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 I subscribe to a few helpful law-related listservs:

All of these listservs provide useful information, through the helpful e-mails from the participants. Especially for those of us at business schools, where we do not have many legally trained colleagues, access to the collective wisdom of those on the listserv is invaluable. Occasionally, however, the listservs produce an avalanche of uninteresting e-mails. The LLC listserv allows the option of getting a single weekly digest of the discussion, which I prefer, though the Yahoo! formatting of the digest is unattractive and cumbersome.

What law-related listservs do you enjoy? Any thoughts on the best (free) platform for listservs?

At least two law reviews currently have exclusive submission windows. See below for details.

Exclusive submission windows seem like a good idea, in general, and more law reviews seem to be using them recently. Most of the traditional peer reviewed journals already require exclusive submissions and it is nice to see some law reviews following along. The exclusivity requirement should cut down, substantially, on the number of submissions, allowing for a more thorough review. Exclusivity will also likely lead to some helpful self-selection because professors will not want to submit to a journal that is either too far above their target (unlikely to be accepted, which will delay their process) or below their target (may be accepted and they will be prevented from trading up). 

I still think more law journals should move to blind review, which these exclusive submission window announcements do not promise, but the fact that exclusive submission windows cut submissions to a manageble number is important as well. While law review websites usually say the editors review each submitted article carefully, I find that unlikely when some of those law reviews get 2,000 or more submissions. The editors don’t even have time to read each abstract…

The West Virginia University College of Law is seeking applications and nominations to replace our former dean, Joyce McConnell, who is now the provost of the University. The College of Law just completed the addition of a new wing (part of a $26 million infrastructure project), and has made significant and exciting progress. We’re seeking a dean who can help continue that trend.  

WVUSunrise
Sunrise at WVU College of Law

Admitting my bias, WVU is a great place to be. It’s beautiful, especially in the fall, and we have access to much more than many people recognize.  In addition to a solid opportunities to enjoy music and the arts in Morgantown, we’re a lot closer to other areas of interest, if big city access is desired. We’re 75 miles to Pittsburgh; about 3 hours and 15 minutes to Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Cleveland, OH; 6 hours to New York City; a little less to Niagara Falls; 5 hours to Philadelphia, PA, and Lexington, KY. You get the idea.  

Sunset
Sunset at the WVU College of Law

The posting is below. Please apply if you are interested, and please share this with anyone else you think might be interested.  And, of course, please feel free to contact me directly with any questions. 

http://employmentservices.hr.wvu.edu/wvu_jobs/non-classified_positions/dean-of-the-west-virginia-university-college-of-law

The full posting is available at the link above or just click the button below. 

The following announcement comes to us from Alicia Plerhoples (Georgetown).  The 14th annual transactional clinic conference will be held at UMKC School of Law in Kansas City, Missouri and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is serving as a host partner. Proposals are due by December 15, 2014 and more information about the conference is available after the break.

14TH ANNUAL TRANSACTIONAL CLINICAL CONFERENCE

CALL FOR PROPOSALS, PAPERS, & PANELISTS

Teaching and Writing Methods of the Transactional Clinician

This year’s conference theme is Teaching and Writing Methods of the Transactional Clinician. The conference will have two tracks: (1) a “Nuts & Bolts” Teacher Workshop and (2) a “Pen & Paper” Scholarship Workshop. The Planning Committee seeks proposals for (1) presentations, (2) papers, and (3) panelists as outlined below.   

256px-Alison_Lundergan_Grimes

(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, by Patrick Delahanty from Louisville, United States)

Alison Lundergan Grimes and I both graduated from Rhodes College, a small liberal arts college in Memphis, TN. I have not spoken to Alison since college, so I was surprised to see her mentioned on CNN a number of weeks ago as the democratic nominee for U.S. Senator from Kentucky. Since then, she has been in the news quite a bit. She will face Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in what has turned into one of the hotter Senate races this year.    

Even in college I did not know Alison well, but we did take a public speaking class together. Alison was the type of student who was often in a suit and pearls in class, while I wore flip flops year-round and whatever wrinkled, Goodwill-purchased clothes were the most clean. She was a Chi Omega (easily the most refined group on campus), and I was a part of the football team for all four years (if there was a rowdier group on campus than the football team, it was the rugby club, which I joined because my playing time on the football team was…

I plan to write a more traditional blog post later if I have time, but I am in the midst of midterm grading hell. I was amused today in class when a student compared the drama of the Francis v. United Jersey Bank case with the bankruptcy, bank, and mortgage fraud convictions of husband and wife Joe and Teresa Guidice from the reality TV hit the Real Housewives of New Jersey.

I had provided some color commentary courtesy of Reinier Kraakman and Jay Kesten’s The Story of Francis v. United Jersey Bank: When a Good Story Makes Bad Law, and apparently Mrs. Pritchard’s defenses reminded the student of Teresa Guidice’s pleas of ignorance. Other than being stories about New Jersey fraudsters, there aren’t a lot of similarities between the cases. Based on my quick skim of the indictment I don’t think that Teresa served on the board of any of the companies at issue–Joe apparently had an LLC and was the sole member, and the vast majority of the counts against the couple relate to their individual criminal conduct. In addition, Teresa is also going to jail, and no one suffered that fate in United Jersey.

Georgetown University Law Center invites applicants interested in establishing and teaching in a transactional clinic.  This position is tenure track. The successful applicant will begin on July 1, 2015.  Georgetown seeks to add to its spectrum of business related clinics. Currently we offer clinics that teach business formation in the field of social entrepreneurship, community development and strategic planning, and that assist low income residents in the acquisition, renovation, and operation of their buildings as long-term affordable housing.

At Georgetown Law, professors dedicated to clinical teaching are fully integrated into the faculty. Both entry level and lateral hires are urged to apply. The person selected for this position would join our large clinical community, develop the clinic, be assisted by a clinical fellow and teach the clinic each semester.

The successful applicant will have a strong commitment to promoting access to justice and a demonstrated interest in nurturing student development.  Candidates must demonstrate intellectual engagement including scholarly promise (for entry-level candidates) or be a proven scholar (for lateral candidates).  Successful applicants will also have subject-matter expertise and a positive reputation in the field, the communication, organizational and collaborative skills necessary to direct and manage a clinic and a commitment to teaching…

As on-campus interviews slow down, a lot of students now are coming to me looking for cover letter advice.  Since co-blogger Haskell Murray more-or-less asked me to write on this topic in response to a comment on his super post on resumes and interviews, I thought I would take the bait.  My principal thoughts on the subject are set forth below the fold.  Some of my observations and elements of my advice are conservative and anally compulsive, I know.  But consider the source:  I worked in Big Law for fifteen years before I started teaching law and served on a number of office hiring committees over that time. 

Thee are many good websites out there on cover letter drafting.  Most of the advice they give is good, but it is somewhat varied.  There are some things common and traditional in law job cover letters that may help students sift through the Internet prattle and settle on specific approaches.  That’s the overlay I hope to offer here.

Earlier, I posted a list of legal studies positions in business schools.

Today, I decided to go through the helpful PrawfsBlawg spreadsheet on hiring committees to draw out the law schools that listed at least one business law area of interest. The PrawfsBlawg spreadsheet is a few months old, so it is possible that the schools’ needs have changed somewhat in the interim. Also, many schools did not list any specific areas of interest, but hopefully this list is still helpful to our readers.

If readers know of any other law schools that have an interest in hiring in one or more business law areas, please leave the school name in the comments (with a link to the posting, if possible) or send me an email. Updated positions (that are not on the PrawfsBlawg list) will include a link to the posting, if possible. 

Updated 1/5/14

Alabama (business law)

Belmont (business law)

California Western (business associations)

Campbell (financial regulation)

Detroit Mercy (business law)

Florida A&M (business law)

Florida State (business law)

Fordham (international economic law)

Georgetown (transactional clinic, tenure track)

Loyola (Los Angeles) (associate clinical professor/director of business law practicum)

Maryland (business law)

North Carolina (corporate finance, international business…