AALS Faculty Recruitment Conference

For those of you REALLY like to plan ahead, please mark your calendars to reflect the following dates on which the AALS will host future Faculty Recruitment Conferences in Washington, D.C.:

2011:  October 13-15

2012:  October 11-13

2013:  October 17-19

2014:  October 16-18

For many of us, the AALS has always hosted the conference in Washington, D.C., at the Marriott (or its predecessor).  I'm told that the AALS used to host the conference in Chicago at a hotel near the airport.  True?  And would anyone favor a rotating venue, much like the annual meeting locations?  (I can only imagine the challenges currently confronted by West Coast law schools who schedule 8:00 a.m. interviews in D.C.  Ouch!)

Comments

[anon]

I thought these were usually end of October/beginning of November?

[Tim Zinnecker]

Those dates are earlier than what we've seen in recent years.

[Dan Reynolds]

Yes, the hiring hall used to be at the O'Hare Hyatt. I believe it was Tom Morgan who encouraged the move to D.C. after a particularly bad couple of November snowstorms and their usual sequellae of missed flights, etc. But now that the conference is inching up into October earlier and earlier (and Washington has shown itself not exactly immune from inclement weather) maybe its time to reconsider a more central location?

[Tim Zinnecker]

I like the idea of moving the conference up a week or two to early or mid-October. It gives schools additional flexibility in scheduling post-conference callbacks before the end of the year.

[anon]

Either a more central location, or a rotating one. It seems to be patently unfair to allow candidates from one geographic area a consistent competitive advantage over other candidates.

[anon]

The conference should actually be moved up even earlier. Our school now does two rounds of interviews - in Sept via skype and at the conference. By the time of the conference, we've already seen a number of candidates. The late date seems to defeat the purpose of the conference and adds a lotmore work for those on the recruitment committee.

[Howard Katz]

Yes, the Chicago Hyatt near the airport.

The level of anxiety may have been even higher then. First, because there really was no escape from the hotel - unlike now, where you can at least get a decent meal out on Connecticut Ave., or at least walk around. Also, the hotel had one of those huge internal atriums, with the elevators in the middle and walkways leading out to the hotel rooms on the periphery. So it was like an ant farm with the ants all dressed up. Every half hour you would see everyone coming off the elevators scurrying to their next interview. At least now a candidate only has to confront an occasional "rival" coming the other way in the hall - they don't have to see them all at once.

[Alfred Brophy]

Thanks for this, Tim. I -- shockingly -- am actually planning ahead. And for some reason I couldn't find this on the AALS webiste. The dates are earlier; I wonder if this is the result of a conscious decision about moving up the conference or just an artifact of when the hotel is available? Sometime I think it would be nice to meet somewhere other than DC, but maybe that's the only central location that makes sense.