So you want to be a law professor? Some advice for those transitioning from (military) practitioner to legal academic (Part 2)

Recently, the Judge Advocates Association (JAA) hosted a panel discussion designed to help military lawyers (called judge advocates or JAGs) considering making the transition from practicing attorney to legal academic.  The webcast participants shared lots of great information, so I thought a mini-series on the topic would-be interesting.  This is Part 2 of the series.

(Professor Mark Nevitt –a former Navy aviator and later JAG–kindly agreed to kick off the series with his reflections.  They are in Part 1 found here.)

Though this series is focused on those considering moving from practicing law in the armed forces to the halls of academia, I would suggest much of it is applicable to anyone wanting to teach in higher education (and particularly at law schools).  It also may help students and others understand what would be  professors face; it ‘pulls back the curtain’ so to speak.

Today we have my friend Professor Geoff Corn sharing his experiences.

What Matters, and What Doesn’t

Geoffrey Corn[1]

Understanding the hiring ‘operational environment’

I remember years ago participating in an academic symposium focused on Guantanamo detention. One of the participants was a soon to retire JAG officer who served as a judge for the Military Commission.

After our presentation, I asked of his post-retirement plans, and he shared his intent to participate in the Association of American Law School annual Faculty Recruitment Conference in Washington, D.C. – the meeting of almost all law school faculty recruitment committees that represents the first step in securing an offer to join a law school faculty. Like me several years earlier, his stated aim and ambition was to secure a tenure-track law professor offer.

I shared with this fellow JAG how unprepared I had been for the Conference the first time I attended during my final year of active military service. That year I had 6 screening interviews but no call-backs to participate in the second step in the hiring process.

My primary error, I explained, was my erroneous assumption that faculty recruitment committees would be interested in and substantially influenced by my experience. I shared how surprised I was by the overall characteristics of most candidates at that event: relatively new members of the profession with very limited (if any) practice experience. I suggested downplaying experience and emphasizing academic chops and interest in becoming a productive scholar.

The response from this retiring JAG, as I recall, was generally dismissive. The future faculty candidate expressed confidence that experience as a judge presiding over military war crimes trials would generate substantial interest.

I was not going to bicker; perhaps that unique experience coupled with years of JAG experience would generate a different outcome than I experienced. But I was skeptical. I hope the ambition came to fruition and this person became a law professor. But I do recall an email exchange a few months later in which he expressed disappointment – and frustration – that no law school had expressed interest.

I share this vignette for one purpose: to help those who are interested in joining a law school faculty as a tenure-track “doctrinal” law professor understand the hiring ‘operational environment’ they must navigate.

When I look back on my own hiring journey, I am especially disappointed in myself that I failed to adequately – or even moderately – engage in such a situational assessment. This failure was especially inexcusable considering my pre-JAG background as an intelligence officer.

Quite simply, I failed to conduct an intelligence preparation of the battlefield, and I paid a price for that. Fortunately, when I entered the market after spending my final year with the Army, I was much better prepared for the hiring environment, and the result was far different.

The hiring process

I was hired by South Texas College of Law as a tenure track faculty member in 2005. Since that time, I have advised many JAG officers who share a similar professional ambition. My advice to them is based on my experience as both a candidate and a faculty member engaged in the hiring process:

1. Law schools hiring for tenure-track positions are not going to be significantly influenced by your experience. Remember, most of the faculty members deciding whether to hire you did not have much experience when they joined academia. In fact, there may be some who question your scholarly commitment because you “wasted” too much time as a practitioner.

2. Remember, it is not the Dean that will make the hiring decision, it is the faculty. The Dean is the “deal closer”, but it is the faculty that will instruct the Dean what candidate to land.

3. Law schools may be ranked high or low, but the faculty at most law schools share very common characteristics: excellent academic pedigree, a sincere interest in scholarship, an almost instinctive interest in youth.

4. Almost all JAGs are natural teachers. That is what we do: teach, coach, and mentor. Most of us also have great experience as advocates. Some have taught at service schools. But don’t assume that quality as a teacher is going to be a high priority in the hiring process. Most law faculties are going to assess, in a 45-minute presentation known as a “job talk”, whether you are competent in front of a classroom. That’s about it. The scrutiny of your potential as a legal scholar will be a much higher priority.

5. There are some aspects of your application you cannot change: where you went to law school, your class rank, whether you were on law review, your demographics. So, focus on what matters to faculty that you can change: pedigree and evidence of scholarly interest and production potential.

a. Is it feasible for you to earn an LLM or maybe even an SJD from a highly ranked law school?

b. Have you established a record of scholarly production that can be coupled with an interesting, thoughtful research agenda (all schools require these).

c. Understand that military journals are alien to most law faculty members and will not have the same “shock effect” as a student-edited law school journal.

d. If you don’t have a record of publication, do you have one or two works in progress that you can credibly speak to?

e. Do you have a scholarly agenda: what topics/ideas do you want to explore during the first five years as a faculty member? And can you communicate those ideas to a hiring committee?

6. As military professionals, we tend to approach events like interviews in way that non-military faculty members will often perceive as “stiff” or “cold.” Be cognizant of that.

a. Remember, the hiring committee is deciding what small number of candidates it will present to the full faculty for the on campus job talk and a series of all-day interviews. They know the faculty will be critical if they present someone who falls flat.

b. Remember also that one of the things the faculty is assessing is whether you are a candidate they want as a colleague for a very long time; someone they will enjoy getting to know and sharing law school life with.

7. Emphasize an interest in teaching big first-year classes. You may be an expert in a more specialized topic: cyber, government contracts, professional responsibility, national security law. But if you market yourself as a candidate just for those upper-level electives will seriously undermine your application.

Law schools are normally seeking to fill core first-year classes. Emphasize your interest in supporting the law school mission and a willingness to teach what is needed and generally aligned with your expertise (for example, almost every JAG is an ideal criminal law teacher). Express interest in upper-level courses but don’t restrict yourself to them.

Concluding thoughts

Finally, understand that faculty hiring can be both fickle and arbitrary. There is no consistency to who, when, and where hiring occurs. So be flexible and prepared to respond to any law school that express interest in your candidacy.

And don’t get discouraged if you don’t achieve your goal the first time you pitch yourself. Build positive connections through the process. One of the law schools that dismissed me after a screening interview my first go-round was the same law school that hired me the next year.

As my friend Mark Nevitt already noted, a faculty position is, as Marc Anthony sings, vale la pena [it’s worth it]. And there are now quite a few former JAGs in the profession, all of whom I am confident are prepared to extend the hand of mentorship to others who hope to follow a similar path. Lean on them. I wish I had had a mentor back in 2004 when I crashed and burned. And when you secure your appointment, pay it forward . . .

[1]  Special thanks to our research assistants—Cody Clayton (Fmr. Sergeant, USAR) and Jeff Davis (Colonel, USMC, Ret.).

About the author

Geoffrey S. Corn is the George R. Killam Jr. Chair of Criminal Law and Director of the Center for Military Law and Policy at Texas Tech University School of Law.  Previously he taught at South Texas College of Law Houston where he was the Gary A. Kuiper Distinguished Professor of National Security.

Prior to entering academia in 2005, Professor Corn served in the U.S. Army for 21 years where he served as Special Assistant for Law of War Matters and Chief of the Law of War Branch, Office of the Judge Advocate General, United States Army; Chief of International Law for U.S. Army Europe; and Professor of International and National Security Law at the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School. Currently, his teaching and scholarship focuses on the law of armed conflict, national security law, criminal law and procedure, and prosecutorial ethics.

He earned is B.A. from Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY; his J.D. with highest honors from George Washington University: and his LLM as a distinguished graduate from the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School. He is also a distinguished military graduate of U.S. Army Officer Candidate School, and a graduate of U.S. Army Command and General Staff Course.

Remember what we like to say on Lawfire^®: gather the facts, examine the law, evaluate the arguments – and then decide for yourself!