Hoover Fellow Program: Up-to-5-Year Paid In-Residence Position for Aspiring Academics (Including Aspiring Legal Academics)

The Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where I’m now a Senior Fellow, has long offered up-to-5-year paid in-residence positions (with no teaching obligations) in various fields.

This year, we’ll also be considering people who are interested in becoming legal academics. We expect the selection process to be highly competitive: The position is unusually generous, compared to other fellowships, in salary ($165K-230K/year plus a $20K housing allowance), potential length, and lack of teaching obligations.

To be realistically eligible, applicants should have clerkships, top grades, published law review articles, and plans for new articles. It seems likely that most applicants will be from the Usual Suspect academic feeder law schools, but I’m a UCLA law graduate myself, so I’m certainly open to top people from other schools as well. We have no particular preferences for any particular fields within law: We’ll gladly consider people who want to work in business law, constitutional law, international law, criminal law, immigration law, and all sorts of other topics.

The application deadline is Nov. 18, and the details are at https://www.hoover.org/hoover-fellows-program. Note that there would be no obligation for people to stay the full five years (and probably an expectation that they would stay no more). If someone gets a tenure-track law school teaching position two or three years into the fellowship—which tends to be the norm in the law market—we would be delighted to see them take it.

Here is the description from the link above; note that the title of the position is “Hoover Fellow,” but that is different from other fellowships at Hoover (such as the long-term Senior Fellow position that Orin and I and Michael McConnell have, the one-year National Fellow position, and the various other fellowships):

Opportunities for Early-Career Scholars

The Hoover Institution at Stanford University seeks outstanding scholars for positions as a Hoover Fellow. The term of the appointment is five years, with the option to renew for one additional term. The position is located at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA.

During their fellowship, Hoover Fellows are expected to publish scholarly articles and books with implications for public policy and to contribute to the intellectual life of the Hoover Institution. This position carries no teaching responsibilities. The 12‑month base salary range is $165,000 to $230,000, plus a $20,000 annual housing allowance.

Candidates must have a Ph.D. or equivalent degree in a relevant field, such as economics, history, international relations, national security, political science, or public policy, and expect to complete that degree by September 1st, 2026. [A J.D. would count as an "equivalent degree" for people interested in law school teaching, because that is a norm of the legal academy, though of course law review articles will be expected as a rough analog to a dissertation. -EV]

Hoover Fellows are encouraged to engage with Stanford’s broader research community in their respective fields. The Hoover Institution is a research center at Stanford University, located in the heart of Stanford’s campus.

Please submit:

• A cover letter or statement of interest that includes a description of academic background and experience
• One or more recent publications, working papers, or draft book chapters
• A curriculum vitae
• A statement about future research plans (two pages maximum)
• Three letters of recommendation that focus on the candidate’s research and research potential

If you have any questions, please contact hooverfellowship@stanford.edu. Please note that we only monitor this email address periodically.

Please submit completed applications online by November 18, 2025.

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