Law PhD Skills Share

The path to becoming a law professor is strewn with unspoken norms and expectations. The purpose of this page is to collate ideas and materials to help students who aspire to teach law to succeed in legal academia.

We are interested in questions and topics such as:

  • How to integrate into a scholarly community;
  • How to give a conference paper and answer questions after a presentation;
  • How (and why) to network at conferences (and choosing the right conference for you);
  • How to do peer review;
  • How to receive a peer review;
  • How to organise a conference/workshop, incl. how to be a discussant and session chair;
  • How to read and take notes;
  • How to appreciate different types of legal scholarship (link)
  • How to make an intervention;
  • How to collaborate;
  • How to plan and organise a long term research project (note taking, milestones);
  • How to do book reviews and review essays;
  • How to write a book proposal for an academic publisher;
  • How to prepare for the law school job market (link);
  • How to develop a research agenda for the job market (link);
  • How to develop a teaching statement for the job market;
  • How to format a CV;
  • How to present teaching competencies to law schools;
  • How to prepare and give a job talk and an elevator pitch;
  • How to interview for a job;
  • How to build a productive relationship with your advisor;
  • Why to become a law teacher (link);
  • Creating an online presence (an institutional profile page!) and subscribing to research portals (e.g. SSRN, ORCID,  Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Academia);
  • Skills specific to international law scholars (link)
  • Academic publishing (link);
  • Academic blogging;
  • Academic podcasting;
  • News-media opinion pieces;
  • Being part of a peer group and supporting each other through depressive periods;
  • Other useful things!

Do leave a comment below if you have topics or resources to add to the Law PhD Skills Share list above.

This list is collated from ideas/resources from:

  • Ben Golder, Law PhD Skills Share Convener, The University of New South Wales Faculty of Law;
  • Sundhya Pahuja, Melbourne Law School, Institute for International Law and the Humanities;
  • Samuel Beswick, Legal Scholar Colloquium Convener, The University of British Columbia, Peter A. Allard School of Law;
  • Lys Kulamadayil, Amsterdam Center for International Law, The University of Amsterdam;
  • Andrea Leiter, Amsterdam Center for International Law, The University of Amsterdam;