Unraveling of the market for new law professors

 Kim Krawiec, a law professor who is among the most penetrating analysts of controversial markets and market practices, emails me about unraveling in the market for new law professors:

"prior to Covid, the AALS (American Association of Law Schools) ran a hiring process with a central meeting in Washington DC and nearly every law professor was hired through this process. During Covid, this of course stopped and has now been dropped (I think) permanently, so now schools are sort of making up their own schedules. Some schools are starting early and making exploding offers before other schools have even begun the process. The idea of exploding offers is not new — it happened before. Though some (mostly higher ranked schools) considered it bad form, other schools argued that they had to do it or would wind up hiring no one year after year as favored candidates accepted other jobs near the end of the season. But the physical meeting and control over the timing by the AALS at least posed a basic schedule. That now appears to be gone and people (both candidates and hiring committees) are up in arms. ... My guess (completely speculating) is that the interests of higher ranked and lower ranked schools are not aligned on this and that makes it harder to find a new equilibrium, but I don’t know."

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Law already 'enjoys' a number of unraveled markets, for law clerks, for associates (and summer associates) in law firms, and for articles in law reviews.  So I have to admit the prospects for preventing wholesale unraveling of the law professor market looks bleak, unless law schools can start to think outside of the box, perhaps e.g. by preparing to give offers to students who have already accepted exploding offers, if necessary to start in the following academic year...  

Maybe in that way the academic law community can start to come to some agreement on some  time, midway between early and late, in which offers should be made and during which they should be left open.