Hiring a Research Fellow in Free Speech Law for 1 or 2 Years, at the Hoover Institution (Stanford)

This was just announced Friday:

Opportunity for Post-JD Scholars

The Hoover Institution at Stanford University is seeking an outstanding early-career legal scholar who is interested in doing research on free speech law, in preparation for seeking an academic position at a law school or elsewhere.

If you are selected, you would work on your own research with the guidance and supervision of Senior Fellow Eugene Volokh, who is coming to Hoover after 30 years as a Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. You would be appointed a Research Fellow with the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI), for one year from July 2024 through June 2025; the term may be renewed, if both you and Hoover agree, for one extra year. You would be expected to be physically present at the Institution, and working at it full-time, with no competing major professional commitments.

There is no teaching obligation, so you would have maximum time to research and write. You would, however, be expected to help organize and participate in occasional conferences, workshops, and lectures, and to work on occasional projects with Volokh or other Senior Fellows. These tasks would all be related to free speech law, and are expected to help promote your own research and future career.

Eligibility criteria:

• You must have a JD or its equivalent by June 2024.
• You must commit to staying for at least one year (July 2024 through June 2025). The date range might be moved back a little if required because of a judicial clerkship that will keep you occupied until July to September 2024.
• We prefer if you have clerked for a judge or judges, or have a clerkship lined up for July 2025 or later.
• Work experience as a lawyer is not required, though some such experience is a plus.
• A PhD in another discipline is not required, though neither is it frowned on.
• You must have written a publishable law journal article already while in law school or shortly after. Whether it has already been published or not does not matter, so long as it is essentially complete. That article need not have been on free speech law.
• You must be planning to work on free speech law, though understood capaciously. This is not limited to First Amendment law, but includes federal or state statutes, common law rules, state constitutional provisions, transnational or international legal provisions, and rules of important private institutions—so long as they relate to the regulation (or deregulation) of speech, press, expression, assembly, expressive association, petition, and the like. Likewise, it includes doctrinal, historical, theoretical, and empirical scholarship.
• We prefer projects on important but insufficiently studied topics, rather than on ones that have already been heavily researched by others.

To apply, please submit:

• Your resume.
• Your law school transcript.
• Plans for at least two research projects, described in some detail; draft Introductions for what would become journal articles tend to be a good format.
• At least one published or completed and publishable research article.
• Any other articles, whether published or in draft.
• Contact information for three professors or other legal scholars who can speak to your intellect, writing, or research agenda.

Requirements:
The Research Fellowship position provides full Stanford benefits with a salary range of $80,000-100,000. Depending on individual circumstances, a housing and relocation allowance may also be provided.

Completed applications must be submitted online at https://applyfsl.hoover.org

DEADLINE TO APPLY: January 8, 2024
Please direct questions to Thomas J Schnaubelt at [e-mail]