The Faculty Lounge

I Hear You Knockin' on Wood

In 1966, Eddie Floyd and Steve Cropper wrote "Knock on Wood" on a stormy night in Memphis at the Lorraine Motel, about two years before Martin Luther King would be assassinated in the same location.  At the time, the Lorraine was one of the few places in Memphis where Black and white people could meet together, or where Black people could stay in modern commercial accommodations. Over the years, virtually all of the great Stax acts stayed there, including Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, the Staple Singers, Otis Redding, and others. According to Steve Cropper, the thunderstorm gave them the idea for the refrain, "like thunder, lightning, the way you love me is frightening." The song was a hit for Eddie Floyd and has been covered many times over fifty years. Other "knockin'" songs on this post include Fats Domino's "I Hear You Knocking" and Little Richard's "Keep a' Knocking" (covering an earlier recording by Lil Hardin, as explained below).

CFP: Islamic and Jewish Law in the Modern Economy

This just in:

Islamic and Jewish Law in the Modern Economy”
Islamic and Jewish Legal Scholars Symposium May 5 & 6, 2025
University of Villanova School of Law, Villanova, Pennsylvania

Description: The Islamic and Jewish Legal Scholars Symposium invites submission of paper abstracts for a workshop hosted at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law, May 5 & 6, 2025.

The symposium will explore the integration of pre-modern religious law and norms into the modern financial economy. We anticipate that papers will explore the tools used by religious traditions to construct their own commercial law in ways that both align with and diverge from modern state law. Comparative inquiries between Islamic and Jewish law are encouraged, although comparisons to other legal traditions and/or works related to one religious legal tradition are welcome.

Papers are welcome from a variety of disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to legal studies, including law, sociology, anthropology, politics, and history, from scholars based in law schools and other academic departments.

This symposium is organized by the Islamic and Jewish Legal Scholars Symposium, whose leadership includes Samy Ayoub (UT Austin), Michael Broyde (Emory University), Chaim Saiman (Villanova University), and Rabea Benhalim (University of Colorado).

Applying: Paper abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent to Chaim Saiman ([email protected]) no later than Friday, January 31, 2025. Submissions are welcome from academics at all levels: tenured, pre-tenure, non-tenure track, fellows, visiting assistant professors, adjunct professors, graduate students, etc.

Funding: Meals and lodging will be provided for all attendees. Limited, additional travel funds may also be available.

CFP: AALS Clinical Conference 2025 Seeks Proposals

This just in:

The Planning Committee for the 2025 AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education welcomes proposals for programs in the following categories:

• Concurrent Sessions (60 minutes)
• Lightning Sessions (30 minutes)
• Poster Presentations
• Workshops

The dates of the 2025 Conference on Clinical Legal Education coincide with the 10 year anniversary of the police killing of Freddie Gray and the uprising in the streets of Baltimore that followed. In the intervening 10 years, the Baltimore uprising, the Black Lives Matter movement, and other movements and organizations fiercely, beautifully, and lovingly led the way toward necessary structural changes, including in the legal academy with the implementation of ABA Standard 303. Those same 10 years, however, saw threats to democracy and the rule of law worldwide, a climate increasingly unstable, uncertainty spurred by the emergence of generative AI across industries and education, lasting changes and barriers to the justice system and the profession as the result of COVID-19, the ascendence of a politicized and ethically compromised Supreme Court, and so many more. The clinical legal education community has historically been the first to advocate for changes to legal education, and this conference has served as the incubator for some of those changes. Now, with legal education, our profession, and our society facing pressures from so many external factors, it is more important than ever to come together and share our insights and ideas.

 

New Mexico Law Seeks Multiple Faculty

This just in:

Business and Commercial Law

The University of New Mexico ("UNM") School of Law invites applications for a faculty position in the areas of business associations, contracts, and other business and commercial law topics. Additional courses could include contract drafting, business planning, various intellectual property classes, and commercial law courses such as the UCC.  This faculty position is a full-time tenured or tenure-track position starting in Fall 2025. Entry-level and experienced teachers are encouraged to apply.

Offering a J.D. degree, the UNM School of Law is nationally recognized for innovative classes that combine law practice skills training with doctrinal instruction and a 10:1 student-to-faculty ratio. Our faculty is one of the most ethnically and racially diverse faculties in the country and our student body is similarly diverse.

We seek candidates with scholarly distinction or promise as well as a commitment to excellence in teaching.

We value candidates from varied backgrounds and perspectives in order to enhance student learning and the faculty’s mission of research, teaching, service, and community engagement in New Mexico, the United States, and the world. Women, underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities, individuals with disabilities, people who attended law school later in their careers, people from rural origins, first‐generation college graduates, veterans, and groups historically marginalized in American life are especially encouraged to apply.

All applicants should submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, and list of references to the University of New Mexico Jobs website at this link: https://unm.csod.com/ux/ats/careersite/18/home/requisition/30880?c=unm.

The general jobs website is https://unmjobs.unm.edu/. For best consideration, please apply by September 27, 2024. For more information, please contact:

Nathalie Martin, Chair, Faculty Appointments Committee - [email protected]

 

Call For Papers: Corporate and Securities Law (for Law and Society Conference)

From Prof J.S. Nelson (Pitt Law):
================

Dear Faculty Lounge readers,

 
This is a call to participate in Law & Society CRN 46's programming. CRN 46 broadly covers Corporate and Securities Law in Society.

 

The 2025 Law & Society Association (LSA) Annual Meeting is scheduled for Chicago, Illinois, USA from May 22-25, 2025. The meeting will be hosted at the Hyatt Regency. This year’s sessions will take place in-person.

 

If you are a member of our CRN and on our CRN email list, we will send you several reminders of deadlines as they approach from our CRN's email list. Of course, if you would like to be removed from these emails at any point, simply let us know.

 

If you have been forwarded this message, are not on our direct CRN 46 mailing list and want to be, please fill out your information here.

 

Meanwhile, the 2025 LSA Call-for-Participation submission window is now open. 

 

The deadline for our Call for Submissions is October 15, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. ET (USA and Canada).

 

There are three types of sessions: (1) Paper Presentations; (2) Author-Meets-Reader Sessions; and (3) Roundtable Sessions.  Please note that you are limited to participating only once at LSA as a paper presenter, book author, or roundtable participant (full rules here). 

 

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. J.S. happens to be organizing both our LSA CRN and the ComplianceNet2025 conference in NYC that will be held the end of the same week as LSA so that international scholars can travel easily from one conference to another. If you are writing, please include "LSA CRN 46" in the title of your email.

 

We look forward to seeing you next summer! 

 

Best,

 

J.S. and Geeyoung  

 

Paper Presentations 

If you would like to present a paper (either completed or in progress) as part of one of our CRN’s paper sessions, please:  

 

(1) By October 15, 2024 at the very latest, submit your paper title and abstract directly to LSA via this link.

• Choose "Individual Paper” in the "Submission Type" drop down menu. 
• Paste your abstract in the "Proposal" portion of the submission form.  Your abstract must be under 2000 characters. 
• [VERY IMPORTANT] Select CRN 46 where prompted.
   

(2) Also by October 15, 2024, please send an email to [email protected] or [email protected] with your paper title and abstract, notifying us that you have submitted your paper directly to LSA. This will help us track your submission and make sure we can find your paper if it doesn’t appear on the list of CRN 46 papers provided by LSA.

 

(3) Please only submit a paper if you plan to the conference. When paper authors drop out post-submission, it can put the entire panel at risk of cancellation. 

 

Chair/Discussant Once we have a list of paper presentations associated with CRN 46, we will organize those presentations into paper sessions. Each paper session will need a Chair and a Discussant (who can be the same person). If you would be willing to serve in one or both of those roles, please let us know by October 15, 2024.

 

Author-Meets-Reader Sessions 

If you have a book (excepting edited volumes or textbooks) that has been, or will be, published in 2024, please consider whether you’d like to arrange an “Author-Meets-Reader” Session around your book!  Here is how LSA describes AMR Sessions: 

 

“An Author-Meets-Reader (AMR) is a session in which discussion is focused on one to three recently published scholarly books. The session must include the author(s) of the book, three designated “readers” per book (as applicable) who provide comments, and a session chair (who may be one of the readers). AMR panels are limited to books published in the year prior to the LSA Annual Meeting. For the 2025 Meeting, the books must have a publication date in 2024.”

 

If you are interested in organizing an AMR Session, please contact us by October 1, 2024, and we will work together to submit an AMR Session as part of the CRN. 

 

Roundtable Sessions 

If you would like to propose a theme for a Roundtable Session, please contact us by October 1, 2024, and we will work together to submit a Roundtable Session as part of the CRN. Here is how LSA describes Roundtable Sessions: 

 

“A Roundtable is a discussion-centered session that is organized around a common theme and does not have papers presented. Roundtables are the most flexible format offered at the meeting. Participants might organize debates, visual and musical performances, workshops, films, and other innovative formats.”

 

J.S. Nelson

Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh School of Law

Email: [email protected]

Hiring Announcement: University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, William S. Richardson School of Law

From a recent email message:

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, William S. Richardson School of Law seeks to fill several faculty positions to begin in August 2025. We are hiring for an Assistant Professor (F3-9) or Associate Professor (F4-9) eligible for tenure upon appointment with expertise in Constitutional Law; an Assistant Professor (F3-9) with expertise in Criminal Law; and an Assistant Professor (F3-9) with expertise in Environmental Law. We welcome candidates who, in addition to one of those three fields, have expertise in Asian Legal Studies, Business Law, Family Law, Health Law, Native Hawaiian Law, Pacific Island Legal Systems, or Professional Responsibility.

We encourage candidates who are members of groups underrepresented in the legal academy to apply. Rank and salary commensurate with experience. Separate announcements of two additional positions will be forthcoming.

The Law School is located in Mānoa on the flagship campus of the University of Hawai‘i system. It reflects and embraces Hawai‘i’s diversity, location, and values, and recognizes its special responsibility to Hawai‘i and the Pacific region. The successful candidates will be expected to contribute to furthering UH Mānoa’s mission as a community-serving university committed to being a Native Hawaiian place of learning. The successful candidates should also be willing to contribute to and support the Law School’s new online JD program.

Unrelated Cochrans [UPDATED with a bonus]

Eddie Cochran was one of the early rockers, with a rebellious image that was later perfected by Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan. Wayne Cochran was called the White Knight of Soul, and was well known for his friendship with fellow Georgians James Brown and Otis Redding (he played bass on Redding's early recordings). Hank Cochran was less famous than the other two, but was extremely influential in country music, writing hits for Patsy Cline, Eddy Arnold and others. Anita Cochran recorded "Fight Like a Girl" (at the bottom of the post, before the bonus) following her breast cancer diagnosis.

University of Detroit Mercy School of Law Seeks Dean

This just in:

University of Detroit Mercy (UDM), Michigan's largest and most comprehensive Catholic University in the Jesuit and Mercy traditions, invites applications and nominations for the position of Dean of the School of Law.

For more than a century, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law has educated lawyers who are committed to the pursuit of justice, service to others, and the highest standards of the legal profession. Detroit Mercy Law fully embraces the Jesuit and Mercy heritages, welcoming students and faculty of all faith traditions, and emphasizing academic and intellectual excellence and ethical values. Detroit Mercy Law provides a rigorous education that combines theory, doctrine, ethics, transnational educational opportunities, and real-world experience. From its location in the heart of downtown Detroit, Detroit Mercy Law students can readily access opportunities to connect with local leaders, community partners, employers, and an engaged alumni network more than 9,000 strong.

In addition to the JD program, Detroit Mercy Law offers students access to the JD/MBA program and the Canadian & American Dual JD Program, a collaboration between Detroit Mercy Law and University of Windsor Faculty of Law, which is the only three-year combined program of its kind in North America.

 

Florida State University Seeks VAPs for 2025-6

Florida State University College of Law seeks at least one Visiting Assistant Professor, to begin in the 2025-2026 academic year. The College is located in the heart of downtown Tallahassee – the capital of the nation’s third largest state – across the street from the Florida Supreme Court and one block from the Florida Capitol.

The College is seeking scholar-teachers interested in future appointment as tenure-track members of a law faculty. This VAP is an opportunity for individuals coming from clerkships, fellowships, or legal practice to enhance their CV with close faculty mentorship in preparation for entering the academic market. 

Subject areas of particular interest include, law & technology, business law (especially tax law), family law, criminal law, environmental law, gender & the law, and race & the law, but individuals with any area of scholarly and teaching interest will be considered. VAPs spend up to two academic years in residence at FSU. The College expects that VAPs produce at least one work of original scholarship with guidance and mentoring from FSU Law faculty members over the course of the two-year position. In the first year of the VAP appointment, each VAP teaches one course of his or her choice and design, subject to curricular needs. In the second year, each VAP teaches two courses. VAPs are welcome to attend all faculty activities open to visiting professors, including faculty workshops and conferences. Each VAP will have at least one opportunity to present a paper in the faculty workshop series. Each VAP receives an office amidst other members of the faculty as well as administrative and secretarial support. VAPs have no administrative responsibilities.

The annual salary for each VAP is $80,000, plus benefits (including health insurance). Each VAP also will receive a supplementary research budget for travel to conferences and other academic expenses.

To apply, please email Lauren Scholz, Chair of VAP Appointments Committee, at [email protected] with the following materials.

• A 1-2 page research agenda
• A CV

Please see AALS for descriptions and examples of the above. Short-listed candidates will be also asked to produce an academic or professional writing sample and references. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until January 31, 2025.

FSU is an Equal Opportunity/Access/Affirmative Action/Pro Disabled & Veteran Employer. FSU’s Equal Opportunity Statement can be accessed here.

 

Atlanta's John Marshall Law School Seeks Faculty

This just in:

Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School is seeking to hire several full-time or visiting faculty starting in the 2025-2026 academic year. We welcome applications with varied teaching interests, but are especially looking for faculty with an interest in teaching the following courses: Sales, Bankruptcy, and Transactional Drafting; Trial Advocacy, Evidence, Civil and Criminal Pretrial; Immigration Law; Law Office Practicum and other business-related experiential courses; Legal Writing, Research, and Analysis. This will be a twelve-month (August 1 – July 31) tenure-track appointment, responsible for teaching four courses per academic year (fall, spring, and/or summer), and other duties consistent with a full-time tenure-track appointment.

Ideal Experience and Qualifications

• Applicants must have a J.D. degree.
• Applicants must also have at least two years of experience in law practice or a judicial clerkship or law school teaching or tutoring experience.
• The ideal candidate should also have a record of outstanding academic achievement in law school; excellent analytical, research, writing, and interpersonal skills; and teaching or tutoring experience.
• Candidates should also demonstrate a strong commitment to teaching.

 

CWRU Law School Hiring in Health Law and Lawyering Skills

Case Western Reserve University School of Law Seeks Entry Level Health Law and Lawyering Skills Professors

Health Law

Case Western Reserve University School of Law invites applications for an entry-level tenure-track health law faculty position to begin in the fall of 2025. We seek a health law expert to join CWRU’s renowned Law-Medicine Center. This role includes teaching, research, publishing, and service responsibilities.

The current teaching load is three courses per year. Subjects may include Public Health Law, Bioethics & Law, Food & Drug Law, Health Law writing seminars, and other health law-related courses. In addition, the faculty member may be asked to teach courses outside of health law, such as a required first year course. There may also be a need for online teaching.

Qualifications include: 1) a Juris Doctor (JD) from an accredited law school; 2) experience teaching, especially in health law; 3) a proven track record of legal research and publishing; and 4) a proven commitment to service.

For further information about the law school, please visit http://law.case.edu. For further information about the Law-Medicine Center, please see https://case.edu/law/centers-institutes/law-medicine-center. Please direct your questions to Professor Sharona Hoffman – [email protected].

To apply, please submit a cover letter, CV, and contact information for three professional references in PDF format via this Interfolio link: http://apply.interfolio.com/151241.

Lawyering Skills

We also invite applications for a lawyering skills Assistant Professor position beginning July 2025 to teach in our Legal Writing, Leadership, Experiential Education, Advocacy, and Professionalism (“LLEAP”) program. This is a 10-month renewable long-term contract position on the lawyering-skills track. The position has the potential for promotion and for presumptively renewable five-year contracts once the candidate reaches the rank of Professor.

We seek candidates with a JD from an ABA-accredited law school, a distinguished academic record, and at least three years of post-law school law practice. Candidates’ experiences must demonstrate the potential for excellence in legal writing and other practical lawyering skills. Key responsibilities will involve classroom teaching in our required first-year LLEAP course, one-on-one student interaction, drafting and grading multiple student writing projects each semester, and devising and coordinating simulation exercises. In addition, this member of the faculty will be part of, and must integrate curriculum with, the LLEAP faculty.

Please direct questions to Professor Jennifer Cupar – [email protected]. To apply please submit a cover letter, CV, and contact information for three professional references in PDF format via this Interfolio link: https://apply.interfolio.com/150036.

Case Western Reserve University strives to maintain a diverse and inclusive work environment. All applicants are protected under Federal law from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age and genetics. Requests for reasonable accommodations should be directed to the Office of Equity by phone at 216.368.3066 or by email at [email protected].

ComplianceNet 2025

From Prof Nelson at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law...
========

Dear Faculty Lounge readers,

 

ComplianceNet 2025 will be hosted by Fordham University School of Law in New York City. The event will take place on the Lincoln Center campus (150 West 62d St) May 28 – 30, 2025. It will have the theme of "Evolving Compliance,” though papers on all topics related to compliance will be welcome. We are not yet accepting paper submissions, but we hope that this announcement allows you to start thinking about potential contributions!

 

A formal call for papers will be issued in late fall 2024/early 2025. For individual papers, you will be asked to submit the paper title and abstract (up to about 200 words). For panels (3 papers minimum with a maximum of 5 per panel), you will be asked to submit an integrative statement explaining the panel (approximately 200 words), the titles of each paper and their authors, and an abstract for each paper (approximately 200 words). This year, we will have a new panel dedicated especially to graduate students and their work. We also offer prizes for the best papers from junior and senior scholars.

 

ComplianceNet seeks to bring together scholars from a range of different disciplines to study the interaction between rules (broadly defined) and individual, group, or organizational behavior. The first six annual conferences have been highly successful, bringing together academics from business, criminology, economics, law, political science, psychology, public policy, public health, and sociology, among other fields. See the ComplianceNet website for more details about the organization’s structure and goals, as well as for an opportunity to join the mailing list if you desire to do so.

 

We look forward to seeing you at ComplianceNet 2025 in New York City!

 

Sincerely,

 

Barbara-Ann Boehler (Conference Organizer)

 

J.S. Nelson, Yuval Feldman, Colin Provost, Wim Huisman, Phil Nichols, Antara Haldar, Eric Chaffee, Elysa Dishman, and Vera Cherepanova (ComplianceNet Steering Committee)

 

J.S. Nelson

Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh School of Law

Email: JS[email protected]