"you need to be convinced that you are interested in law"

What are your job responsibilities?

I teach at a law school and so have the normal responsibilities of an academic. My area of concentration is public international law, though I also teach and write on issues related to US procedure and how US courts address international issues.

How did you discover and obtain your current job?

The legal academic job market is highly centralized. It is run by the American Association of Law Schools, which has a yearly interview conference. You send in a form resume and must be invited to interviews. I went through this for my first teaching job at Chapman Law School. My current job at Wayne came about through a personal connection on the faculty.

What advice would you give students interested in working in your field?

Academia is hard to break into. One advantage of being a legal academic is that a Ph.D is not required, only a JD, though more and more law professors have both. The general suggestion is to work hard in law school, since grades and honors such as a law review position and a judicial clerkship are very helpful. Many legal academics go into practice first. But even if you do so, it is very helpful to write something scholarly so you can demonstrate to law schools that you will publish once you are hired. It's very hard to do from an outside perspective.

What are important characteristics of people who succeed in your career?

I think you need to be convinced that you are interested in law generally, or at least a specific area of law. If you find the issues interesting and challenging, then you might consider working on them full time. So if you have exposure to particular legal issues, you can look at academic writing. In my area, international law, working on issues like human rights, refugees, or climate change will inevitably bring you into contact with what scholars are saying. One good place to begin is the American Journal of International Law.

You need to be able to structure you own time well and be diligent about working in a setting where there is very little structure. Law professors usually teach only about 6 hours per week. Ensuring that you work on your own writing the rest of the time -- that is, when you're not preparing for class -- is not easy.

How can students best prepare themselves while still in college?

I think I should answer this for law in general. I think "pre-law" curricula are a waste of time. You get more than enough skills training and substantive knowledge in law school. I went to law school with people who had every kind of major you can imagine, from poli sci to English to chemistry to economics to art history.

I was on the Bates debate team for 3 years and that was very helpful preparation. But otherwise, the most important skill you can develop is being able to write well. Effective writing is the essential to succeeding as a lawyer. So taking courses that require research papers is good preparation.

What are your future plans?

I'm staying where I am.