What Property Hiring Can Learn From Squash

Here's a question I've been mulling over: Why don't more American law schools consider hiring an international scholar when they look for new property professors?  Unlike other subjects on the law school curriculum, there's still a ton of overlap between British property law and American property law.  It wouldn't take an English or Welsh scholar very long to pick up the nuances of the U.S. system.  Moreover, I'm told that salaries in the UK aren't as high as they are in America.  It seems that an ambitious, mid-level law school might be able to get a lot of scholarly "bang for its buck" if it took the time to recruit abroad.  Such a strategy has worked wonders in college athletics.  As the NY Times recently chronicled, Trinity University has raised its profile by dominating college squash.  The unheralded school upended 30 years of Ivy League dominance by canvassing the globe for foreign talent.  The result -- 13 consecutive national championships and 244 straight match victories (the longest streak, by far, in the history of college sports).  Based on that evidence, I'll argue that hiring more British scholars represents a real opportunity for a creative law school dean.  And if that doesn't work out, you could always just throw a little money at a clever property blogger. 

Steve Clowney 

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