Law Professor Lateraling 101: Part 6 (The Waiting Game)
posted by Paul Secunda
Maybe it is better stated that this is really “The Crying Game,” with a bizarre, upsetting ending a lot of the time.
You have now made it through the “everything” interview and you are sitting back nervously in your office waiting for the phone to ring, an email to chime in, or, God forbid, a snail mail letter to arrive (never a good thing in these situations, and you have to wonder after having spent all that time invested in you, what type of nimrod would be so tone deaf to send you a form letter saying to never bother them again). I can remember being disappointed during this period when my mother, wife, children, or 85-year-old grandmother was on the other side of the line. And it is hard to have a good response to your 5-year-old son when he asks, “Daddy, why do you sound disappointed that I called?”
In any event, don’t, I repeat DON’T, give into temptation and call or email your contact at the school. Just wait. You are not going to increase your chances of an offer by acting like a persistent pain-in-the-neck. Indeed, if anything, it might give those who are about to vote on you a look into the future about what it might be like to have you on the faculty. The appointments committee or Dean will call you (preferably the Dean) when they need additional information to complete your file (usually references from fellow faculty or student evaluations) or when they have something to say to you of import. It is extremely unlikely that the person on the other end of the phone is going to say: “You know that it is great that you called/wrote because I meant to tell you a week ago that we wanted to make you an offer. I’ve just been busy.”
In any event, the lack of contact may be preferable to some of the the waiting game experiences I have had over the years.
In year one on the lateral market, I was under the impression that since those who I had dinner with at my fly back interview were talking as if I had already been made an offer and the whole thing was a fait accompli that it was just a matter of time before the official offer would come from the Dean.
It retrospect it should have dawned on me that since I never met the Dean at that school at the interview (and haven’t to this day) that an offer was really not all that likely. In any event, about a month later I told my friend about my current situation at this school, at which said so-called friend blithely informed me that my shoo-in job had been given to another person. Talk about an awkward moment. When the head of the appointments committee got in touch with me later that night, I started the conversation by saying that I already knew that I didn’t get the position. Another awkward moment. He was a none-too-happy camper that the cat got out of the bag, but appointments committees out there let this be a lesson: make sure you call all your candidates before having your committee and the successful candidate tell the world that they got the job. It just might save you from saying embarrassing things to the rejected candidate like, “I’ll bet some day you’ll be the head of an appointment committee turning me down.” Yeah, that made me feel a whole lot better.
I have also been in a waiting game situation where I really never got a final answer. I stayed in touch with one committee over three MONTHS as they interviewed other candidates. I was finally told that I wasn’t their first choice (really?), but that anything was still possible. Actually, if you are told that it don’t look good, but you never know, say you do know and move on. You certainly don’t want to go to school that has made it clear that you are not their first choice (more on this in a subsequent post) and are less then enthusiastic with you joining their faculty. Foot dragging is never a good sign.
Finally, this may be hard to believe, but you may never get any type of answer. In one situation, the one from the last post where the appointments head shook her head sadly at me, I never really got a follow up decision until I wrote basically saying: “I was rejected by the committee, right?” and the Chair just said right, as if to say “Duh, you would think that you would have been more self-aware of your own crashing and burning.” You would think.
In any event, as difficult as this may be, the overall advice to glean from this post is: WAIT. And then wait some more. And guess what? If you are never contacted, chances are you probably didn’t get that job offer.
February 11, 2008 at 11:57 am
Posted in: Law School (Hiring & Laterals)
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Responses (2)
Scott Moss - February 14, 2008 at 11:07 am
Paul, just a brief quibble/question: is it really true that “You certainly don’t want to go to school that has made it clear that you are not their first choice”? I’ve had 4 jobs in my 10 years since law school, and I know for a fact that I was a backup choice for (at least) three of those four. All four turned out to be exactlky the right job for me, and I didn’t feel like a second-class citizen at any of them.
I don’t really disagree much with you, in that if you get a real sense there’s only a tepid willingness to make you an offer, that could well be a problem. But it’s often the case that a school will have, say, four candidates they love for two spots — and often the first two offerees will be way out of the school’s league, so the school will be quite happy to get #3 and #4.
Paul - February 14, 2008 at 11:39 am
Scott, it physically pains me to say this, but you are right that it may be better to take a job in some circumstances even if you are a second choice. Shoot, you may never be a first choice. But my larger point was don’t go to a place where there is a lack of enthusiasm or there appears to be misgivings about you coming from the get-go.
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