The only thing bad about Will’s recent post, Unhelpful Tips for Junior Scholars, is the title. The advice is all helpful. And in addition to giving a lot of great tips that junior scholars should follow, Will also hit on my main piece of advice for people deciding which junior scholars to hire: focus on people that view research as consumption.
Let me explain why this so important. The mission of academic departments is the production and dissemination of knowledge. Even after tenure, you can force people to disseminate knowledge (e.g. teach). But it’s hard to force someone to produce it (e.g. research). This problem is true in all academic departments, but it’s exacerbated by several structural features of law schools: tenure clocks are short and denial rates are low; salary ranges are compressed; and there are non-research, legal related opportunities for faculty to spend their time on that will provide them with money, prestige, and stimulation.
So although it’s critical to hire people that are going to continue to be active researchers and help produce knowledge, it’s hard to compel them to do it for very long. The solution is to focus on hiring scholars that love research and would be doing it regardless of the professional rewards. The kind of people that love nothing more than a day alone in their office, that fantasize about starting new projects, and that love learning about other new research because they find it interesting. These are the people that are worth betting on as being future great scholars when making massive long-run investments in their hiring.
But identifying people that love research isn’t just important because its a good characteristic to focus on when predicting that individual’s own future scholarly output. Having people that love research around is massively important for peer effects. I’m pretty sure there is research on this point, but it’s definitely been my experience anecdotally.
When someone is an active researcher, there are things they’re learning about that few other people in the world know. So, over a meal, I can almost always learn something novel from someone that has a lot of active research interests. Often, the things I learn make me want to start new projects or help me improve current ones. And being around great, productive researchers makes me think I need to push harder to produce good scholarship.
But when I’m at a meal with an academic that is not actively engrossed by the researcher process, I find that that dinner conversations slide toward whatever is currently being covered on the landing page of the NY Times or the TV that people are watching. This might make for a fun evening, but it never does much to improve my projects. And it makes me think I should read more news and watch more TV.