When I made the decision to apply for a tenure-track position last summer, I was frankly not sure where to start or what to expect. What I did know was that I needed someone to help me—someone who could help me advocate for myself and be honest when I needed to change course or adjust. Below are some parts of mentor selection and the mentorship process that you may not be aware of, in hopes that it can help you find the right mentor when it is time for you to apply for a faculty position.[1]

• Researching. This part probably took the longest time in the mentor selection process because I was trying to decide between a couple of professors I respect and who I knew would support me in this endeavor. The good news, though, is that whoever you have on your “short list” of mentors will likely be good references for you for the position. As you start to develop that list, make sure that you add people who would be supportive of your transition to faculty, especially if you are applying at schools that you do not presently work at. Of course, your mentor does not have to be from your school, as we have many fine faculty mentors in the ASP/BP community, too.

I would also recommend that you find out whether the mentor you are requesting has participated on a faculty search committee. Having a mentor who is familiar with the faculty search process from developing the job description and metrics to how to give a good job talk presentation are all key things that will help you find a mentor whose background will help in your search[2].

• Asking. Was I ever nervous when I called up this professor to ask them to serve as my mentor. Looking back, I would definitely have practiced this conversation an extra time or two, so I didn’t repeat myself or sound as nervous as I was. Luckily, I had chosen a mentor who I know well and who knows my quirks—so I imagine she was rather forgiving of my nerves.

When asking someone to be your mentor for this process, you should explain your interest in seeking a faculty position, why you are a good fit for the position that you are applying for, and what you hope your mentor will support you with. I suspect that if you did the research phase correctly and outlined your goals, your mentor will be delighted to help you advance your career to the next step after you ask. If they decline the offer, re-evaluate your research phase and try again.

• Learning. Once I selected my faculty mentor—and she’d agreed—, the hard stuff started. Your mentor should help guide you as they review your resume/CV, cover letter, and any other supporting documents required in your application.

After I worked on my resume/CV and cover letter and thought about what my scholarly agenda should include, I sent them over to my mentor. Here, I learned a lot from my mentor over several Zoom calls discussing what was and wasn’t working. This particular process of pulling my initial application materials together took several iterations, so give yourself enough lead time. In fact, as I noted in an earlier blog, I had such a hard time making my cover letter sing until it was pointed out to me that I needed to do legal analysis with it.

Finding a mentor who can give you the hard facts on the materials you have prepared is so important. Hearing “This cover letter just seems very general and doesn’t really make you stand out,” can make you feel deflated—as it did me (even if just for a moment). But my mentor was so patient with me; we started just talking about the things I had done and what made me shine in my current role, and as we talked, the pieces really started to come together. So not only should your mentor be able to tell you what you (maybe) don’t want to hear, but they should also be patient and supportive of your learning in this process, just like we are with our students.

• Practicing. If after all of the hard work on the front end—finding a mentor, writing application materials, and submitting your application—you find yourself with the fantastic opportunity for interviews, your mentor can also provide valuable support for interviewing and job talks. They can give you insight into the types of questions you might see, input on how to structure your job talk (especially if you need to balance ASP/BP topics with your scholarly agenda), and they will likely offer to moot your job talk.

I found getting advice on my job talk from my mentor (and others I ended up listing as references) very helpful. While this is perhaps a story for a later blog post, I will briefly share that for my first job talk moot, I made such very bland slides because I thought that I should. When my mentor saw this, she pushed back because she knew it was not my style—so I changed my deck to be more engaging (which was the right decision). As you work with your mentor and other references to prepare for your job talk, make sure to get feedback on the whole process—presentation style, timing, slide style, language on the slides, ability to answer questions, and demeanor.  

The advice and guidance my mentor provided me truly made me a better applicant and I could not be more grateful to her. I hope that in your upcoming job search, you can find my experience searching for and working with my mentor helpful—and that you find your own supportive mentor to help you reach your goals!

(Erica M. Lux)

[1] A huge resource that also helped me get started in the process, with some example materials, was the AALS “Becoming a Law Teacher” website—highly recommend you also get familiar with it.

[2] For obvious reasons, you will probably want to speak with your faculty mentor and/or your Dean and administrative leadership if you are applying in house. There could be some key conflict of interest issues regarding mentors and references that you need to work through, or they may alert you to other factors to be aware of.

I teach Legal Methods in the spring semester. In my school, Legal Methods is a required course for 1L students who did not perform well academically in their fall semester. For many of them, this is their last chance to stay in law school.

Unsurprisingly, part of my role in teaching the class is to help students navigate a variety of emotions as they process being in my class. Something I often come back to with students is what success in law school means. We know that law school is filled with visible markers of achievement: grades, class rank, law review, clerkships, offers, and bar passage. While these milestones matter, they can quietly crowd out the more important individual question of what success means to each student.

When students measure themselves only against external benchmarks, they may achieve impressive credentials while feeling disconnected, burned out, or uncertain about their own goals. Alternatively, students may miss the external marks and feel disheartened and uncertain about whether they belong.

Academic support professionals are uniquely positioned to help students define success in a way that is both personally meaningful and professionally sustainable. Here are some things I keep in mind as I navigate these conversations with students:

1. Widen Traditional Narratives of Success

Many students arrive with an implicit script, including top grades, prestigious internships, elite employers. While those paths are valid, they are not the only versions of success. Naming this openly helps students see that there are many fulfilling legal careers, and career paths are rarely linear (mine certainly wasn’t!). Additionally, students should recognize that prestige is different from fulfillment. By widening the narrative of “success,” we give students permission to explore what actually aligns with their values.

2. Separate Performance from Worth

High-achieving environments can blur the line between how students perform and how they see themselves. A bad exam becomes a statement about identity. A missed opportunity becomes a referendum on belonging.

Academic support can help students practice language and thinking that separates what happened (a performance outcome) from who I am (a capable, growing professional). This distinction supports resilience and reduces the emotional weight attached to every data point.

3. Encourage Values-Based Goal Setting

Often, I find myself asking students only, “What kind of job do you want?” However, this closes the discussion. Instead, I try to be deliberate about asking questions like:

• What kind of lawyer do you want to be?
• What kind of life do you want your career to support?
• What values do you want your work to reflect?

This also works when narrowed to the academic setting. Rather than assuming every student wants a 4.0, asking students why they came to law school and what experiences they want to have while here can help shift the conversation from grades to values. And, values-based conversations help students connect daily effort to long-term meaning, making motivation more intrinsic and sustainable.

4. Normalize Changing Definitions of Success

What success looks like in 1L year may not match what it looks like in 3L year, or five years into practice. Students should know that redefining success is not failure; it’s growth. We can model this by sharing nonlinear career stories, alumni paths that have changed over time, and examples of lawyers who recalibrated their priorities. Flexibility in goals is a professional strength that we can start to normalize early in law school.

5. Teach Students to Track Personal Wins

Not all progress shows up on transcripts. Encourage students to notice the non-grade-based wins, such as improved time management; greater confidence in class; stronger analysis; healthier boundaries; or an increased willingness to seek feedback. These are all skills students should be developing in law school, and tracking these wins helps students see growth that grades may not capture.

Helping students develop a personal definition of success doesn’t mean ignoring institutional benchmarks. It means placing them in a broader, healthier context. When students define success on their own terms – grounded in values, growth, and professional identity – they are more likely to persist through challenges, make intentional choices, and build careers that feel meaningful.

Academic support plays a powerful role in helping students ask and answer the most important question of all: What does success look like for me?

(Dayna Smith)

I actually uttered these words at my aqua aerobics class.

I have probably written about my fitness with octogenarians class in the past, but for the last two weeks, I have been working on convincing my water buddies that Bad Bunny is actually very good and quite clearly not a rabbit. This may have been the most difficult teaching I have done recently-and I am teaching an Intro. to Con. Law class to international LL.M. students this semester. I live in New England where even harmless looking seniors in old fashioned bathing caps[1] have strong opinions about football and halftime shows. Especially this year-but no more on that: it is too soon.

They had heard there was controversy about the choice of Bad Bunny to perform at Super Bowl LX[2]. So, I asked them what they had heard. They had heard a bunch of things that were the talking points from the loud –but inaccurate– folks out there who seem to forget that Puerto Rico is part of the United States. They had heard that his music was full of hate. But they hadn’t even listened because it was in Spanish. I told them that he was a champion of women, fervently against ICE, and (I know my crowd), just an adorable young man. His current–grammy winning–hit even talks about playing dominos with his grandfather (Ey, hoy voy a estar con abuelo to’l día, jugando dominó[3]).

These people are retired doctors, lawyers, nurses, and high level administrators; folks who had stayed in the area after graduating from Harvard or MIT. They are older but also wiser people who are well educated and fascinating to talk to-and yet, they believed the pre-packaged story about Bad Bunny. They were, to their credit, taken aback about who had manufactured the packaging when told, but if these folks could believe things without firsthand knowledge, I have to wonder about what our students “know.”

I think we, as law educators, have to remind students not to believe everything they hear. Curiosity is a valuable tool as a law student and more so as a lawyer.  I think we also have to remind students to not bad mouth themselves–to themselves– and then believe the bad hype they have self-generated. Interrupting this narrative loop is crucial to success as well. We can help students look for other metrics or even just share better information[4]. Asking questions is a strength not a weakness.

As someone deep in Patriots’ territory, I can say that Bad Bunny’s performance was the best part of the Super Bowl. He warmed up a very cold night with a simple idea, “…hate gets more powerful with more hate. The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love.[5]”  The wedding during the show was real love on national display.[6]

My next instructional hurdle: getting them to love Zohran.

(Liz Stillman)

[1] https://nanaswhimsies.com/tag/esther-williams/

[2] Can we talk about how many students may only know roman numerals from football sometime??

[3] From Debí Tirar Más Fotos

[4] I also worry that students will look for and find alternative sources of information that some will tell them is better but isn’t the main show like those who sponsored a second halftime show.

[5] Bad Bunny at the Grammy’s, 2/2/26.

[6] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-news/bad-bunny-couple-married-super-bowl-halftime-show-1236500136/

“History repeats itself” is deeply on my mind. Why can’t some individuals acknowledge and learn from past mistakes? As I reflect on the state of our world and catch myself in a spiraling thought, I quickly return to work, focus my energy and make something out of these thoughts.  

Perhaps we need to slow things down to learn our mistakes. When I think about my recent work, I notice that I started to slow more and want to share my observations for today’s post. For example, in my second-year skills course, students receive feedback on their essays individually in writing, followed up by a required group recording video, which ends with three specific objectives that the students need to improve and accomplish in their next written piece. Instead of providing individual feedback and expecting the students to review while I move on to the next writing exercise, I’m slowing down and repeating the information through a few different formats and providing my students with a center point before moving forward. The additional recordings and stated objectives provide my students two to three targeted improvements to digest and focus on for the next exercise.

Another exercise that I’m using to slow down my practicum course is a repeat simulation structure. In prior semesters, students were asked to verbally or in writing to reflect on, “if they were to do the simulation again, what would they do the same and what would they do differently?” Instead of packing in seven simulations this semester, I’ve downsized to four simulations with intermittent opportunities to repeat the simulations. This slowed process pushes students to identify and actively practice implementing the adjustment.

Today’s post is a light one… there is too much heavy plaguing our society. So, slow it down, have your students try one exercise again, again (and maybe again). You will be happy that you did.

(Amy Vaughan-Thomas)

Mid-year is a tough time to receive student evaluations. If you receive your fall evals over the holidays, it is not prime timing to review some difficult comments. If you receive your fall evals later in the winter, it is also difficult to adjust your teaching until the following year. And of course, there is also the reality that Academic and Bar Success workflow does not look like a traditional faculty member’s workflow. (See Danya Smith’s post earlier this week for comfort in that regard – I feel you, girl!)

We all bring our big hearts into this work, and it can be difficult to read student comments or dissect student ratings to identify areas for improvement. This year, in my continued pursuit of everything AI, I decided to run three years of student evaluations through an LLM system. My prompt, “I am a 36 year old, cisgender, white, female law faculty instructor. Please review these three years of student evaluations in Professional Responsibility to, (1) remove any comments or feedback that includes express or embedded bias, and (2) summarize areas for improvement and areas of strength in my teaching of this course.”

First, and in acknowledgement of the available data about some challenges with bias built into the LLMs, I was impressed with the AI’s ability to flag the bias comments in my evals. Comments that included gender, age and authority-based bias were intentionally discounted. Specific remarks were heavily discounted because the comments reflected the well-documented bias against women faculty members, especially younger women in authority positions. Comments that were removed from the AI read included, “She’s intimidating as a person,” “too intense,” [she is] “talking down to us,” and complaints about my confidence without any linkage to a learning outcome for the class.

Second, this exercise provided a good summary of areas for improvement which I can now focus my energy on as I prepare to teach this course in the future. Targeted adjustments that I will make next year include moving core skills instruction exercises (focused on IRAC and MCQ strategies) up in the semester, additional diagnostic feedback on multiple choice, and additional signaling for specific language cues in dense rule statements. These are all specific, actionable takeaways that help inform my approach moving forward.

Finally, this exercise provided reassurance that I am on the right track. My summary noted that I am highly invested in my students’ success, I critically prepared and organized my class, and I was a clear and effective teacher. We work in a fast-paced environment which sometimes can fuel those inner self-doubts. If you’re like me, having an objective assessment and review is a necessity. The next time you have the opportunity to reflect on your teaching, I encourage you to try this exercise out for what it is worth.

(Amy Vaughan-Thomas)

I met with a student this week to review her final exam. During the fall semester, I watched this student seek support, utilize resources, and pour her energy into her studies. The hard work paid off, and she was very successful. This student also happens to be a caregiver. During our meeting, I shared my exam feedback but also expressed admiration at her ability to balance her coursework alongside her caregiving responsibilities. She said her family pushed her to be more efficient. She had to prioritize and be more effective with her available time at school because she wanted to be fully present during family time.

Not all caregivers strike this balance as early as my student. This is mainly because law school wasn’t designed with caregivers in mind. The rigid schedules, heavy reading loads, and high-stakes assessments often assume students have unlimited time, flexibility, and emotional bandwidth. But many law students are also parents, guardians, caregivers for aging relatives, or supporters of family members with medical needs. These students are no less committed, but they’re carrying more than the “traditional” law student.

On the plus side, law schools are becoming more accessible. With more part-time and online options, more people with outside responsibilities are able to access legal education. Academic support programs play a critical role in ensuring that caregiving responsibilities do not become an invisible barrier to success. With intentional design and compassionate practices, law schools can help caregiving students persist, thrive, and feel that they truly belong.

• Acknowledge Caregiving as a Reality, Not an Exception

Caregiving students have often felt pressure to keep that part of their lives hidden, fearing judgment or assumptions about their commitment. I often hear from students who feel less able to connect with their peers because they feel unable to connect with those who are able to focus all of their attention on law school. Simply acknowledging caregiving as a normal part of the law school community is powerful.

This can come in many forms. For instance, we might acknowledge our students could be caregivers in orientation, syllabi, and support materials. Also, use inclusive language that recognizes that students may have responsibilities outside of school. And, of course, continuing to make clear that support services are available without stigma. Visibility sends a message that caregiving students are not alone.

• Build Flexibility into Programming

Caregiving responsibilities can be unpredictable. A child gets sick. A parent has an emergency. Rigid support structures can unintentionally exclude students who need them most. As such, ASPs should increase access by offering workshops in multiple formats; scheduling sessions at varied times of day; providing short resources instead of longer one-time programs; and allowing flexible meeting times for individual coaching when possible. Flexibility can be key in removing an unnecessary barrier.

• Teach Strategic Time Management

Like the student I spoke with about her exam, caregiving students need efficient, high-impact strategies. They often have less time to devote to endless study hours, so they need advice to get the most out of every minute they spend on law school. This might include helping them with prioritization, identifying shorter focused study blocks, teaching active study techniques, and helping them plan for disruption. Helping students work smarter respects the reality of their lives.

• Coordinate Across Departments

The job of supporting caregiving students cannot fall on ASP alone. We often serve as the bridge between faculty, student affairs, accommodations offices, and financial aid. Sharing patterns (without breaching confidentiality) helps institutions identify where policies, schedules, or expectations may unintentionally disadvantage students.

• Foster Community and Connection

Caregiving can be isolating, especially in environments where students assume everyone is “all law school, all the time.” Creating opportunities for connection can help counter that isolation. Schools might start a caregiver affinity group or peer mentoring programs to let students connect with one another. A sense of belonging goes a long way in law school.

Supporting students who balance caregiving responsibilities is about equitable access to success. When ASPs (and law schools!) design with caregiving students in mind, they create systems that are more flexible and effective for all learners. Law school is demanding. Caregiving is demanding. Students doing both deserve intentional, visible, and sustained support. Academic support is uniquely positioned to participate in – or lead – the effort.

(Dayna Smith)