Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Fellowships For Aspiring Law Professors (2011 Edition)
Update: Fellowships For Aspiring Law Professors (2022-23 Edition)
For practitioners and others contemplating joining the law professor ranks, many law schools offer wonderful opportunities to transition into the legal academy with one- or two-year fellowships which allow you to enter the AALS Faculty Recruitment Conference (the "meat market") with published scholarship (and in many cases teaching experience) under your belt (spreadsheet here):
- Alabama: Hugo Black Fellowship Program (for Supreme Court clerks)
- Arizona State: Visiting Assistant Professor Program
- Boston University:
- Brooklyn: Visiting Assistant Professor Program
- California Western: Legal Scholars Teaching Fellowship Program
- Chicago:
- Chicago-Kent: Visiting Assistant Professor Program and IP Fellowship Program
- Columbia:
- Connecticut: Visiting Assistant Professor Program (contact Peter Lindseth)
- Cornell: Visiting Assistant Professor Program
- Duke: Visiting Assistant Professor Program and Center for Public Genomics (CpG) Fellowship
- Federalist Society: Olin/Searle/Smith Fellows in Law Program
- Florida: Visiting Assistant Professor Program (Tax)
- George Washington: Frank H. Marks Visiting Associate Professor of Law and Administrative Fellow in the Intellectual Property Law Program
- Georgetown:
- Harvard:
- Byse Fellowships
- Climenko Fellowship
- Kauffman Legal Fellowship (for Harvard Law alumni)
- Reginald F. Lewis Fellowship for Law Teaching
- Petrie-Flom Fellowships in Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics
- Post-Graduate Fellowship in International Law (for Harvard Law alumni)
- Post-Graduate Fellowship in Public Law (for Harvard Law alumni)
- Post-Graduate Research Fellowship Program (for Harvard Law alumni)
- Program on Negotiation Research Fellowships
- Raoul Berger Visiting Fellowship in Legal History
- Visiting Assistant Professor Program
- Illinois: Academic Fellowship Program
- Loyola-Chicago: Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies Research Fellowship
- Loyola-L.A.: Visiting Assistant Professor (Tax)
- Loyola-New Orleans: Westerfield Fellows Program
- LSU: Future Law Teachers Fellowship Program
- Memphis: Tennessee Board of Regents Access and Diversity Assistant Professorship
- New York University:
- Northwestern:
- Pennsylvania:
- Penn State: Shughart Fellowship Program
- Princeton: Law and Public Affairs Fellowship
- Seattle:
- Stanford:
- Center for Ethics in Society
- Center for Internet & Society Teaching Fellowship Program
- Center for Internet & Society and Constitutional Law Center Joint Fellowship
- Center for Law and the Biosciences
- Center on the Legal Profession
- Clinical Teaching Fellowship Program
- CodeX: Center for Computers and Law
- Constitutional Law Center
- Criminal Justice Center
- Environmental and Natural Resources Policy Program
- Legal Research & Writing Teaching Fellowship Program
- Rock Center for Corporate Governance
- Stetson: Jacobs Fellows Program
- Temple: Abraham L. Freedman Graduate Teaching Fellowship Program
- Texas: Emerging Scholars Program
- Thomas Jefferson: Legal Research & Writing Teaching Fellowship
- Tulane:
- UC-Berkeley: Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, Microsoft Research Fellowship
- UCLA:
- Wake Forest: Visiting Assistant Professor Program
- Washington University: Visiting Faculty Fellows Program
- University of Windsor: Visiting Assistant Professor Program
- Wisconsin:
- Windsor: Visiting Assistant Professor Program
- Yale: Fellowship Home Page (for Yale grads)
- Robert L. Bernstein Fellowships in International Human Rights
- Robert M. Cover Fellowship
- Robert M. Cover-Allard K. Lowenstein Fellowship in International Human Rights Law
- Heyman Federal Public Service Fellowship Program
- Howard M. Holtzmann Fellowships in International Dispute Resolution
- Information Society Project (law and technology)
- International Court of Justice Internship/Clerkship
- Arthur Liman Public Interest Fellowship
- Mary A. McCarthy Fellowships in Public Interest Law
- Irving S. Ribicoff Fellowship Program
- Oscar M. Ruebhausen Fellowship Program
- Oscar M. Ruebhausen South Asia Fellowship Program
- San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project Fellowship
- YLS Fellowship at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (The Hague)
For more information on becoming a law professor, including a discussion of the advantages of these fellowship programs, see:
- Jack Chin (Arizona) & Denise Morgan (New York Law School),Breaking Into the Academy: The 2002-2004 Michigan Journal of Race & Law Guide for Aspiring Law Professors, 7 Mich. J. Race & L. 457 (2002)
- Glenn Cohen (Harvard):
- Why Not/Do a Fellowship
- So You Are a Fellow, What Exactly Does That Mean?
- Job Market Timetable
- Recommenders and the Entry-Level Job Market
- The Meat Market Is Like ... The Meat Market
- Asking Questions on the Job Market - Part 1: Before the Offer
- Asking Questions on the Job Market - Part II: About the Offer
- James D. Gordon III (BYU), An Insider's Guide to the Faculty Recruitment Conference, 43 J. Legal Educ. 301 (1993)
- Eric Goldman (Santa Clara), Careers in Law Teaching
- Law Crossing, Becoming a Law Professor: Part 1 and Part 2
- Brian Leiter (Texas), Information and Advice for Persons Interested in Teaching Law
- Kevin Maillard (Syracuse), Visiting Assistant Professor List (VAP) 2009-2010
- National Law Journal, New Law School Programs Give Attorneys a Shot at Visiting Assistant Professorships
- Rick Swedloff (Temple VAP), The Fellowship of the (Hi)Ring
- Brad Wendel (Cornell), The Big Rock Candy Mountain: How to Get a Job in Law Teaching
- David Zaring (Washington & Lee), Whether a Fellow or a Visitor Be
- Don Zillman (Maine), Marina Angel (Temple), Jan Laitos (Denver), George Pring (Denver) & Joseph Tomain (Cincinnati), Uncloaking Law School Hiring: A Recruit's Guide to the Faculty Recruitment Conference, 39 J. Legal Educ. 345 (1988)
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2011/02/fellowships-for-aspiring-law-professors-2010-11-edition.html
Comments
Fellowships and VAPs are like Tax Colloquia -- everybody has one, so why shouldn't we. (The tax colloquium circuit almost being like a junket merely to travel around the country instead of just to NYU like in the old days.)
And even if fellowships and VAPs had not proliferated, just like the private sector (law firms/Big 4) and public sector (IRS/Treasury/DoJ), the stream of candidates to become profs seems to have steadily increased (hey, there are no jobs anywhere else, so why not teach) while the number of positions have not, and many law schools face budgetary pressures (see a couple of posts above about buyer's remorse by law students and schools slashing and burning everyone and everything to stay afloat).
Posted by: tax guy | Feb 17, 2011 6:39:04 PM
We have a program like this at Kentucky. Our graduates can apply to visit for a year or two years I think. It seems like a good idea.
Posted by: Rick Underwood | Feb 17, 2011 4:49:15 AM
In addition to the Marks VAP, GW has the following fellowships:
o Friedman Fellowships
o Environmental Law Fellowship
o International Law Fellowship
o Public Interest Fellowship
o Experiential Learning Program Fellowship
o Gruber Family Foundation International Court of Justice Fellowship
Posted by: Edward Swaine | Feb 16, 2011 7:42:22 PM
Seems as though the formal deadline for most of these programs has long passed. Any idea if any are still open to receiving applications?
Posted by: me | Feb 16, 2011 4:25:14 PM
The original list omits American University Washington College of Law, where our Practitioner-in-Residence program (usually three years) provides teaching experience (both clinical and classroom) and the opportunity to write. Our program has produced numerous tenure-track faculty members.
Posted by: Nancy Polikoff | Feb 20, 2011 8:33:41 AM