An assistant professor of law (not a UT grad) writes:
Your advice about the entry-level hiring process helped me at that stage of my career, and now I am interested in your advice in positioning oneself for a lateral move. (In my case, from a fourth-tier school to -- with luck -- a second-tier one.) I am finishing my first year in teaching and hope to move after my second or third.
The basics are sufficiently clear. I should publish, do as well as possible in the classroom, and be a good colleague. What is unclear for me is the publicity aspect. Is the AALS market the way to go, again? Or is it better to try to get one's name out to others in the profession in a less systematic way? Are faculty workshops a good way to audition for a full-scale interview?
I've opened comments, and invite law faculty (no anonymous postings) to offer advice. I will try to weigh in when I have a chance, but I'm sure others have lots of good insight in to this issue.
UPDATE: A colleague elsewhere writes: "Interesting that no one has responded to your very interesting post -- I suppose that anyone who is trying to move up doesn't want to seem over-eager or desparate, while those looking for laterals don't want to have every gunner flooding their inbox with e-mails. I'll bet you would get tons of responses if you allowed anonymous comments." Since then, Professor Brown has kindly posted an informative response, but I will, per my colleague's suggestion, permit anonymous postings here. I will, however, delete or edit anonymous postings more vigorously if they aren't on point. I'm also moving this to the front.
