Faculty Hiring & Appointments

This position is primarily a teaching position.  We do not expect this person to do scholarship or other research.  Instead, their main job will be teaching business law courses to our students. We expect that this new hire will teach four courses each year, although they may start out teaching fewer courses in their first couple of years as they get their feet under them.  

Two of these courses are set.  This individual will teach Business Associations, our foundational business law course.  It covers the basics of agency law, partnership law, LLCs, and state corporate law. They will also teach Mergers & Acquisitions.

The other two courses will be hands-on practicum courses, and our new faculty member will have significant freedom to design these courses. We already offer Contract Drafting and Negotiations, as well as clinic and externship opportunities, but we want additional opportunities for students to develop and practice transactional skills. These courses might include Business Planning, where students help a hypothetical company get off the ground, or an Anatomy of a Transactions course, where students walk through one or more simulated transactions. Or you might design other courses that teach the key skills that transactional lawyers need.

If you want to better understand our business law curriculum, you can read about it here.

Like any faculty member here at Richmond Law, this individual will also mentor students, work with student organizations, and serve on faculty committees. This person will also be a key part of our business law faculty, helping us figure out what our students need to be successful business attorneys. And they would be welcome to get involved with the Richmond Law & Business Forum, our business law program that helps students learn about business law practice and connect with business lawyers.

Teaching is so rewarding, but it’s also hard. A common misconception is that just because you know how to do something, you will automatically know how to teach it. This isn’t true.  We know that our new hire may be new to law teaching, so we wanted to share a few general thoughts about how to approach teaching.

Just like there are different ways to be an effective lawyer, there are different ways to be an effective teacher. It’s about finding your authentic style and voice in the classroom.  

That said, the best teachers are really thoughtful about how they teach. Specifically, they tend to think about at least three things:

1. Learning Objectives: Effective teachers start with clear learning objectives. What specifically do they want the students to know by the end of the semester?  For example, do you want students to understand how to allocate risk in a transaction or to be able to prepare a closing checklist? Do you want them to be able to draft an operating agreement or choose between a corporation and an LLC?
2. Assessment of Student Learning: It’s important to assess whether students are meeting these objectives. This involves using both formative assessments, such as practice problems, quizzes, or short drafting assignments along with way, which provide ongoing feedback, and summative assessments, like final exams or final projects, to evaluate overall understanding.
3. Scaffolding Learning: A good teacher structures the learning process by starting with simpler concepts and gradually introducing more complex ideas, ensuring students build upon their knowledge step by step.

This is just a start—we also have to consider how to build an inclusive classroom environment where everyone feels like their voice is being heard, how to provide effective feedback, how to respond to the changes that AI and other technologies will have on the legal profession, how to model and teach professionalism, and a million other things. 

Before you panic, we certainly don’t expect you to have fully formed thoughts on these topics on day one. But we are looking for someone who understands that developing good courses is hard work and is excited to dig in.

There are a lot of resources out there if you want to learn more about effective teaching strategies. First, look at the content online from teaching and learning centers at various universities. You might also look at business skills courses at other law schools to see the learning objectives and format of these courses. 

Finally, you might think through what you think the specific learning objectives should be for the courses you would be teaching and how you might design assessments and active learning activities that support these learning objectives.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to anyone on the committee.

Applicants should send a cover letter and resume to Professor Jessica Erickson at lawskillsapps@richmond.edu. We encourage applicants to include information in their cover letter about their own transactional practice experience, their experience with teaching and mentoring, their views on the skills and competencies that lawyers in transactional practices need, and their anticipated approach to course design, inclusive pedagogy, assessment, and feedback. Applicants are welcome to send any questions they have to this email address as well.

Committee Members: Jessica Erickson (chair), Ashley Dobbs, Chris Cotropia, and Roger Skalbeck. 

Our Diversity and Search Advocates are Elizabeth Kissling and Rhiannon Graybill.

Our new hire will be a legal practice professor.  Our legal practice faculty are not eligible for tenure, but after promotion to full professor, the person in this role will be eligible for five-year, presumptively renewable contracts, so this is a long-term fully-funded position.

And it’s a nine-month position, which means that you do not have any formal responsibilities over the summer.  That’s definitely a nice perk of the role.