Visiting Assistant Professor

In 2025, the University of Minnesota Law School launched a new program for law school graduates and practicing lawyers aspiring to become legal academics. The Visiting Assistant Professor (VAP) program is designed to give participants the resources, mentorship, teaching experience, and intellectual community they need to develop an ambitious scholarly agenda and prepare for the law school teaching market.

In 2025, the University of Minnesota Law School launched a new program for law school graduates and practicing lawyers aspiring to become legal academics. The Visiting Assistant Professor (VAP) program is designed to give participants the resources, mentorship, teaching experience, and intellectual community they need to develop an ambitious scholarly agenda and prepare for the law school teaching market.

Minnesota VAPs presumptively spend three years in the program. They are expected to teach one or two law school classes per year and develop a body of scholarship in anticipation of entering the law school teaching market in their second or third year.

VAPs participate fully in the intellectual life of Minnesota Law. Each VAP is paired with a faculty mentor who provides sustained guidance on scholarship, teaching, professional development, and the academic job market. VAPs participate in the weekly faculty colloquium and are invited to attend the Law School’s workshops in legal history, public law, and law and technology, which bring scholars from around the country to present their research.

VAPs join a large community of scholars at different stages of their careers, including other VAPs and junior scholars who regularly present their research to one another at junior faculty workshops. As part of a major research university, VAPs are also encouraged to build relationships with scholars beyond the Law School, including in the Medical School, School of Public Health, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Carlson School of Management, College of Liberal Arts, and departments and programs in fields such as economics, history, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, and the sciences.

VAPs are expected to teach a two-credit seminar of their own design in the spring semester of their first academic year in the VAP program.

In their second year, VAPs are expected to teach five credits, likely the same seminar taught in Year One plus a three-credit doctrinal class.

In their third year, VAPs will teach three credits, ordinarily in the spring semester to facilitate the academic job market.

VAPs are expected to make substantial progress on an independent research agenda and to complete at least one full-length scholarly article suitable for publication and capable of serving as a job-talk paper.

This is a 100% time, renewable, 12-month academic professional appointment which will begin in summer 2027. The initial appointment will be for a period of one year. The appointment may be renewed for up to an additional two years following the successful completion of the first year. The position is onsite at the University of Minnesota School of Law in Minneapolis, MN.

VAPs will be paid an annual salary of $75,000. The Law School will also provide professional and scholarly development support, including resources for research assistants, membership in professional associations, and participation in scholarly conferences.

J.D. degree from an A.B.A. accredited law school. Applicants must have a…