More Law Schools Hiring Professor Power Couples

Law Schools

More Law Schools Hiring Professor Power Couples

Posted Sep 11, 2008, 07:32 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

For several law schools, the hiring of law professors has become a package deal.

As the number of law professor couples increases and the competition for top faculty becomes more intense, several law schools are hiring both spouses, the National Law Journal reports.

The legal newspaper says these law school power couples include Joan Krause and Richard Saver of the University of Houston; Bruce Ackerman and Susan Rose-Ackerman at Yale; Richard Revesz, law dean of New York University, and his wife Vicki Been; Gillian Lester and Eric Talley at the University of California, Berkeley; and Paul Mahoney, law dean of the University of Virginia, and Julia Mahoney.

The University of Virginia law school has 11 married couples on staff, Mahoney told the publication. "All of our recruiting efforts these days have to take account of the person's entire family—their spouse, their children, their family situation," he said.

There can be drawbacks, though. A law school is faced with filling two vacancies when a couple decides to leave, or a school may find that one spouse is a good fit and the other is not.

"I think most hiring decisions have some risk attached to them, and you have to decide which risks you're willing to take and which ones you're not," Mahoney said.

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Posted by R. Miller - 2 months, 1 week, 4 days, 1 hour, 47 minutes ago

Another terrific example: Keith Hylton and Maria O’Brien Hylton at Boston University.

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