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The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, William S. Richardson School of Law seeks to hire a tenured legal writing professor (Professor or Associate Professor of Law) to begin academic year 2023-2024. The Law School is located in Mānoa on the flagship campus of the University of Hawai‘i system. It reflects and embraces Hawai‘i’s diversity, location, and values, and recognizes its special responsibility to Hawai‘i and the Pacific region.

The Law School faculty recently voted to change the current 1L legal writing program from a hybrid adjunct program to a coordinated course staffed entirely by tenured or tenure-track faculty whose primary teaching and scholarship interests are in legal writing. The faculty voted to make this transition over the next three or four years, subject to receiving University approval for the necessary faculty hires. The current search is for a candidate to direct the existing 1L legal writing program until the additional faculty can be hired to support the new staffing model, at which time the candidate will teach in the new coordinated program. We encourage candidates who are members of groups underrepresented in the legal academy to apply.

 

The current 1L legal writing course consists of two semesters (5 credits total). The first semester concentrates on legal reasoning and predictive writing; the second semester focuses on legal argument and persuasive writing. Legal research is taught by library faculty in a separate stand- alone 1L legal research course in the spring semester. Under the new staffing model, each legal writing faculty member will teach legal writing to approximately 40 1L students (in two sections) each semester. In addition to voting to adopt the new staffing model, the faculty is currently exploring other potential revisions to the legal writing program and its relationship to the larger 1L curriculum. Candidates will be asked to share their visions for an ideal 1L legal writing course in this new staffing model as part of the interview process.

Rank and salary commensurate with experience.

Duties: The successful candidate will be a full-time member of the tenured faculty.

We seek applicants who are interested in directing the current program until the other legal writing faculty are hired, at which time the applicant will teach in the new program. The successful candidate will therefore have considerable scholarly achievement in legal writing, demonstrated strengths in teaching first-year legal writing in a J.D. program, and an outstanding record of public service.

Minimum Qualifications:

 An outstanding record of academic and/or professional achievement, a Juris Doctor degree or equivalent, and demonstrated excellence in teaching first-year legal writing in a J.D. program, legal writing scholarship, and public service.

Desirable Qualifications:

 Strong communication skills and the ability to work effectively with diverse groups of students, staff, faculty, alumni, government officials, community members, and members of the bar, and to thrive in multicultural and multidisciplinary contexts.

 

Demonstrated interest in furthering UH Mānoa’s mission as a Native Hawaiian place of learning by, for instance, promoting Native Hawaiian student success, supporting Native Hawaiian staff and faculty development, cultivating Native Hawaiian environments, and/or engaging with Native Hawaiian communities or community organizations; and demonstrated interest in teaching, scholarship, and/or service that contributes to UH Mānoa as a Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Campus Center.

Demonstrated interest in teaching, scholarship, and/or service that benefits the diverse, multicultural communities of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific region.

Experience in teaching upper-level writing courses in a J.D. program.

Experience in teaching law effectively in a variety of modalities, including in-person, online, and hybrid.

Law practice experience.

Interested candidates should submit the following to the Appointments Committee Chair,

Professor Richard Chen, at wsrslfsc@hawaii.edu:

• Cover letter showing how they satisfy the minimum and desirable qualifications;
• Resume;
• Law school and other graduate-level transcripts (unofficial accepted);
• Contact information for three academic and/or professional references;
• Research agenda;
• Statement describing their teaching philosophy;
• Job talk paper and up to two additional scholarly articles or equivalent; and
• Statement explaining their contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion, including how their work will contribute to Richardson’s mission to serve the needs of our diverse state and student population.

The Appointments Committee will begin reviewing applications on November 1, 2022, and applications will continue to be accepted until the positions are filled.

The University of Hawaiʻi is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution and is committed to a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of race, sex, gender identity and expression, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, disability, marital status, arrest and court record, sexual orientation, or status as a covered veteran.