Past Webinars

How to Become a Law Teacher

How to Become a Law Teacher was designed for law school career development professionals, current students, and graduates who may have an interest in law teaching. This webinar will also provide an overview of resources that AALS offers to assist and support candidates throughout the hiring process and while they are members of the legal academy, and discussed the following topics:

  1. Concrete actions that law students can take while in law school to make them more competitive candidates when applying for law teaching jobs.
  2. Different pathways for entering legal academia. 
  3. Nuts and bolts of the hiring process including the typical hiring cycle, what to expect at different phases of the hiring process, and tips for an effective job talk. 
Only a small segment of law schools are able to provide dedicated career counselors for students who seek careers in legal academia. This information will help career counselors at member schools, as well as prospective law teachers themselves, as we work to attract a wider, more diverse group of qualified candidates to the legal academy.

Host

  • Alena Allen

Speakers

  • Tiffany Atkins
  • Zamir Ben-Dan
  • Andrew Michaels
  • Beth Zilberman
  • Steve Clowney
  • Adam Feibleman
  • Cassandra L. Hill
  • Christiana Ochoa

The On-Campus Callback Interview: Tips & Tricks

This webinar is designed as a primer on callback interviews with law school hiring teams. After initial screening interviews, law schools invite candidates for on-campus callback interviews that may take place over one or two full days. We have assembled a group of faculty who are ready to share their experiences and advice about the callback interview process. 

A group of faculty experts shared advice for faculty candidates regarding on-campus call back interviews. The recording includes an audience Q&A.

Host

Sean Scott, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles

Sean Scott joined the faculty of Loyola Law School in 1989. She is a graduate of Smith College and New York University School of Law. While at NYU she was a recipient of the Arthur G. Hays Civil Rights, Civil Liberties fellowship and was chair of the Black Law Students Association. Prior to joining the faculty, she was an associate at the Los Angeles based firm of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips. She served as Senior Associate Dean from 2013-2016. Immediately prior to assuming this role she served as the Associate Dean for Faculty from 2008-2013. Professor Scott spent the 2018-19 academic year serving as the Associate Director of the Association of American Law Schools.

Speakers

Sherley Cruz, University of Tennessee College of Law
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Sherley Cruz is an Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville, College of Law (UTK) where she teaches and supervises students with the Advocacy Clinic. Prior to joining UTK, Professor Cruz was a Practitioner in Residence with American University’s Washington College of Law’s Civil Advocacy Clinic. Before WCL, Professor Cruz was the Director of Litigation and Education and a Clinical Fellow at Suffolk University Law School with the Housing Discrimination Testing Program and Accelerator Practice. Before becoming a professor, Professor Cruz worked as a staff attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services in the Employment Law. Her work with GBLS included representing low-wage and immigrant workers with unemployment, wage and hour, discrimination, workplace harassment, and working condition issues, in addition to supporting immigrant worker centers with organizing campaigns and community actions.

Darby Dickerson, University of Illinois at Chicago and AALS President-Elect
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Darby Dickerson is Dean and Professor of Law at UIC John Marshall Law School. She formerly served as Dean at Stetson University College of Law, Texas Tech University School of Law, and The John Marshall Law School. A nationally known leader in legal education, Dickerson is President-Elect of the Association of American Law Schools and will serve as President during 2020. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, a Past President and current Board Member of Scribes—The American Society of Legal Writers, and a former Director of the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD). Dickerson received her B.A. and M.A. from the College of William & Mary and her J.D. from Vanderbilt Law School. She clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and then practiced commercial litigation in Dallas, Texas. In 2018, she received the AALS Section of Legal Writing, Research, and Reasoning’s lifetime achievement award. She has also received a variety of awards for her professional, charitable, and community service. Since joining the academy in 1985, Dean Dickerson has taught legal writing, pretrial practice, and election law and has directed legal writing, externship, journal, and advocacy programs. She writes in the areas of legal citation and legal/higher education.

Kevin R. Johnson, University of California, Davis, College of Law

Kevin R. Johnson is Dean, Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law, and Professor of Chicana/o Studies at UC Davis School of Law. Johnson became Dean in 2008. He has taught a wide array of classes, including immigration law, civil procedure, complex litigation, Latinos and Latinas and the law, and Critical Race Theory. Johnson has published extensively on immigration law and civil rights. Johnson’s latest book, Immigration Law and the US-Mexico Border (2011), received the Latino Literacy Now’s International Latino Book Awards – Best Reference Book.

Courtlyn Roser-Jones, The Ohio State University, Michael E. Moritz College of Law

Courtlyn Roser-Jones is an Assistant Professor of Law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. Prior to joining the Moritz faculty, she was the 2016-2018 William H. Hastie Fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Her primary interests are labor law, contracts, employment discrimination, administrative law, and constitutional law. Her article “Reconciling Agency Fee Doctrine, the First Amendment, and the Modern Public Sector Union” was recently published in the Northwestern Law Review. Roser-Jones graduated from Notre Dame Law School cum laude in 2013, and practiced labor and employment law at Reed Smith LLP before her fellowship. 


Screening Interviews: Tips & Tricks

This webinar is designed as a primer on initial interviews with law school hiring teams, whether conducted in person, virtually, or at the AALS faculty recruitment conference. We assembled a group of faculty, both subject-matter and clinical, ready to share their experiences and advice about these screening interviews.

Host

Sean Scott, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles

Sean Scott joined the faculty of Loyola Law School in 1989. She is a graduate of Smith College and New York University School of Law. While at NYU she was a recipient of the Arthur G. Hays Civil Rights, Civil Liberties fellowship and was chair of the Black Law Students Association. Prior to joining the faculty, she was an associate at the Los Angeles based firm of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips. She served as Senior Associate Dean from 2013-2016. Immediately prior to assuming this role she served as the Associate Dean for Faculty from 2008-2013. Professor Scott spent the 2018-19 academic year serving as the Associate Director of the Association of American Law Schools.

Speakers

Claire Donohue, Boston College Law School

Claire Donohue joined Boston College Law School in 2018 as an Assistant Clinical Professor. Professor Donohue coordinates social work services for the clinics in the Center for Experiential Learning. Prior to devoting her career to clinical legal education, Professor Donohue worked as a public defender: first with the Committee for Public Counsel Services in Massachusetts, then accepting appointments on post-conviction appeals out of Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. 

Doron Dorfman, Syracuse University College of Law

Doron Dorfman is an Associate Professor of Law at Syracuse University College of Law. His interdisciplinary research focuses on disability law and health law using doctrinal analysis and social science methodology. Dorfman’s scholarship explores how stigma informs the legal treatment of disempowered communities through a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods, including surveys, experiments, interviews, and observations. He teaches Health Law, Employment Discrimination, Torts, and Disability Law. 

Shalini Ray, The University of Alabama School of Law
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Shalini Bhargava Ray is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Alabama School of Law, where she writes about immigrants’ constitutional rights and asylum law. At UA Law, she has taught Professional Responsibility, Legislation & Regulation, and Immigration Law. She earned her B.A. from Stanford University and J.D. from Harvard Law School. She worked as a litigation associate at Morrison & Foerster LLP in San Francisco after law school and then clerked for the Honorable Anita B. Brody (E.D. Pa.) in Philadelphia. She then served for two years as a staff attorney at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Her recent articles include Saving Lives, 58 B.C. L. REV. 1225 (2017), Plenary Power and Animus in Immigration Law, 80 OHIO ST. L. J. 13 (2019), and The Law of Rescue, 108 CALIF. L. REV. __ (2020) (forthcoming). 

Marcy Strauss, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles

Marcy Strauss is a widely cited scholar of criminal procedure. Her primary areas of expertise include Miranda, the nature of consent, and freedom of speech; she has also written and lectured extensively on the illegality of torture. The U.S. Supreme Court cited her scholarship in Berghuis v. Thompkins, 130 S. Ct. 2250 (2010), Maryland v. Shatzer, 130 S. Ct. 1213 (2010), and Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103 (2006). In 2011, she received the Excellence in Teaching award from the graduating class. She served as law clerk to the Honorable James B. Moran of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and joined the Loyola faculty in 1984. She teaches Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, Hate Speech and First Amendment.