We are thrilled to announce our search for the inaugural Executive Director of the Law and Political Economy Project. Details below, and please share widely. Download the announcement here. We also welcome applications for the part-time blog editor position, posted here.
The Law and Political Economy (LPE) project at Yale Law School seeks a full-time Executive Director (ED). The ideal ED will play both a scholarly and organizational role.
The LPE project is a network of scholars, practitioners, and students working to develop innovative methods at the intersections of legal, political, and economic ordering, with special attention to democracy, economic inequality and power, and racialized and gendered inequality. We seek to make our work relevant to judging, advocacy, policy, and politics as well as scholarship more traditionally understood, and see our initiative as, in part, a response to the fraught political moment and an attempt to understand and address the longer-running problems that have contributed to it. This grant-funded initiative is housed at Yale Law School, and will coordinate closely with other key hubs of legal scholarship and advocacy, including Columbia Law School, Demos, and others.
The ED will receive an appointment as a Research Scholar at Yale Law School, and ideally will be at the early stages of a career in legal scholarship, advocacy, or policy and will have a developed and independent set of related interests. On average over the course of the year, the ED will spend approximately 50% of their time on their own scholarly or scholarly-adjacent research and writing. In this respect, the position resembles certain legal fellowships and visiting assistant professorships that combine substantive employment with professional development and preparation for a permanent position in the law or an allied field.
On the organizational side, the ED will oversee all aspects of the LPE project. Specifically, s/he will
- coordinate and develop the substantive aspects of LPE conferences, talks, and working groups (with assistance from a project coordinator, who will be responsible for event logistics)
- act as a node for new ideas and generate topics for convenings and for our blog (LPEblog.org)
- cultivate and maintain lines of communication with affiliated scholars
- work with our JD and PhD students as well as affiliated student organizations
- develop an annual budget and perform monthly oversight of expenditures
- be supported by, and have oversight over, the two part-time staff of the project (an administrative coordinator and a blog editor)
- act as the public face of the LPE group by developing appropriate website, press, and social media content, and encouraging links with public policy foundations and media
- assist with fundraising and interacting with funders
Essential requirements:
A J.D. or equivalent degree and some training (ideally but not necessarily in the form of a graduate degree) in relevant allied fields as indicated by the LPE initiative’s focus (see lpeproject.wpengine.com); a distinguished academic record; administrative and organizational experience; creativity, problem-solving, and intellectual rigor.
Application and Contact:
We welcome applications immediately and will begin to consider them on a rolling basis starting on Dec. 1 and continuing until the position is filled. The ideal start date would be January 1, although later dates may also be possible. Questions and applications should be sent to Karen Alderman (karen.alderman@yale.edu).
Applicants should submit:
- a cover letter including a statement of your scholarly or policy research interests and work, and describing your qualifications, with an emphasis on past managerial and/or administrative experience;
- a CV
- a law school and/or doctoral transcript
- three letters of recommendation: two letters of recommendation speaking to scholarship, and at least one letter of recommendation speaking to managerial and/or administrative experience.
- at least one example of recent scholarly writing
Terms:
The position requires full-time presence at the Law School, especially during term. Some travel is required, for example to conferences relevant to our work. Compensation will be commensurate with experience, with the excellent benefits awarded to research scholars, described here: https://your.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Enroll/2018/2018MyBenefitsBrochure-faculty.pdf.
Nondiscrimination Statement:
Yale University considers applicants for employment without regard to, and does not discriminate on the basis of, an individual’s sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, status as a veteran, or national or ethnic origin; nor does Yale discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 protects people from sex discrimination in educational programs and activities at institutions that receive federal financial assistance. Questions regarding Title IX may be referred to the University’s Title IX Coordinator, at TitleIX@yale.edu, or to the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 8th Floor, Five Post Office Square, Boston MA 02109-3921. Telephone: 617.289.0111, Fax: 617.289.0150, TDD: 800.877.8339, or Email: ocr.boston@ed.gov.
