Statement of Good Practices for the Recruitment and Hiring of Entry-Level Faculty Members
The Association of American Law Schools recognizes that the processes used by law schools to recruit new faculty members into the legal academy have important implications for candidates, for schools competing for candidates, and for the culture of legal education. The Association also recognizes that flexibility in the recruitment and hiring process is important. Law schools have different needs and varying internal and external pressures at different times that make it difficult, even for an individual school, to follow the same process for every candidate. These difficulties multiply when one considers the many differences that contribute to each law school being unique. Even simple differences like size, budgetary flexibility, timing of budget cycles, and geographic location have an impact on how each school approaches the hiring process.
Nevertheless, there are some recruitment and hiring practices that raise concerns about fairness to candidates and about the unintended messages these practices might send about the culture of legal education.
Offers of employment that expire in advance of the Faculty Recruitment Conference: When a law school identifies a candidate through the Faculty Appointments Register associated with the Faculty Recruitment Conference (FRC), it is unfair to the candidate and to other member schools to make an offer of employment to that candidate that expires in advance of the FRC.
The Association recognizes that not all entry-level faculty members are found or hired through the AALS-sponsored Faculty Recruitment Conference (FRC), and that there is significant value added by entry-level recruitment and hiring activities that take place independent of the FRC. However, the FRC provides an open, vigorous, competitive market in which recruiting and hiring activity takes place. There is value in preserving that market. If a law school that identifies a candidate through the Faculty Appointments Register makes that candidate an offer that expires in advance of the FRC, the school may deprive that candidate of the chance to participate fully in the recruiting market impliedly promised to FRC registrants. At the very least, it puts a heavy burden on the candidate to turn down the offer in hand in order to more fully participate in the market. This practice is also unfair to other member schools whose dues support the FRC and who have an expectation that their support of the AALS and the FRC will give them an opportunity to seek interviews with candidates from the FRC pool at the conference. This practice, over time, might encourage other law schools to engage in similar behavior. Candidates who feel that they were unfairly pressured into accepting an early offer might choose to remain in the market to see what other offers might come their way. The potential for undermining the open and competitive market created by the FRC is obvious.
Offers of employment made at any time that expire in less than a week from when the offer was made: When a law school makes an offer of employment to an entry-level candidate (whether identified through the Faculty Appointments Register or not) it is a normal and desirable practice that the candidate be given at least two weeks to respond to the offer. Only in rare circumstances should a law school give a candidate less than one week to respond to an offer of employment.
The practice of making offers which expire after a specified date or period of time is common in legal education. When a school has specific hiring needs and a short list of candidates who in the school’s judgment meet those needs, it is often necessary to place a time limit on the offer made to the preferred candidate in order to insure that if that candidate should decline the offer, other acceptable candidates will still be available. AALS survey data indicates that when schools place time limits on offers, they are typically for periods of two weeks or longer, often with some willingness communicated to the candidate to extend the deadline for responding to the offer if the candidate finds it necessary or helpful to the decision-making process. There are occasions when a school will feel compelled to require a response to an offer in a shorter time frame with less flexibility, particularly if the list of available candidates that fill a specific need is very short and the candidates are highly sought after. However, response periods of less than one week should rarely be utilized because they impose a heavy burden on a candidate trying to make an important decision that will have a significant impact on the candidate’s future.
Adopted by the executive Committee,
May, 2007