About

The Emerging Scholars Workshop/Culp Colloquium is a two stage program that aims to further the racial diversity of the legal academy. From its founding in May 2011 by Professors Guy Charles and Dorothy Brown, the program has placed nearly two dozen minority law professors in leading law schools.

The intensive two day Emerging Scholars Workshop provides prospective law teaching candidates with unusually honest criticism, high expectations, and faith in their abilities. Mock job talks and interviews, detailed review of their FAR forms and research statements, and unusually frank assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of candidates’ job talk papers and presentations lead to the candidates’ success on the job market. Prospective law professors just beginning a short-term Visiting Assistant Professor or Fellow position may be observers, an experience that enables them to best prepare for the job market.

The Culp Colloquium, named in honor of the late Duke Law Professor Jerome Culp and his commitment to increasing law faculty diversity, operates in conjunction with the Emerging Workshop. During Culp, prior Emerging participants present works-in-progress and receive the sort of intensive feedback (from host institution faculty and other subject matter experts) that is essential to the production of top quality scholarship. The Culp Colloquium concludes with a dinner that also includes the Emerging Scholars, an event that enables the Emerging Scholars to envision themselves as law professors.