the University of Houston, where she was a Research Professor.

Steven Davidoff is a professor who specializes in corporate law. He joins us from practice in London, England, with the Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Sherman & Sterling law firms.

Lance Gable is a professor who specializes in health law. He joins us from Georgetown University, where he was a Professorial Lecturer.

Peggy Leibowitz is a visiting professor who specializes in labor law. A labor arbitrator, she has previously taught at Cornell, New York Law School, and Baruch College (CUNY).

Larry Mann rejoins us on a full-time basis in the fall semester. He has been on a leave of absence practicing with the Bowman & Brooke law firm, specializing in defense of product liability claims.

Tiki McCarthy is a legal research and writing instructor. She joins us from the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office, and she also is an alumnus of our Law School.

Dana Roach is a clinical professor who will be developing a Small Business Clinic. She joins us from University of Michigan, where she was a Visiting Professor.

Remco Van Rhee returns as a short-term visiting professor. A law professor at Maastrict University in the Netherlands, he has come twice before.

Please join me in welcoming all of our new and returning faculty.

This year’s hiring program is already well underway. Traditionally, it is the law faculty that plays the primary role in selecting new colleagues. Most faculty regard decisions about faculty hiring as among the most important decisions they make as professors and each such decision is considered with great care. An Appointments Committee, named by the Dean, interviews the candidates and makes recommendations to the tenured/tenure-track faculty. The faculty then must vote in favor of an appointment without “substantial opposition” in order for the Dean to extend an offer; this rule has been interpreted by prior deans as requiring a two-thirds supermajority. Neither the Dean nor the Associate Dean typically votes on whether to approve of a specific candidate.

The Chair of the Appointments Committee this year is Professor Jonathan Weinberg. The members are Professors Erica Beecher-Monas, John Dolan, Joan Mahoney, and, switching between them because of sabbaticals, Peter Hammer and C.J. Peters. I have asked them to emphasize the fields of ADR, civil procedure, criminal procedure, labor law, and family law, though they will consider promising candidates in other fields as well. I have also asked them to consider diversity, in a constitutionally permissible manner.

Most but not all entry-level hiring is done through the AALS Faculty Recruitment Conference, an annual event for which candidates register and where schools rent suites for two days of half-hour preliminary interviews. Lateral candidates, meaning individuals holding full-time positions in law teaching, typically contact the Law School, are referred to the Appointments Committee, or are sought out by the Appointments Committee based on recommendations from our current faculty. Academic positions are highly competitive. It is not unusual for attorneys holding the most prestigious jobs in day-to-day practice to be turned down for even a preliminary interview: senior partners at the top law firms, for example, are routinely passed over.

The continuing success of the Appointments Committee will ensure our positive future.