In re Two Hot Shots Visiting Boalt
Over time, I've become more interested in faculty positions, how they shape legal scholarship, etc. (see prior post on tenured faculty activity [part II is coming, just slowly]). I excitedly opened my email today to see who were the visiting "hot shots" that the student committee was pitching.
Sadly, I didn't get as worked up as the committee.
Ms. K. appears very bright and has published four articles so far. My disappointment stems purely from perspective, not from merits. One policy comment in the YLJ laments the "queer brinksmanship" of the Solomon Amendment and its "serious" constitutional flaws (unanimously rejected, Rumsfeld v. FAIR). Her research in IP is deeply entwined with UAEM, Benkler et al. Obviously, perspectives differ on these positions, esp. given Boalt's dedicated and active UAEM branch. It is not, however, where my sympathies lie. Students come to Boalt's technology program (in my opinion) to go work for technology companies and make innovation happen. While the "human rights" side of IP is interesting, it's not the primary mission. I also found this quote interesting, primarily for the verb "complicate":
One thing that strikes me is the shared trajectory of the candidates: big-deal east coast law school (YLS; NYU), 2d Circ. clerkship, S. Ct. clerkship. Maybe there's only one recipe for law school professor. I'm just more excited about the upcoming Mr. G. (CA5, DoJ, Jenner, then a statistics Ph.D.). Otherwise, I'm happy for Ms. K & Mr. McK's multiple faculty offers and wish them well wherever they end up, I just hope Boalt focuses its recruiting powers on different candidates.
Sadly, I didn't get as worked up as the committee.
Ms. K. appears very bright and has published four articles so far. My disappointment stems purely from perspective, not from merits. One policy comment in the YLJ laments the "queer brinksmanship" of the Solomon Amendment and its "serious" constitutional flaws (unanimously rejected, Rumsfeld v. FAIR). Her research in IP is deeply entwined with UAEM, Benkler et al. Obviously, perspectives differ on these positions, esp. given Boalt's dedicated and active UAEM branch. It is not, however, where my sympathies lie. Students come to Boalt's technology program (in my opinion) to go work for technology companies and make innovation happen. While the "human rights" side of IP is interesting, it's not the primary mission. I also found this quote interesting, primarily for the verb "complicate":
If we complicate our understanding of what the Solomon Amendment is, and what it would mean to comply with or resist it, we can begin to ask questions such as these [the question above was about the painful consrequences of resisiting forced association, like losing donor and federal money]. Answers may be hard to come by, but there is no better time; or place; to begin to ask them.Mr. McK. has some interesting interests, but he's published one article (in 2000). It's a neat article that deals with sovereign immunitiy & bankruptcy prior to the Court's handling of that issue (SOC created a bankruptcy exception to SSI), but there's nothing else on Hein Online since then. It turns out he's been toiling at Debevoise since then, so that might explain where the articles disappeared to.
One thing that strikes me is the shared trajectory of the candidates: big-deal east coast law school (YLS; NYU), 2d Circ. clerkship, S. Ct. clerkship. Maybe there's only one recipe for law school professor. I'm just more excited about the upcoming Mr. G. (CA5, DoJ, Jenner, then a statistics Ph.D.). Otherwise, I'm happy for Ms. K & Mr. McK's multiple faculty offers and wish them well wherever they end up, I just hope Boalt focuses its recruiting powers on different candidates.
Labels: Classes/Professors
posted by Tom Fletcher at 10:00 AM
22 Comments:
I don't know anything about Mr. McK, but Tom, you are WAY off base with Ms. K. She is one of the most sought after young legal scholars in the country (and for good reason), and it would be a major coup for her to choose Boalt to start her career.
It seems like you made a rash judgment, based on 1-2 articles, that happen not to coincide with exactly what you think. I am confident that any student that has some more context regarding Ms. K's career would love to have her here, and I think you need to be more careful before criticizing (prospective) faculty.
Tom doesn't strike me as the type of person to make a rash judgment. Why is he being criticized for offering his opinion on a matter that affects him? Why should be be more careful about criticizing prospective faculty on his own blog?
Speaking of hot shots, how bout the visiting prospective student making a comment in criminal procedure. Ego much? Seems even worse than those 1L gunners who made 5+ comments the first day of spring semester.
I know Tom very well, and he definitely is not the type to make rash judgments--which is why this post surprised me. It seems that he read a couple articles and then made a judgment about her, without knowledge of her other work. If that's not the case, then I guess I'm the one who made a rash judgment.
Plus, he says: "Students come to Boalt's technology program (in my opinion) to go work for technology companies and make innovation happen. While the "human rights" side of IP is interesting, it's not the primary mission." Sorry, but I just don't think that's accurate. And even if it were, that may be as good a reason as any to bring in Ms. K., who can offer a different perspective from the one usually offered in Boalt IP classes.
And I'm not questioning Tom's right to post his opinions on Armen's blog. I'm just offering my own opinion.
Tom, I also hope you noted that these candidates are for ENTRY-LEVEL positions. Meaning, you will not see articles on Hein online or a huge academic track record. The point is that they will come here to share their energy and enthusiasm, hopefully write ground-breaking scholarship while they are here, and make this their "home grounds" (such as Eisenberg, Fletcher, etc.).
So indeed, they ARE hotshots for the position for which they are being considered.
FYI, these candidates both gave "job talk" papers that were works in progress, as is the custom in faculty hiring. These papers necessarily have not yet been published yet but the Boalt faculty clearly believed they showed sufficient promise to extend offers. I hope this information helps to allay your fears Mr. Fletcher.
Another FYI: the student committee that helps out with the faculty appointments process always makes job talk papers available in the Dean of Students office when candidates come to interview. Holly Parrish also always notes that the job talk paper and CV are available when she sends out the announcement about the student interview. Now that these candidates have offers, the entire institution is in recruitment mode. The above-stated concerns are more appropriate for the interview stage. Perhaps you can be more involved during the recruitment stage next year.
yeah, that kid in crim pro was a bit much. i think we should send him off to harvard. boalt doesn't need any more red hots... i love how murphy totally (respectfully) shot him down, though. that was awesome.
whoa whoa whoa...a prospective student actually had the balls to say something in class? now that's hilarious. please give more details. what did he say?
3:20 - there really is no opportunity for students who aren't on the hiring committee to get involved during the recruitment stage. And getting on the hiring committee, like most compeitive positions at Boalt (CLR, etc.), generally means you need to be a minority or otherwise "diverse."
All I can say is that I hope the admit who actually raised his hand to answer a question in crim pro goes anywhere but here for law school. And to top if off he was completely wrong! I thought Murphy should have nailed him to make sure he didn't come.
This is great stuff. Can someone tell us the subject, what he/she said, and what Murphy said in response?
jeez, blood in the water much?
The candidates in question are highly sought after and hold offers from other top schools -- clearly the greater hiring scene finds promise in their scholarship.
Tom, are there other criteria you would like to offer for future candidates or are you just trying to tear these two down?
I think Tom's criteria are Federalist Society membership or an Olin Fellowship in Law & Economics. Fortunately the faculty, and the student committee, have a broader vision of what types of people we should be hiring.
Maybe the criteria could simply be, "Not another addition to the far-left critical theory circle-jerk." Would that be OK? Insofar as a) the rest of the country doesn't take the legal academy seriously and b) judges read law reviews less and less and c) lawyers read law reviews less and less and d) law reviews increasingly have little do with the law as it is practices, a small ameliorative correction to this trend would be a start. You needn't have an "Olin Fellowship" to do this. You simply have to offer something other than a tirer derivative of Marxist theory and legal realism.
8:22 - I don't see how saying that it is "broader" to hire predominantly left-wing professors than conservative professors. Its two sides of the same coin. Except, looking at the recent hires, there seems to be a dearth of more conservative and even moderates, something that the Boalt faculty already is lacking. It's one thing to say only hire X or Y, but Tom's message is clearly asking for a little more balance when the practice has been to hire predominantly X and has resulted in a predominantly X faculty (where X = liberal).
However, I think the problem is more of a selection effect. Legal academia has already shifted significantly to the left. This results fewer possible academics of the conservative and moderate persuasion entering academia. When they do, it's often at a school that already has a reputation for hiring conservatives. However, this is probably guessing. Maybe the Boalt faculty hiring committee just loves shooting down conservative hires.
On the other hand, Professor Yoo really nearly makes up for the imbalance all on his own.
It's also possible that corporate, tax, IP, and securities hires are considered the "diversity" picks on the other side, insofar as they direct their scholarship at capitalism rather than race. This sets up an unfortunate dichotomy. It's like, "OK, one for the BCLBE program. One for the race theorists." But all we get is professors who care about exactly those two subjects. Which is incredibly unfortunate. Gone seem to be the days when a great thinker about larger issues who didn't neatly fit a paradigm, like Jesse Choper, could land on the faculty. Dan Farber may be the last hire of that kind (and of course he wasn't entry-level.) To the degree this Ms. K could actually inject some new perspective on IP issues, then, it would be a welcome hire. I just wish we'd get a few who could inject some new perspective on the increasingly wheezing and ridiculous critical theorists. IN other words, I'm all for someone to say Menell and Talley are often full of shit and apologists for elites. But let's get someone to call HaLo on his bullshit too. Contrarianism all around is what we need!
Anonymous 4:51, I think some of these hate sessions could be avoided if people like you paid closer attention to email and the BBB. A few things even a casual reading of emails and BBBs would have revealed:
1. Student interviews during the initial recruiting visits of these candidates -- and all the others -- were advertised in the BBB.
2. These student interviews were also announced in emails to all students from the great Holly Parrish.
3. The co-chair of the student committee is white (which doesn't matter but it puts the lie to your bogus, whiney and tiresome reverse racism claim).
Summary: You had plenty of opportunities for input in the process but were too lazy or distracted to go to a meeting to fill out an evaluation. As for your chances of being appointed to the student committee, unfortunately for you lazy and distracted people probably don't have a good chance of getting such a competitive position.
12:58 AM - your little tirade doesn't do much to "avoide these hate sessions."
Quick observation about Mr. McK: he may be a person of color but is not a critical race theorist. His work is on bankruptcy and federal courts, which is an interesting intersection. He is accomplished professionally and interpersonally a warm and lovely person. Boalt would be well-served to have someone of his intellectual caliber and personal kindness on its faculty. Just because he happens to be a person of color does not mean that he isn't interested in topics that Federalists care about. Perhaps folks ought to inform themselves about a candidate's interests before jumping to conclusions.
Perhaps folks ought to read the comments to the blog carefully before adding one of their own. No one suggested Mr. McK was a critical theorists. The discussion seems almost entirely centered on Ms. K, as well as larger hiring trends at Boalt.
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