Intellectual Property Law

The Law Faculty Combine

By Mike Madison

Passionate followers of professional football know that the National Football League is just now concluding its annual “combine,” the camp where would-be draftees get timed, tested, and measured by pro scouts in anticipation of draft day.  There are speed tests, jumping tests, “position specific events,” measurements, and the famous or infamous Wonderlic intelligence test.  The “combine” is such a big deal that it has both an “official” website (here) and is covered, live, on the NFL Network.

One of the goals of the NFL combine is to identify diamonds in the rough, fabulous athletes whose professional potential was obscured by a mediocre college team.  Law school faculties, it is well-known, sometimes engage in the related practice of “best athlete” hiring.  Schools that undertake “best athlete” searches aren’t looking for fill specific substantive needs, but are instead bound — if at all — only by the mandate that they hire raw talent. 

In the spirit of this older post about a Fantasy Law School League, what would a law faculty combine look like?  I mean the question both in its obvious semi-serious sense, but also in a MoneyLaw sense.  Whether at the AALS Recruitment Conference (aka the meat market), elsewhere, or nowhere in particular, what tests should “best athlete” faculty candidates be made to run, who should run them, and where and when should they take place?

Technorati Tags: meat market, AALS recruitment, law faculty hiring, combine

Share This

Full post as published by Madisonian.net on February 25, 2008 (boomark / email).