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My October included some signifiant tricks and a bunch of parallel treats.  I will highlight but a few of each here.  They illustrate, in my view, the busy mid-semester lives that law professors may have.

The Tricks

It was a real trick for me to give three distinct presentations in three cities (two in person and one virtually) in a two-day period early in the month.  On the morning of October 6, I participated in a panel discussion at The Crowdfunding Conference in New York City (New York).  That afternoon, I jumped on a plane for Little Rock (Arkansas), where I gave a continuing legal education presentation on crowdfunding for the Arkansas Bar Association as part of a program on “Capital Raising Today and Securities Law Issues.”  Finally, later that day, I was Skyped into a the North Carolina Law Review 2016 annual symposium in Chapel Hill (North Carolina) on “The Role of Law in Entrepreneurship,” at which I presented a draft paper, forthcoming in the North Carolina Law Review, on the important role of business finance lawyers in entrepreneurial enterprise.  

It then was a trick to refocus my energy on faculty hiring a few days later.

Building on Joan’s personal reflection about her time in practice and stemming from a conversation with a student this week, I decided to post (and solicit comments) on the BigLaw practice areas that are most/least conducive to part-time work or work while raising children. While no practice areas in BigLaw are well known for being incredibly flexible, it did appear that certain practice areas were more flexible than others.

In my view, tax appeared to be the most flexible practice group area and M&A (my first practice group area) appeared to be the least flexible. Granted, I never practiced tax law, but as an M&A attorney you solicit comments from many areas within the firm and you get a sense of their schedules.

The advantages of the tax group were a high billing rate (some of the very highest in the firm) and a lot of piecemeal, often not urgent, work. Sure, we “urgently” needed tax comments on most of our deals, and when clients are paying BigLaw rates, they almost always want a prompt response. But in my limited experience, the tax lawyers controlled their timelines more so than any of the other attorneys I worked with. There were…

Fresh on the heels of reading several Dean search announcements come across email the last several days, the following ABA article on the rise of female Law Deans caught my eye: Cynthia L. Cooper, Women Ascend in Deanships as Law Schools Undergo Dramatic Change, ABA Perspectives Summer 2016.

The list of current deanship openings is available at The Faculty Lounge, as well as a run down of of positions filled last year.

Sorry folks…sick little one on my hands today!

-Anne Tucker

The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Annual Meeting will be held Tuesday, January 3 – Saturday, January 7, 2017, in San Francisco.  Readers of this blog who may be interested in programs associated with the AALS Section on Socio-Economics & the Society of Socio-Economics should click on the following link for the complete relevant schedule: 

Download Socio-Economic AALS Participants + Descriptions 161018

Specifically, I’d like to highlight the following programs:

On Wednesday, Jan. 4:

9:50 – 10:50 AM Concurrent Sessions:

  1. The Future of Corporate Governance:
    How Do We Get From Here to Where We Need to Go?
    andre cummings (Indiana Tech)                            Steven Ramirez (Loyola – Chicago)
    Lynne Dallas (San Diego) – Co-Moderator        Janis Sarra (British Columbia)
    Kent Greenfield (Boston College)                        Faith Stevelman (New York)
    Daniel Greenwood (Hofstra)                                 Kellye Testy (Dean, Washington)
    Kristin Johnson (Seton Hall)                                 Cheryl Wade (St. John’s ) Co-Moderator
    Lyman Johnson (Washington and Lee)
  2. Socio-Economics and Whistle-Blowers
    William Black (Missouri – KC)                                 Benjamin Edwards (Barry)
    June Carbone (Minnesota) – Moderator             Marcia Narine (St. Thomas)

1:45 – 2:45 PM Concurrent Sessions:

1. What is a Corporation?
Robert Ashford (Syracuse) Moderator                             Stefan Padfield (Akron)
Tamara Belinfanti (New York)                                             Sabeel Rahman (Brooklyn)
Daniel Greenwood (Hofstra)

On Thursday, Jan. …

Belmont University College of Law in Nashville, TN has posted a professor opening and the school’s areas of interest include business law. My appointment is in Belmont’s business school, but I also occasionally teach in the law school, and I could not recommend the school (or the city of Nashville) more highly. I have updated my business law professor openings post here and am happy to add other postings. 

—————-

Belmont University College of Law, located in vibrant Nashville, Tennessee, invites applications from entry- to mid-level candidates for a tenure-track faculty position to begin in 2017-18.  Our primary areas of recruiting focus include criminal law, business law, and health law.

Applicants should have an exemplary academic record and should demonstrate outstanding achievement or potential in scholarship and teaching.  Our goal is to recruit dynamic, bright, and highly motivated individuals who are interested in making significant contributions to our law school and its students.  Practice experience is preferred, and teaching experience is desirable.  For more information about the College of Law, visit our website at www.belmont.edu/law.

Belmont University College of Law is an ABA accredited law school with approximately 300 students in the heart of Nashville, one of the fastest growing…

Job posting from an e-mail I recently received:

——————–

The UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA COLLEGE OF LAW invites applications for

lateral candidates for a tenured faculty position to hold the Clayton K. Yeutter Chair at

the College of Law. This chaired faculty position will be one of four faculty members to

form the core of the newly-formed, interdisciplinary Clayton K. Yeutter Institute for

International Trade and Finance. The Institute also will include the Duane Acklie Chair at

the College of Business Associations, the Michael Yanney Chair at the College of

Agricultural Sciences, and the Haggart/Works Professorship for International Trade at the

College of Law. The Yeutter Chair, along with the other three professors, will be

expected to support the work and objectives and ensure the success of the Yeutter

Institute. The Yeutter Chair will teach courses at the College of Law, including

International Finance. Other courses may include Corporate Finance and/or other related

classes pertaining to issues arising in international business and finance. More on the

Yeutter Institute can be found at http://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/today/article/giftsestablish-

endowed-chairs-for-yeutter-institute/ .

 

Minimum Required Qualifications: J.D Degree or Equivalent; Superior Academic

Record; Outstanding Record of Scholarship in International Finance and/or other areas

related to international business; and…

Today, I received the position announcement below from my friend Alicia Plerhoples (Georgetown), who is doing exciting things in the social enterprise and nonprofit areas. This is an excellent opportunity, and I think anyone would be fortunate to work with her and her clinic. 

——– 

Georgetown University Law Center –
Graduate Teaching Fellowship, Social Enterprise & Nonprofit Law Clinic

Description of the Clinic

The Social Enterprise & Nonprofit Law Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center offers pro bono corporate and transactional legal services to social enterprises, nonprofit organizations, and select small businesses headquartered in Washington, D.C. and working locally or internationally. Through the Clinic, law students learn to translate theory into practice by engaging in the supervised practice of law for educational credit. The Clinic’s goals are consistent with Georgetown University’s long tradition of public service. The Clinic’s goals are to:

  • Teach law students the materials, expectations, strategies, and methods of transactional lawyering, as well as an appreciation for how transactional law can be used in the public interest.

  • Represent social enterprises and nonprofit organizations in corporate and transactional legal matters.

  • Facilitate the growth of social enterprise in the D.C. area.

    The clinic’s local focus not only allows the

…

JLSE

The Journal of Legal Studies Education (“JLSE“) is accepting article and case study submissions. The JLSE is a peer-reviewed legal journal focused on pedagogy. In 2015, I published a case study with the JLSE, had an excellent experience, and received helpful comments from the reviewers. The announcement is below:

——————

The Journal of Legal Studies Education is seeking submissions of manuscripts. The JLSE publishes refereed articles, teaching tips, and review of books.  Manuscripts must relate to teaching, research, or related disciplines such as business ethics, business and society, public policy and individual areas of business law related specialties. The Editorial Board selects high quality manuscripts that are of interest to a substantial portion of its readers. 

The JLSE is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal.

Please submit directly to Stephanie Greene, JLSE Editor-in-Chief, at stephanie.greene@bc.edu.

Stephanie M. Greene

Chair, Business Law Department

Professor, Business Law

Carroll School of Management

Boston College

Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

In January 2015, I wrote about a resolution to take a break from e-mails on Saturdays.

That resolution failed, quickly.

Since then, I have been thinking a lot about my relationship with e-mail.

On one hand, I get a lot of positive feedback from students and colleagues about my responsiveness. On the other hand, constantly checking and responding to e-mails seems to cut against productivity on other (often more important) tasks.

Five or six weeks ago, I started drafting this post, hoping to share it after at least one week of only checking my e-mail two times a day (11am and 4pm). Then I changed the goal to three times a day (11am, 4pm, and 9pm and then 5am, 11am, 4pm). Efforts to limit e-mail in that rigid way failed, even though very little of what I do requires a response in less than 24 hours. On the positive side, I have been relatively good, recently, at not checking my e-mail when I am at home and my children are awake. 

A few days ago, I read Andrew Sullivan’s Piece in the New York Magazine on “Distraction Sickness.” His piece is long, but worth reading. A short excerpt…

As you know, assessment is of critical importance these days, and I am confident that in a few years most, if not all, law school casebooks will come with effective, out-of-the-box, turnkey assessments. If you believe your book is already there, or even close, please send your pitch to me at spadfie@uakron.edu. Assuming no unforeseen problems, I plan to post these pitches here, as I am sure they will be of interest to many of our readers.