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I have been an interviewee and an interviewer dozens upon dozens of times in my legal career. As a professor, drawing on my interviewing experience from both sides of the interview table, I spend a fair amount of time giving my students comments on their resumes and giving them advice before they go on interviews. Below are some of the comments that I find myself making consistently.

Generally, I think employers want to know three basics things about you as an interviewee: (1) are you capable?; (2) are you likeable? and (3) are you dedicated? (For the purposes of this post, I am going to assume you haven’t given the employer any reason to question your intergrity, but, obviously, integrity is also extremely important.)

I describe each category in greater detail, and provide advice, after the break.

Cal western
A California Western faculty member provided me with the announcement below (the emphasis is mine for the benefit of our readers):

CALIFORNIA WESTERN SCHOOL OF LAW in San Diego invites applications for an entry-level, tenure-track faculty position to begin in the fall of 2015.  Our curricular needs are in Family Law, Business Law, and Clinical Teaching.  We are particularly, though not exclusively, interested in candidates who are interested in teaching in our Clinical Internship Program, as well as in one of the above-mentioned subject areas.   Candidates who would contribute to the diversity of our faculty are strongly encouraged to apply.  Interested candidates should email their materials to Professor Scott Ehrlich, Chair of the Faculty Appointments Committee, at sbe@cwsl.edu.  California Western is San Diego’s oldest law school.  We are an independent, ABA-approved, not-for-profit law school committed to producing practice-ready lawyers.  California Western is an equal opportunity employer.

Rebecca Schuman authored a recent article in Slate entitled Syllabus Tyrannus: The decline and fall of the American university is written in 25-page course syllabi.

In the article Schuman complains that in the last twenty years syllabi have grown from 1-2 page simple documents with only the course location, required books, and assignments to “Ten, 15, even 20 pages of policies, rubrics, and required administrative boilerplate, some so ludicrous (“course-specific expected learning outcomes”) that I myself have never actually read parts of my own syllabi all the way through.”

While I won’t go as far as Professor Paul Horwitz goes in criticizing Schuman’s writing, I do want to push back a bit on her critique of “course-specific expected learning outcomes.” 

I admit that bloated syllabi can be a bit cumbersome, but drafting what we at Belmont call “course objectives” can be a helpful process and can lead to important changes in the course. Believe it or not, each semester I look at my course objectives, evaluate whether they were met, and revise my courses as necessary. My course objectives have reminded me that I shouldn’t drop that undergraduate group presentation assignment, no matter how difficult it gets logistically.

Students often ask me how they can improve their performance in my classes. There’s one thing they can do that will increase their learning with no additional work on their part: stop multitasking.

Multitasking is bad. The research is clear: students, even today’s students who grew up multitasking, learn less when they’re doing other things at the same time. See, for example, here and here. It’s a very simple point: if you surf the Internet, email, text, instant message, talk on the phone, or watch TV while you’re studying (or in the classroom), you learn less. Effective study (and work) requires focus.

It’s such an easy, effortless way to improve learning: just focus exclusively on what you’re reading, without any distractions. Turn off instant messaging. Close the web browser and the email program. Silence your phone. Turn off the TV.

I make that point to my students at the beginning of my classes.  but, for some of them, it just doesn’t sink in. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me: people text while they’re driving even as the casualties continue to mount.

I recently found an exercise on the Internet that illustrates the point in a straightforward, simple way. I’m…

I love a good debate and appreciate the opportunity (provided by Professor Bainbridge’s thoughtful post yesterday) to engage a bit more deeply on the thesis of Wednesday’s post suggesting an approach for how to incorporate Citizens United and Hobby Lobby into the survey BA/Corporations course. 

By way of recap and ruthless summary, Stephen Bainbridge wants nothing to do with these issues (or other constitutional law questions) in his course because of the:

  1. Existing emphasis of public law over private law and resulting imbalance in law school curriculum;
  2. False impression that constitutional law is the holy grail of law teaching and practice;
  3. These cases present a hornet’s nest of controversial and divisive topics; and
  4. Coverage constraints.  The menu options of what we can (should) teach is already more ambitious than time allows.

And to no surprise to anyone, anywhere:  Stephen Bainbridge is right on the money with all of these points.

As a survey course and one that almost every student in my law school (Georgia State) takes, I feel a responsibility to provide context for the subject matter that we teach and to do my best to “hook” students who didn’t come to my class with an…

This summer, on the recommendation of two colleagues, I read Mindset by Carol Dweck (Stanford Psychology Professor).

On Wednesday, in my first set of fall semester classes, I mentioned Dweck’s descriptions of “fixed mindset” and “growth mindset” because I thought it might be helpful for students to consider.    

Dweck says that those with a “fixed mindset” embrace a static view of intelligence, avoid challenges, get defensive in the face of obstacles and criticism, and are threatened by the success of others.  People with a “fixed mindset” view failure as a negative verdict on their worth as a person. (pg. 244-46).  

In contrast, Dweck says that those with a “growth mindset” believe that intelligence can be developed, embrace challenges, persist and learn in the face of obstacles and criticism, and are inspired by the success of others.  People with a “growth mindset” view failure as an opportunity to learn and improve. (pg. 244-46).

To be clear, I (and Dweck) realize that there are limits to personal growth – otherwise I would be at an NFL practice right now instead of blogging – but it is helpful to realize that we can generally improve substantially with effort.   

In the…

At West Virginia University College of Law, we started classes yesterday, and I taught my first classes of the year: Energy Law in the morning and Business Organizations in the afternoon.  As I  do with a new year coming, I updated and revised my Business Organizations course for the fall.  Last year, I moved over to using Unicorporated Business Entities, of which I am a co-author.  I have my own corporations materials that I use to supplement the book so that I cover the full scope of agency, partnerships, LLCs, and corporations.  So far, it’s worked  pretty well.  I spent several  years with  Klein, Ramseyer and Bainbridge’s Business Associations, Cases and Materials on Agency, Partnerships, and Corporations (KRB), which is a great casebook, in its own right.

I did not make the change merely (or even mostly) because I am a co-author. I made the change because I like the structure we use in our book. I had been trying to work with KRB in my structure, but this book is designed to teach in with the organization I prefer, which is more topical than entity by entity.  I’ll note that a little while ago, my co-blogger Steve…

Over at PrawfsBlawg, on a post comparing the SEALS and AALS conferences, an anonymous commenter questioned the value of academic conferences.

In this economic environment, many schools are tightening their belts.  A number of schools have made cuts to funds for travel and professional development. 

Below, I list some of the areas in which conferences can provide benefits. 

Teaching.  At most conferences I attend, I attend at least one panel on pedagogy.  In addition, many of the panels provide new material for classes.  Also, fellow professors may be more willing to share teaching materials, which can be invaluable, if they have met you in person at a conference.

Service.  Conferences are often the hub for discipline-related service.  Many, if not most, of my external service opportunities have come from other professors I met at conferences.

Research.  You can receive excellent comments on your papers at conferences and are much more likely to get other professors to review your work if you have met them in person.  Also, a number of the people who have cited my work are people I met at conferences.  

Professional Development.  Much of our time as professors is spent with students…

A brief ten-question survey is one of the most effective tools I have used in my three years as an academic. I first used one when teaching professional responsibility and then used it for my employment law, corporate governance seminar, and business associations courses. I’m using it for the first time with my civil procedure students. I count class participation in all of my classes for a portion of their grade, and responding to the survey link by the first day of class is their first “A” or first “F” of the semester.

I use survey monkey but other services would work as well. The survey serves a number of uses. First, I will get an idea of how many students actually read my emails before next Tuesday’s first day of class—interestingly as of Thursday morning, 62% of my incoming 1Ls have completed their survey, while 42% of the BA students have done theirs. Second, my BA students work in mini law firms for a number of drafting exercises and simulations. The students can pick their own firms, but I designate a “financial expert” to each firm based upon the survey responses. I remind them that they should never leave …

The New York Times spotlighted Michigan State’s Reinvent Law Laboratory and Entrepreneurial Startup Competition in this article.

“[P]ushing its students to understand business and technology so that they can advise entrepreneurs in coming fields. The school wants them to think of themselves as potential founders of start-ups as well, and to operate fluidly in a legal environment that is being transformed by technology.”

The article also highlights University of Colorado’s Tech Lawyer Accelerator.

Fascinating stuff.  What is your school doing, if anything, on this front?

-Anne Tucker