This question has an easy answer: one month is reasonable, two weeks is absurdly unreasonable, and anything less than a month should be justified by some pressing consideration, e.g., it’s late in the season and the school must fill this curricular slot. Schools that give open-ended offers, without a deadline, are a blessing for candidates, of course, but many schools cannot afford to do that: they need to be able to move on to other candidates.

Schools that give two weeks for a decision are usually trying to preempt competitors by forcing a candidate to decide before the hiring process plays out elsewhere. In nearly thirty years of working with law teaching candidates, I’ve never seen this strategy work out well for the hiring school. Sure, they sometimes force the risk-adverse candidate to accept the offer, but that starts the professional relationship in a bad way, and almost always the candidate leaves within a few years–often to schools that were considering the candidate originally.

So Deans: be reasonable. Aim to give candidates a month, and at a minimum, three weeks.