Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

The Supply and Demand for Lateral Hiring

Michael O’Hear of Marquette law school, guest blogging at Prawfs, thinks there’s been an upswing in lateral hiring and speculates:

If there has been a broader upswing in lateral hiring, I wonder if it has been more supply or demand driven. As a member of our Appointments Committee in recent years, I have been surprised by the number of direct contacts we get from faculty members at other law schools looking to move on. (I once even had an expression of interest from someone I was calling for a reference check for an entry-level candidate!) Perhaps the greater connectedness of the academy in the Internet age has spawned a generation of junior faculty members who feel less attached to their home institutions than previous generations and who are more motivated to enhance their status within the national academic community. On the demand side, though, the importance of the U.S. News survey has made law schools more sensitive to their reputation within the national legal academy, and lateral hiring seems more likely to provide an immediate reputational bump than entry-level hiring.

It’s been noticeable here at UCLA, where most of our recent hiring has been lateral. Indeed, for at least the last two or three years, every hire has been of the lateral sort. My new colleagues have all added considerable lustre to the school, which comports with Michael’s demand-side story. On the supply-side of the equation, however, I think Michael overlooks the simplest explanation. In my experience, the surest - and sometimes only - way to get a really big raise out of the Dean is to come up with an outside offer the Dean must match. It’s a less than ideal system, but it seems to be aklmost universally true.