The Faculty Lounge

Let's Be Reasonable: A Conservative Case for Liberal Education

Thanks to Steve Lubet for noting my book, Let’s Be Reasonable: A Conservative Case for Liberal Education, and for inviting me to guest-blog about it.

I like Locke. Like Daniel Kahneman, albeit without a fistful of studies, John Locke reflected deeply on how the mind goes wrong. His The Conduct of the Understanding is a master class in identifying mental mistakes. Like John Stuart Mill, Locke worried especially about our one-sidedness. We “see but in part, and we know but in part, and therefore it is no wonder we conclude not right from our partial views.”

Unlike Kahneman, who looks to water cooler conversations, or the Mill of On Liberty, who looks to untrammeled freedom of thought and discussion, Locke looks to something like what we now call liberal education to overcome, as much as possible, our narrowness. As I explain in the book and here, Locke aims at “comprehensive enlargement of mind.” That requires attention to the “opposite arguings of men of parts.” It requires attention to those we imagine “come short of” us in talent. Even if we haven’t overestimated our own talent or underestimated theirs, they will know things we don’t. It requires recognition of the limits of “the science that [we] study and the books that [we] read.” It requires the study of some old books because part of our narrowness is of time, though Locke thinks the education of his time too bound to such books. It requires, where possible, travel because parochialism pertains to place.

Lockean liberal education is about more than skills or breadth. The man Locke calls the “logical chicaner”—one might think more broadly of bullshitters, spokespeople for cornered politicians, or one’s Twitter nemesis—sometimes possess these in frustrating abundance. The reasonable person at whom Locke aims is perhaps above all one who is determined to be guided by reason, rather than to use her reasoning skills to get the better of others. Locke is aware that different matters admit of different degrees of being known, but in a passage from Some Thoughts Concerning Education, with which my book opens, he sticks to the limit case in which reason spits out something like a clear answer: "There cannot be anything so . . . misbecoming . . . anyone who pretends to be a rational creature as not to yield to plain reason and the conviction of clear arguments."

The Law School Industry - Law and Technology @ US Law Schools

Digital technologies are an increasingly important phenomena in higher education and professional industries. Law schools have started to participate in rethinking how to train the next generation workforce/citizens at the interface of governance/technology. This post includes links to quantitative data for folks interested to learn more about the current law/tech situation in US legal higher education, and provides a few initial thoughts about the data. 

Here is an excel sheet formatted study with a wide range of data on current US law school efforts around 'Law and Technology': Download US Law and Technology Higher Education Law Schools - Haskell:Fish In addition, for an alternative visualisation for some of the information, see: https://app.flourish.studio/visualisation/2736840 

Note: The study was developed along with a PhD student, Jessica L. Fish, and funded by the University of Manchester Law School and its Law and Technology Initiative. Scholarship based partly on this data will be rolled out in the coming year, but the information provided is meant to be open sources/common for any colleagues however useful. 

A Few Thoughts... (see below)

Women, Gender & the Law Emerging Scholar Award: Call for Submissions

Bumping this to the front in anticipation of the July 1, 2020 deadline.

The Elisabeth Haub School of Law is pleased to announce the competition for its inaugural Women, Gender & the Law Emerging Scholar Award.  This paper competition is open to all full-time law professors with five (5) or fewer years of full-time law teaching experience as of July 1, 2020. The deadline for submissions is July 1, 2020.

The purpose of the award is to encourage and recognize excellent legal scholarship related to women, gender and the law.  The work chosen for the Women, Gender & the Law Emerging Scholar Award should make a substantial contribution to legal literature and reflect original research and/or major developments in previously reported research.

Papers will be reviewed on a blind basis by a committee comprised of four members of the Haub Law faculty with expertise in this area: Bridget Crawford, Darren Rosenblum, Noa Ben-Asher and Emily Gold Waldman.  The winner of the competition will be invited to present the paper to selected students and faculty at Haub Law (located in White Plains, NY) during the 2020-2021 academic year, with reasonable travel expenses paid.

ELIGIBILITY:

• All persons who have held full-time teaching positions for five (5) or fewer full academic years as of July 1, 2020 are eligible for consideration.
• There is no subject-matter limitation for submissions, as long as the paper relates in some way to women, gender, and the law.
• Jointly authored papers are accepted as long as each author independently meets the eligibility requirements.

PUBLICATION COMMITMENTS/LIMITATIONS:

• There is no publication commitment associated with the competition. 
• Papers are eligible regardless of whether they were published prior to submission date, are scheduled to be published after the submission date, or are not yet under submission.
• Each applicant is limited to one (1) entry.
• There are no page-length or word-count limitations.
• All publications (including scholarly articles, book chapters, legal briefs and other writings) are eligible for consideration.

SUBMISSION:

• We will accept submissions for the Emerging Scholar Award from April 1, 2020, through July 1, 2020. The winner will be announced by August 30, 2020.
• To participate, please email your article, redacted as necessary to preserve anonymity (for the blind grading process), as a portable data file (PDF) to Judy Jaeger, Senior Staff Associate, at jjaeger@law.pace.edu with the subject line “Emerging Scholar Award.”
• Please include in the body of the email your name, institutional affiliation and confirmation that you meet the eligibility requirements.
• Unredacted papers will not be considered.

Information on Emerging Scholar Award and the Elisabeth Haub School of Law

This is the inaugural year of the Elisabeth Haub School of Law’s Women, Gender & the Law Emerging Scholar Award.  The law school at Pace University is one of a small number of schools in the United States named after a woman, and we are proud of our school’s long-standing commitment to gender justice.

Since the establishment of the Women’s Justice Center in 1991, Haub Law has made gender justice a priority.  Students have the ability to pursue a concentration in Women, Gender & the Law, through which they develop skills and strategies for effective representation and advocacy for gender justice, regardless of what career they pursue.  The Haub Law faculty includes nationally-recognized academic experts and advocates for gender justice. Our faculty teach, research and write about gender equality and justice as it relates to constitutional law, corporate law, criminal law, education, environmental law, estate planning, juvenile justice, legal theory, poverty, public health, social media, and taxation, to name just a few areas.  An important hallmark of Haub Law is that in addition to our specialty classes that focus on gender, issues involving gender are also integrated into a wide range of other courses.

Virtual Law and Society: A Response to Bridget Crawford

I was asked by the leadership of the Law and Society Association to post this letter responding to Bridget Crawford's posts about the LSA conference here and here.  That seems fair and here it is:

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We’re writing as the president, immediate past president and 2020 program co-chairs of the Law and Society Association to set the record straight about this year’s Law and Society Annual Meeting. Unfortunately, a number of Professor Bridget Crawford’s representations of LSA’s actions in her posts on the Faculty Lounge Blog are inaccurate.

The Law and Society Association’s Board of Trustees recently decided to cancel the annual in-person meeting which had been scheduled for late May, as have all other professional associations we know. But the Board didn’t want to lose the opportunity to bring our LSA community together as much as we could, so the Board decided at the same time to convert the in-person meeting into a virtual conference instead. We notified conference attendees as soon as the decision was made to replace an in-person meeting with a virtual one, so that they would know as much as we did, even though we didn’t have all plans in place for what the virtual conference would look like. We understand that the lack of concrete information has generated many questions among persons considering whether to not to participate in the virtual meeting, but we are working as fast as we can to provide more detail. We are all facing an unprecedented situation in which we all learning new technologies at a moment’s notice, and the Law and Society Association is no different. We ask for your patience as we feel our way in this new environment.

Let us tell you what we know so far.

ON REFUNDS: At the time that LSA made the announcement to go virtual, everyone who wanted to withdraw from the virtual conference was invited to do so and promised a full refund of the initial conference registration fee. That full refund offer still stands. The LSA office will refund all cancellations and, as of the week of 6 April, had already done so with all requests received by then. If a backlog of requests develops, the office will work to process and fulfil them as soon as possible. We hope that our conference attendees will recognize that an office staff of four people is processing numerous and varied requests relating to a meeting of nearly 2500 registrants, at the same time that it is gearing up to create a new program in a completely new format. We ask for your patience, but assure you that full refunds will be issued for those who choose not to join us in virtuality.

What is Law & Society's Refund Policy, Exactly?

Now that Law & Society has announced it is going to a virtual conference, many people are pulling out because they do not want to pay $250 to $390 to participate in a series of Zoom web meetings ("comments" and a "chat function" are LSA selling points). Some schools simply won't reimburse for it. 

LSA announced its refund policy here:

If you have registered for the in-person Annual Meeting and you choose to join the virtual meeting, we will honor your registration and you will not need to register again. However, if you wish to request a refund of your registration fee and not participate in the virtual meeting, we will provide a full refund and your paper will be dropped from the program, but you must fill out the refund form by April 15th. The link to the cancellation form is below -- you will have to login to your LSA profile first to fill out a form.

I am critical (here) of the decision by LSA leadership, with no consultation of its members, to charge a full conference registration fee for a virtual conference. I understand the organization relies on revenue from the annual meeting. But I don't think extending a ham fist is the way to go.

I'm further distressed to hear from three separate people that they have not been able to get full refunds from LSA despite timely completion of the refund form. Instead, registrants are receiving emails saying that they cannot receive a refund unless they are members of LSA or that over $190 of their registration fee will be retained, without further explanation.  At least one person reports sending multiple emails before getting a full refund. The other two have not been fully refunded.

To me, this is more than just bungling on LSA's part. It's fraud.

LSA should move swiftly to grant a full refund to all who have requested it.

@SSRN Categorizers Can’t Recognize a Scholarly Article When They See One

I have previously lamented (here) SSRN’s arbitrary determination of “scholarly” merit. SSRN has inconsistent and unevenly applied rules for what does (and does not) qualify as a “scholarly paper.” That’s a determination with consequence: papers that don’t meet SSRN’s idiosyncratic rules are not “publicly available” and thus will not be accessible on the author’s page on SSRN. The paper is rendered invisible on the SSRN platform (although one can land on the paper through an internet search).

Brian Frye (@brianlfrye) has yet again posted a paper that SSRN inexplicably treats as non-scholarly. Illegitimacy of Plagiarism Norms has an unusual (but enticing) abstract. Click through to the paper and it is… well, a traditional scholarly paper. What gives, SSRN?

The treatment of Professor Frye’s paper by SSRN suggests to me that SSRN classifiers are not actually clicking through to the papers submitted. Professor Frye’s paper is far from anything that SSRN considers a “non-scholarly” paper: work that is an “editorial or opinion paper;” “opinion, advocacy, or satire;” “data tables, summary book reviews, opinion, advocacy and satirical papers.”

SSRN's (arbitary) classfication of some papers as “scholarly” and others as “non-scholarly” and the attendant exclusion of "non-scholarly" papers from an author's publicly-available page do not serve SSRN’s stated mission (here) of providing “rapid worldwide distribution of research to authors and their readers and to facilitate communication among them at the lowest possible cost.” But then again, I’m biased.  SSRN has classified several of my papers (here, here and here, for example) as non-scholarly (and thus non-discoverable from my author page). I have sour grapes.

While we’re on the subject of unusual abstracts, Brian Frye’s new co-authored piece with Maybell Romero (Northern Illinois), The Right to Unmarry: A Proposal, has my all-time favorite abstract. No spoilers. Click through to read a beautiful, happy, joyful abstract to an undoubtedly scholarly paper. SSRN, do the right thing.

More Online Teaching Resources

To add to the current compilation of materials on how to move to remote teaching, I wanted to share the following SSRN links.

The first was posted this week by Prof Agnieszka McPeak (Duquesne) and is a straightforward, simple best practices guide to moving things online. Six pages, easy to read and great advice:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3553094

The second is a piece I wrote last year which is longer and focuses more on the costs and benefits of law schools moving to online teaching, but it also includes some practical observations on larger and smaller group teaching online:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3491427

Hopefully some of those struggling to get online quickly may make use of these pieces. I highly recommend Prof McPeak's thoughts.

 

University of Iowa Reinstates Faculty Fellows Program

From our friends at the University of Iowa College of Law:

The University of Iowa College of Law is delighted to announce that it is reinstituting its Faculty Fellow program. Our program alums include Devon Carbado, Laura Beny, Cyndi Nance, Creola Johnson, Angela Gilmore, Sumi Cho, and Harold Rocha, among others.  We are specifically seeking candidates from diverse backgrounds. Please pass the word to your networks.  See the details at:

https://law.uiowa.edu/iowa-law-faculty-fellowship.

 

 

Francis Daniel Pastorius Reader

The Francis Daniel Pastorius Reader is Penn State University Press.  It has been works for a lot of years—for years.

Francis Daniel Pastorius was one of the first German settlers to Pennsylvania, every late seventeenth and the early eighteenth century.  This monumental anthology presents a selection of his many writings in one volume.

Pastorius sailed to North America as a Pietist but found a unique home among the Quakers in Pennsylvania. Within this early modern religious context, he was a lawyer, educator, and community leader; a polymath; and a prolific writer and collector of knowledge. At the turn of the eighteenth century, Pastorius held one of the largest manuscript collections in North American. His collecting, curation, and dissemination represents a unique look at the ways information was stored, processed, and utilized during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in both North America and Europe. This rich selection of Pastorius’ writings on religion, education, gardening, law and community, and the colony of Pennsylvania—as well as letters, poems, and numerous encyclopedic and bibliographic works—shows the work of a true humanist in action.

Pastorius’s works have long been important to archival study of early German settlement and the Atlantic world. Now available together, transcribed, translated, and annotated, his writings will have widespread significance to the study of early American literature and history.

 

The Mona Lisa Twins Cover the Beatles

Mona and Lisa Wagner are twins from Austria.

 

Raizel Liebler & Gregory Cunningham on the ADA and the University Academic Library

Raizel Liebler (Instructor of Law & Faculty Scholarship Librarian) and Gregory Cunningham (Instructor of Law & Associate Director for Access & Organization) at UIC John Marshall Law School, University of Illinois at Chicago, have posted their article, Can Accessibility Liberate The "Lost Ark" of Scholarly Work?: University Library Institutional Repositories Are "Places of Public Accommodation”, 52 UIC J. Marshall L. Rev. 327 (2019). Here is the abstract:

For any body of knowledge – an ark of power or a corpus of scholarship – to be studied and used by people, it needs to be accessible to those seeking information. Universities, through their libraries, now aim to make more of the scholarship produced available for free to all through institutional repositories. However, the goal of being truly open for an institutional repository is more than the traditional definition of open access. It also means openness in a more general sense. Creating a scholarship-based online space also needs to take into consideration potential barriers for people with disabilities. This article addresses the interaction between the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and university academic library based institutional repositories. This article concludes that institutional repositories have an obligation to comply with the ADA to make scholarly works available to potential users with disabilities. For managers of institutional repositories, following the law is an opportunity to make scholarship even more widely available. University open access institutional repositories need to be accessible to existing and potential disabled users. However, there are no specific rules that university institutional repositories must follow to be compliant with the ADA’s “public accommodation” standard. Accessibility is a changeable, moveable wall, consistently and constantly needing to be additionally inclusive of more – more technology and more users, regardless of disability or limitations. Institutional repositories should not become the crated Ark of the Covenant with their secrets locked inside; instead, they should be as open as possible to all, sharing the scholarship inside.

The full article is available here.

 

Results of Law Professor Twitter Census 2019-2020 Edition - 9/13/19

Below the fold are the results of the 2019-2020 Law Professor Twitter Census. You can also download the raw data here. The list includes areas of academic interest, for faculty who self-identified with that information. The list is arranged by school, instead of individual users' last names.

Of the 1310 faculty members on this list, 709 (54.1%) are male; 601 (45.9%) are female; 1024 (78.9%) are affiliated with U.S.-based law schools; 276 (21.1%) are affiliated with law schools outside the U.S.

Here are responses to some anticipated questions from inquiring minds who want to know:

1.  How was the census developed?

The list is based on previous censuses, conducted in 2012, 2015, and 2018. It was amended and updated by contributions from blog readers in response to this post. I added additional or deleted very few names myself, based on law prof accounts that I have happened to encounter (typically because they follow me on Twitter or I follow them) or if I knew someone had changed schools, left the academy, etc. I made no concerted effort to update the list myself.

2.  How accurate is the census?

Not at all. If there are corrections, additions, etc., please feel free to email me directly at bcrawford at law dot pace dot edu.  I'll republish from time to time based on new data I receive, but likely not until next year.

3. Why isn't my information listed in the census? Why isn't my colleague's information listed?

The census relies almost exclusively on self-identification. To be included in the list, you had to actively add yourself to it (as indicated here) or email me directly.

4.  How does this year's data compare to the numbers from prior years?

For an historical comparison, here's the data from prior years:

	2019-2020 Version (9/13/19)	2018-2019 Version (8/15/2018)	2015 Version (1/23/2015)	2012 Version (7/26/2012)
Total  Number Users	1310	1105	553	204
Male	709	636	330	142
Female	601	469	223	62
US-based	1024	921	488	189
Based outside US	276	184	65	15

5.  Who is included in the census?

The list is meant to cover only individual tweeters who are full-time faculty members at law schools.  The list is not meant to be a comprehensive account of everyone (adjuncts, librarians, practitioners, programs, institutes, students, group blogs) publishing law-related tweets. Consistent with past practice, emeritus faculty are included in the census.

6.  What good is this information?

Either not at all or not much. But law professors like to count things and measure faculties (and individuals) against each other.

7.  So c'mon, tell us, which school has the most self-identified faculty members on Twitter?

Sigh.  George Washington (33), Virginia (32), UCLA (32) and Ottawa (31).

Full data below the fold and downloadable at link above.

Law Professor Twitter Census 2019-2020 Edition - Call for Entries, Corrections, Revisions

Bumping to the front in anticipation of the 9/9/19 deadline.

If you'd like to be listed in the semi-regular census of law professor Twitter users (or confirm that you are listed already), please read on.

It’s been about one year since the last Law Prof Twitter Census here at the Lounge. My anecdotal impression is that the number of Twitter users continues to increase. (Prior surveys are here (2012), here (2012), here (2015), and here.

As with prior versions, the list is meant to cover individual law professor tweeters only (not accounts of groups, programs, blogs, law schools, print publications, students, practitioners, staff).  Folks should be full-time law school faculty members (not, say, law-trained profs working in business schools).  Non-U.S. law profs very, very welcome. Anonymous and pseudonymous accounts are not eligible for inclusion.

The downloadable, sortable spreadsheet can be edited directly by accessing this link. If you’d like to add your name, or if you would like to add to or modify your existing listing in census, the census calls for:

(a) Your name

(b) Your Twitter handle

(c) Your school affiliation

(d) Up to three subject-matter areas of interest that related to your teaching, scholarship or tweeting.

You can view the current list embedded below, too:

New entries and modifications due Monday, September 9, 2019 at 12:00 p.m. eastern.  All additions and edits to the list subject to the moderator’s approval. Please do not edit anyone’s information other than your own.  If you see errors or corrections that need to be made to a colleague’s entry, feel free to contact that colleague directly and ask the colleague to make the changes.

Updated Guide to Specialty Law Review Submissions - Women, Gender & Law

It's available here.

Postdoc Fellowship in Religion and Politics at Wash U

From our friends at Washington University in St. Louis:

Postdoctoral Research Associates in Religion and Politics

The John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics seeks applications from junior scholars and recent Ph.D. graduates for up to four postdoctoral fellowships in residence at Washington University in St. Louis. The appointment is for one year, renewable for a second year. Eligible applicants must complete the Ph.D. by July 1, 2020, and have completed it no earlier than January 1, 2015. In exceptional cases a qualified applicant holding a J.D., without the Ph.D., may be considered. Research associates will spend most of their time pursuing research and writing for their own projects. They will also serve the intellectual life of the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics through participation in its biweekly interdisciplinary seminar and events hosted by the Center. Their teaching responsibilities will include: 1) developing one course per year to complement and contribute to the Center’s curricular offerings, and 2) possibly assisting in one additional course each year depending on the particular teaching needs of the Center). Washington University in St. Louis is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer and especially encourages members of underrepresented groups to apply.

Required Qualifications: Applicants should hold a doctorate in religious studies, politics, anthropology, law, philosophy, theology, American studies, history, area studies, sociology, or another relevant field. Scholars should be engaged in projects centrally concerned with religion and politics in the United States, historically or in the present day.

Application Instructions: Applicants must send all of the following information as a single pdf file to the Center at rap@wustl.edu:

1) Cover letter including an overview of the postdoctoral research project

2) Current curriculum vitae

3) Relevant writing sample (25-35 pages)

4) Two undergraduate course proposals (a summary paragraph for each will suffice)

Applicants should also arrange to have three letters of recommendation submitted on their behalf to rap@wustl.edu.

Applications are due in full by December 1, 2019. Applicants will be notified of fellowship decisions by March 2, 2020. For more information, contact the Center at (314) 935-9345 or via e-mail at rap@wustl.edu.

Salary: $50,000

Download Wash U Postdoc

Updated Guide to Submitting Essays, Commentaries, Reviews to Online Law Review Companions

I've updated my guide to submitting to online companions to include 50 schools' law reviews.  The new guide is here on SSRN.  The chart with contains details on the mechanics of submitting essays, commentaries, reviews to the online presence of journals at 50+ schools.

For now, the document contains information about word count limitations, subject matter preferences, submission details and other guidelines authors may find relevant when considering sending their work to law review presences online.

Details vary widely from journal to journal. Not all journals accept unsolicited contributions.

Corrections, additions, refinements to this chart are very welcome. (If for any reason the link doesn't work because the submission hasn't been reviewed yet by SSRN, you can navigate to it via my SSRN page here.)

Willamette University College of Law seeks Dean

Willamette University College of Law invites applications and nominations for the position of Dean of the College of Law.

Click here to view position profile: http://summitsearchsolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Willamette_Dean_College_of_Law_Profile.pdf

The Position:

The dean of the College of Law will be committed to excellence in teaching and pedagogy, research and scholarly productivity, and service. The dean will serve as a broker and architect of partnerships within the university and across the larger community to facilitate excellence and encourage innovation as the institution embraces its university identity. The successful candidate will also demonstrate the capacity to work collaboratively with students, faculty, and staff; to raise funds to support the college and its initiatives; to manage budgets effectively; and to engage effectively with a variety of local, state and national stakeholders.

 

Willamette University College of Law seeks Entry Level Faculty

Willamette University College of Law seeks applicants for a full-time, tenure-track faculty position beginning in the fall of 2020; the focus of our search is on entry-level candidates.  Our curricular interests include corporate governance (particularly Business Associations, but also Securities Regulation, M&A, etc.), as well as Family Law; we are also interested in hiring a clinical instructor.  Interest in Health Care Law, Financial Institutions, Payment Systems, or T&E is a "plus" factor.  Applicants must possess strong academic credentials and a proven ability to produce thoughtful scholarship, as well as the skills necessary to communicate their expertise to colleagues and their students.  The Faculty Appointments Committee will begin reviewing applications in the late summer and will continue to do so until the position is filled.

Willamette University is committed to the academic excellence and rich and rewarding communities that a diverse faculty, staff and student body brings.  We welcome candidates whose work furthers equity and diversity and who bring to campus a commitment to sharing varied experiences, perspectives and backgrounds.  Applicants demonstrating these qualifications are particularly encouraged to apply.

Contact:  Please use the AALS submission process to apply; questions can be addressed to Jeff Dobbins, Chair, Faculty Appointments Committee, Willamette University College of Law, 245 Winter St., SE, Salem, Oregon 97301.

Pitt Law Seeks Legal Writing Faculty

LEGAL WRITING FACULTY POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT

The University of Pittsburgh School of Law invites applications for two full-time faculty positions at the rank of Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor of Legal Writing. These positions are part of a system of contracts progressing to presumptively renewable long-term contracts, separate from the University’s tenure stream. The position will begin on July 1, 2020.

Pitt Law’s legal writing program seeks to develop students’ legal analytical skills and to equip students to write and speak clearly and persuasively, in a manner appropriate for diverse audiences and purposes. The first-year Legal Analysis & Writing course spans two semesters, typically including “objective” writing assignments in the fall and persuasive writing assignments and oral argument in the spring. The course typically also encompasses related skill sets, including client interviewing and negotiation, among others. While the course covers the basics of legal research and includes open-resource assignments, students are separately required to take a one-credit course on the fundamentals of legal research, taught by library faculty, in the fall semester of their second year.

Legal Writing faculty members typically teach two small sections of first-year Legal Analysis and Writing in both the fall and spring (at current projected enrollments, with 15-20 students per section), for a total of four credits for each section.  Legal Writing faculty members may also teach upper-level writing courses and may have some administrative duties relating to the Legal Writing program.  All members of the Legal Writing faculty have the opportunity to shape the future direction of the Legal Writing program as part of their participation in faculty governance of the School of Law. Therefore, candidates should be prepared to share their thinking about how that program might be adapted or reformed in light of changes in legal education, the legal profession, and society.

The successful applicant must have, at a minimum, a J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school, excellent writing skills, and an outstanding academic record. Experience teaching legal writing and law practice experience are also preferred. Candidates should be able to work effectively with a diverse group of students and have an interest in developing legal writing experiences for law students within a community that supports interdisciplinary collaboration and innovative teaching opportunities. 

To apply, please provide a letter of interest, resume, and list of three references addressed to Professor Mary Crossley, Chair, Appointments Committee, at law-appointments@pitt.edu. Write “Legal Writing Faculty Application” in the subject line of the email. The deadline for applications is September 3, 2019.

The University of Pittsburgh is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer (EEO/M/F/Vets/ Disabled). In furtherance of our strong institutional commitment to a diverse faculty, we particularly welcome applications from minorities, women, and others who would add diversity to our faculty.  Recruitment is subject to approval by the University’s Provost. 

Pitt Law Family Law Clinic Position

FAMILY LAW CLINIC FACULTY POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT

The University of Pittsburgh School of Law invites applications for a full-time faculty position at the rank of Assistant, Associate, or Full Clinical Professor to teach in and direct the School’s Family Law Clinic. This position is part of a system of contracts progressing to presumptively renewable long-term contracts, separate from the University’s tenure stream. The position will begin on July 1, 2020.

The Clinic’s primary mission is to provide an excellent experiential learning opportunity for our students, while also providing legal services to low-income individuals involved in family law disputes. As currently constituted, students enrolled in the Family Law Clinic provide assistance to persons appearing pro se in the Family Division of the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, a program sanctioned and valued by the judges sitting in that court. The candidate hired for the position will have the opportunity to shape the future direction of the Clinic.  Therefore, candidates should be prepared to share their thinking about how the Clinic might be adapted or reformed to best advance its dual missions in light of changes in legal education, the legal profession, and society. Duties of the Clinical Professor include classroom teaching, including the possibility of teaching doctrinal courses; supervision of second- and third-year law students as they advise pro se family court litigants and undertake related projects; administrative duties relating to the Family Law Clinic; community outreach and fundraising; and participation in faculty governance of the School of Law. 

Qualifications include admission to practice in Pennsylvania or willingness to seek admission to the Pennsylvania bar; substantial experience in the field of family law and, preferably, clinical pedagogy; excellent supervisory and communication skills; the ability to work effectively with a diverse group of students, clients, and other constituents; and an interest in developing clinical experiences for students in the Family Law Clinic within a community that supports interdisciplinary collaboration and innovative teaching opportunities.

To apply, please provide a letter of interest, resume, and list of three references addressed to Professor Mary Crossley, Chair, Appointments Committee, at law-appointments@pitt.edu. Write “Family Law Clinic Application” in the subject line of the email. The deadline for applications is September 3, 2019.

The University of Pittsburgh is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer (EEO/M/F/Vets/ Disabled). In furtherance of our strong institutional commitment to a diverse faculty, we particularly welcome applications from minorities, women, and others who would add diversity to our faculty.  Recruitment is subject to approval by the University’s Provost. 

University of Vienna Symposium on Polyamory in the Media and Personal Poly Identity

I had the honor of travelling to Vienna to comment on Stefan Ossmann’s Ph.D. project on polyamory at a symposium at the University of Vienna earlier this month.  My co-presenters were Christian Klesse of Manchester Metropolitan University and Elisabeth Sheff, formerly of Georgia State University.  Stefan, a Communications Ph.D. candidate, undertook an ambitious project in which he conducted content analyses of media articles on polyamory spanning from 2007 to 2017 and interviews of thirty-three people who are part of the polyamory community in Vienna. His work is being supervised by Franz Eder, a Professor of Social and Economic History.  Stefan’s dual approach of examining media articles and undertaking interviews enabled him to compare external perceptions of the polyamory community in the German-speaking world to the self-perception of members of the poly community in Vienna.

 

Copyright: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0: Stefan Ossmann / pictures taken: Vanessa Rosenmayer

Copyright: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0: Stefan Ossmann / pictures taken: Vanessa Rosenmayer

For the media analysis, he focused on one newspaper database of German language articles called WISO online datenbank.  He found 361 relevant articles and also determined that the number of relevant articles is steadily rising every year and that most of the articles were neutral in tone.  In terms of the interviews, Steffan Ossmann tried to interview as many members as possible of each poly relationship, or polycule, he encountered.  The interviews revealed some very interesting information.  For instance, the interviewees tended to want greater societal acceptance of their multiple relationships but, somewhat paradoxically, were reluctant to share the fact of their multiple relationships with family members (especially with parents), with friends other than close friends, and with co-workers.  Additionally, legal recognition appeared to be of only minor importance, though there was some interest in recognition of plural marriage and in recognition of multiple partners’ relationships to children.  Interestingly, several interviewees independently raised the desire to have a right to visit loved ones in the hospital when they were ill.  All in all, this is a fascinating project that will provide invaluable information about Vienna’s poly community, thus adding to the work others, such as Elisabeth Sheff and Hadar Aviram, have done on poly communities in the U.S. and that which Christian Klesse has done on poly communities in England.  Stefan also examined whether polyamory was perceived as a sexual orientation in the media or by poly individuals in Vienna, which dovetails with my previous scholarship on polyamory as a sexual orientation. I very much look forward to reading Stefan Ossmann's final product in book form.