If you’re pursuing legal academia (or mentoring someone who is) this guide busts myths, explains the process, and offers encouragement along the way. 📖 Read it here: .

In my latest The Tenure Track newsletter, I break down:. 1️⃣ How the AALS hiring process really works (and key deadlines). 2️⃣ The different types of faculty positions (and how to choose strategically). 3️⃣ Why authenticity & clarity of purpose matter more than “fitting the mold”.

If you’re thinking about legal academia, here’s what I wish more people knew:. ✅ The path doesn’t have to be linear. ✅ Practice experience can be a strength. ✅ The job market is competitive, but there’s room for authentic voices.

and many years later, tenure itself. That winding path wasn't a detour. It became the foundation of my scholarly voice and pedagogical approach.

I started in mechanical engineering at MIT. Then environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins. Worked in consulting. Went to Harvard Law. Practiced big law. Joined a small nonprofit on fair housing issues. Only after a teaching fellowship did I land a tenure-track position.

There’s no single “right” way to become a law professor. If you’d told me early in my career I’d be a tenured law professor, I would’ve laughed. Not because I didn’t value academia. but because I didn’t even see it as an option for someone like me. 🧵⤵️.

FREE webinar July 30th. Join me to learn how to become a law professor! . I’ll cover qualifications, building your profile, AALS hiring, and thriving in academia. Save your spot: . #LegalAcademia #LawProf

Please help Etienne reach his fundraising goals for the 2025 TCS New York City Marathon! via @nyrr.

This is my reflection on pilgrimage, silence, complicity, and the sacred obligation to see. #Palestine #FaithAndJustice #TaNehisiCoates #Gaza #LiberationTheology #Christianity.

Bearing witness is not about guilt. It’s about refusing myth. Refusing selective memory. It’s about opening our eyes, as people of faith, and letting that discomfort move us toward justice, across borders, race, and belief.

Reading Coates’s "The Message" last fall cracked something open. His witness in Palestine mirrored my own disillusionment. It also exposed the quiet complicity of those who pray in holy places while ignoring the oppressed just outside, beyond the frame. I was one of them.

Faith can inspire justice, or it can filter it out. In this essay, I wrestle with the ways silence, spiritualized comfort, and sanitized memory allow us to look away from apartheid, from genocide. From the violence done in our name.

Eleven years ago, I smiled for a photo in front of the Dome of the Rock. I was a Christian pilgrim, seeking the sacred. But just outside the frame were checkpoints, armed soldiers, and the brutal architecture of occupation. I didn’t see it then. I see it now. 🧵⤵️.

Please help me reach my fundraising goals for the 2025 TCS New York City Marathon! via @nyrr.

FREE webinar July 30 — join me to learn how to become a law professor! 🎓 I’ll cover qualifications, building your profile, AALS hiring, and thriving in academia. Save your spot: #LegalAcademia #LawProf.

Being the first in your family to attend law school is a remarkable milestone—but it can also come with invisible hurdles. If this resonates with you, don’t miss our 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 webinar premiering on June 25th at 1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT. Register today:

Healing isn’t the detour. It’s the path.

To become present—fully, humbly, and honestly—with where we are, right here, right now. Because the truth is, the doorway to our future often doesn’t fully open until we’ve faced the wounds that still keep us chained to our past.

To stop trying to rescue everyone else while abandoning ourselves and the purpose God has already placed in our hands. To let go of the past hurts we keep rehearsing in our heads.

We fight to stay in control—fixing, managing, striving, stressing, plotting, seeking. When the real invitation is to surrender. Not to give up, but to become still.