Welcome back to Ahead of the Curve. I'm Karen Sloan, legal education editor at Law.com, and I'll be your host for this weekly look at innovation and notable developments in legal education.

This week, I'm looking at how faculty and clerk hiring has gone remote and the pros and cons that come with interviewing across a computer screen. Some law deans and law firm hiring partners share their thoughts on whether they think the next summer associate cycle—now in January—will be an in-person or online affair. Plus, legal education's home away from home, the Marriott Wardman Park, is on shaky ground and could close for good.

Please share your thoughts and feedback with me at [email protected] or on Twitter: @KarenSloanNLJ

Will Remote Hiring Become the Norm?

Hiring via Zoom has been on my radar at lot in recent weeks. And that makes sense: Pretty much everything has migrated online or remote since COVID-19 arrived so why not hiring? It's not as though anyone is enthusiastic about hopping on a plane these days, shaking hands with hiring committee members, or talking shop at a restaurant as each side feels each other out. And a recent panel discussion hosted by the National Association of Law Placement (on Zoom, of course!) got me thinking about the potential upsides of a world in which interviews for summer associate positions, clerkships, and professor gigs unfold via computer screen. But first, here's a quick rundown on where hiring has moved online:

➤➤Federal Clerkships: Many federal judges interviewed and hired law clerks this month under the Federal Clerk Hiring Plan, and most all followed a directive to interview remotely. Early feedback from law schools and judges is that the Zoom interviewing went relatively well, and that students benefited from not having to foot the cost of traveling to judges' chambers to meet with them in person.

➤➤Entry-level Teaching: The Association of American Law Schools has canceled its annual Faculty Recruitment Conference, which is held each fall in Washington. Instead teaching candidates will submit their applications to the AALS' Faculty Appointments Register and law schools will contact candidates directly. This hasn't happened yet so we don't know how it will play out, but not having to travel for in-person interviews will be a money saver both for job candidates and for law schools.

➤➤Lateral faculty hiring: This area is harder to track since it isn't facilitated by a single entity like law clerk and entry-level law faculty hiring. But new deans are being hired amid the pandemic, and professors are making lateral moves—and the bulk of that hiring is surely happening remotely, with university campuses remaining closed or with access sharply limited.

I haven't included summer associate hiring on this list, because we don't yet know how that will unfurl. Had law schools and law firms this year stuck with the traditional July and August timeline for on-campus interviews, they almost certainly would have to be done remotely. But pretty much every major firm and law school has now pushed this year's OCI cycle to January of 2021. Which brings me to that NALP roundtable discussion last week, which featured UCLA law dean Jennifer Mnookin, University of Oregon law dean Marcilynn Burke; Skadden hiring partner Gavin White, and Winston & Strawn hiring partner Bill O'Neil.

Summer associate hiring was a topic of discussion, with panelists offering pros and cons to the remote format. White said that he hopes summer associate recruiting can be done in person in January, but that Skadden could conduct screening interviews online if need be. "I think there's tremendous value in being in the same room for an interview," he noted. But Mnookin was doubtful that summer associate interviews in January would be in person. Law firm partners likely won't want to fly to various campuses and wearing masks during the interviews would be awkward and negate some of the benefits of being in-person, such as reading facial cues, she said. Plus the small rooms typically used for interviewing would make social distancing difficult.

In those challenges, however, lies an opportunity to rethink how law firms hire summer associates—a process the panelists noted has changed very little in decades. Remote interviews could make it easier for law firms to look more broadly in their search for summer associate talent, Mnookin noted, as they wouldn't be tied to specific campuses. O'Neil also said he sees possibilities for bigger changes in hiring.

"I do think we'll end up doing the interviewing virtually," O'Neil said of the January recruiting cycle. "We have a process that's already antiquated…That system is already imperfect and filled with bias. This is an opportunity for the profession to get more sophisticated about hiring."

The upcoming summer associate recruiting cycle presents an opportunity for law firms to experiment with analytics, personality tests, and technology to reduce bias in hiring and may force law firms to be more thoughtful about how they hire, he added. Law firms, to this point, have been reluctant to take steps outside of the norm when it comes to summer associate hiring, but the pandemic could be the push they need to take some chances, O'Neil said.

UCLA Law could not conduct in-person interviews with applicants this spring so it tried some new approaches, such as having group conversations with applicants facilitated by faculty members, Mnookin said.

My thoughts: I think Mnookin and O'Neil are probably right in their prediction that the next class of summer associates will be interviewed and hired remotely, thus it would be wise of law schools and firms to begin thinking through the best ways to do that. This is likely the best moment to weigh larger changes to the overall process, which I agree is pretty stale and riddled with bias. In some ways, I think interviewing over Zoom will help take away some focus on the intangibles and less-important things such as how a candidate looks or dresses. I think it helps put more attention on what candidates actually say, which has to be a good thing. On the other hand, it's true that you tend to get a fuller sense of the personality of someone—and perhaps a better sense of a firm's culture—when you are in the same room with them, as opposed to talking through a computer scene. Even if the pandemic subsides quickly (fingers crossed!) I think remote interviewing will stick around, at least around the margins.

So long, Marriott Wardman Park?

To the uninitiated, it may seem weird that I would expend any space in the column to the potential demise of a Washington hotel. But you see, the Marriott Wardman Park holds a special place in legal education. It's the site of the Association of American Law Schools annual Faculty Recruitment Conference (canceled this year as mentioned above.) That means many law professors scored their first teaching gig after making the interview rounds at the Wardman. It's also where the AALS holds its annual meeting every three years or so. Last January, hundreds of us (including this intrepid correspondent) crammed into a cavernous ballroom at the Wardman to see none other than the Notorius RBG deliver remarks. All of which is to say that legal educators are pretty familiar with the seemingly endless corridors of the hotel, not to mention its lobby bar.

Now comes word that the future of the massive hotel with 1,200 rooms and nearly 200,000-square-feet of event space is in doubt. According to this news report, Marriott is considering permanently shuttering the whole complex. And if I'm being honest, I'm not terribly surprised. The building has already been closed since mid-March due to COVID-19, and I have to believe that most if not all of the organizations and groups that hold conferences there are probably rethinking those events amid this pandemic. Will events like the AALS' upcoming meeting in San Francisco even happen? I wouldn't bet on it.

And to put it bluntly: The Wardman has seen better days. It first opened in 1918 and has endured numerous editions and renovations over the past century. Spending a multi-day conference there at times felt like being trapped in a sunless bunker. (I may be a little unfair on that point since I've only been there in the dreary month of January, but there's not much natural light to be had regardless.)

It's not all cons for the Wardman in my book, though. It's is a great location, right off the Metro in the leafy Woodley Park neighborhood and a short walk from the National Zoo. It's one of those places I always feel happy to arrive at since it feels so familiar, and relieved to leave at the end of my stay.

Will the Wardman survive COVID-19? I don't have the answer to that, but I feel for the approximately 500 workers who have been informed that they may not have jobs to return to.

Extra Credit Reading

The University of California, Berkeley School of Law is following Harvard's lead and remaining fully online for the fall semester.

Concordia University School of Law is closing after a deal to transfer the school to a new parent university fell through.

New York has found space for graduates of out-of-state law schools to take its bar exam in September, after earlier warnings that some examinees could be shut out.

Momentum is building behind the national movement for emergency diploma privileges. On Monday, Oregon became the third state (after Utah and Washington) to admit graduates of ABA-accredited law schools without requiring them to take the bar. Meanwhile, the Minnesota Supreme Court is gathering public opinion on a proposed diploma privilege and looks likely to reach a decision in early July.

The majority of the faculty at George Washington University Law School have signed a scathing letter, condemning the actions of alum and Attorney General William Barr.

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I'll be back next week with more news and updates on the future of legal education. Until then, keep in touch at [email protected]