Legal Commentary

Like Michael, I'm just back from the FRC, where I had a great time meeting a bunch of (intimidatingly) talented and accomplished people.  I was struck, during the conversations, that nearly every candidate, when asked (something like) "do you have any questions for us", asked "why do the Irish stink at football these days?" (not really) or (something like) "is there research support for junior faculty"?  And, my colleagues and I responded each time with what must have seemed like a canned recitation of our policies with reference to first-year teaching loads, pre-tenure leaves, internal workshops, travel and summer-research funding, etc.  Anyway, I wonder if we just made a mistake, and neglected to do what perhaps other schools do, i.e., include a description of these policies in the materials we send out before the FRC?  Or, is this just uniforming thought to be a safe question to ask?  If we were to take care of answering this question in pre-FRC correspondence, would we be doing candidates a favor, by answering their unasked question?  Or, would we be depriving them of a helpful go-to question for that inevitable "any questions for us?" moment during the interview?