Juris Doctor

Juris Doctor (Latin for "Doctor of Law") or J.D. is a degree in law offered by universities in a number of countries. It is considered a first professional degree as one of the main purposes of the degree is to provide the professional training for those who wish to become lawyers. Some U.S. law schools award the first professional degree in law using the English terms Doctor of Law or Doctor of Jurisprudence rather than the Latin term Juris Doctor.

In the U.S., the J.D. (or its equivalent) is the degree required for admission to the bar in nearly all U.S. state and territorial jurisdictions. It replaced the Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree that had previously been the standard degree for those seeking to practice law. In the U.S., those individuals wishing to obtain specialized training in a particular area of the law may earn the LL.M. (Master of Laws) as a post J.D. degree, and those wishing to pursue academic research in law may earn the S.J.D. (Doctor of Juridical Science) which is an academic research degree. However, the LL.M. is not required to practice in any area of the law and the S.J.D. is rarely even pursued by law professors.

While universities in nations with legal systems based on the common law generally still award the LL.B. degree as the first professional law degree, some law schools in Canada, Hong Kong, and Australia have renamed or changed LL.B. to J.D., or simply offer both J.D. and LL.B. The J.D. degree is also being awarded in Japan as of 2004.

A number of universities such as Australia's University of Melbourne, Hong Kong's Chinese University of Hong Kong offer both first-entry and second-entry first professional degrees in law: the LL.B. is offered as a four year program for secondary school graduates, while the Juris Doctor is offered as a two to three year (6-trimester) program for "mature graduates with a good degree in a discipline other than law and significant employment experience, and for lawyers who have a civil law degree".

The J.D. in the United States

Prerequisites

In most programs, as a condition of admission to a J.D., applicants generally must have obtained a baccalaureate degree. One's GPA and LSAT score are generally considered the primary determinates for admission. However, many law schools heavily consider other factors such as life experiences, work history, undergraduate extracurricular activities, and writing ability in addition to grades and LSAT scores when determining whether to admit an applicant. No particular undergraduate major or course of study is required for admission, and many law schools prefer that students arrive as a tabula rasa as far as legal subjects and preconceptions are concerned. While actual standards are left to individual institutions, most law schools that wish to be professionally accredited by the American Bar Association require a bachelor's degree and an admission exam (the LSAT remains the de facto standard exam) as a condition of admission.

Several universities, such as the University of Pennsylvania and George Washington University have combined B.A./J.D. programs that allow students to enter the J.D. program prior to completion of the B.A., thereby allowing the student to obtain the B.A. and J.D. within a combined 6-year period during which the student must satisfy the usual credit hours for each degree. [1].

Curriculum

The curriculum usually involves no less than six semesters or nine quarters (formerly measured as three academic years, excluding summers), and many programs place explicit limits on the minimum amount of time that a student must spend in the program. U.S. post-baccalaureate degree programs, including the J.D., have an informal "industry standard" of requiring that post-graduate programs be completed in no more than six calendar years (inclusive of summers, leaves of absence, etc). The majority of U.S. law students complete the J.D. in three years of full-time enrollment, though an increasing number are doing four-year programs and night schools. Diversity in student population has become a common goal among law school admission boards, and recruiting non-traditional students with real world experience is often difficult as few professionals are willing to abandon careers for a full-time day program. Night school is an attractive option for such students, and the longer program duration (4-5 years for a part-time program, depending on summer coursework) reduces the annual cost outlay.

The first year curriculum is highly standardized, with only minor variations. Generally, first year students take semester-length courses in Contracts, Torts, Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, Property, and Constitutional Law. There is also a pair of semester-length courses covering legal writing and research, which may be offered under various titles or as a single year-long course in Lawyering Skills. The first year schedule is simply handed to new students; they have no say or choice in their courses. In contrast, the selection of second and third year courses is largely up to students, although all ABA-accredited schools require Professional Responsibility and an upper division substantial writing project. At some law schools it is now possible to take a series of courses as a 2L and 3L in a specialization which is then mentioned on a graduate's diploma and transcript.

The J.D. is defined by the U.S. Department of Education as a first professional degree, but some law schools have introduced "integrated," "honors lawyering," and certification programs which include research components. Certificates in public interest law, environmental law, intellectual property law, international law, and employment law have become commonplace in U.S. law schools. These programs generally involve a specific curriculum and often a brief thesis, terminal project, or internship to qualify for certification. Some programs also offer joint degree programs, such as Juris Doctor-Master of Business Administration (JD/MBA), a Juris Doctor-Master of Arts (JD/MA), and Juris Doctor/Master of Science (JD/MS). The Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University bestows on its graduates a combined Juris Doctor-Bachelor of Civil Law (JD/BCL) degree, due to the unique civil law components of Louisiana and the additional (seventh) semester of study.

Utility

Generally speaking, graduation from an ABA-accredited law school satisfies the academic educational requirements for admission to practice law. Some states accept only a degree from an ABA-accredited school. Other states will accept foreign legal education, with or without subsequent U.S. legal education, but typically requiring the foreign degree was earned in a country where the basic law is the common law of England. A few states – California and New York among them – do not require a law degree for admission to practice as an attorney. California, for example, will admit students to the bar exam from non-ABA-approved law schools, including correspondence and "on-line" law schools (such as Concord Law School); however, those students are required to take an additional examination after their first year of law school in order to be eligible to take the bar exam after graduation. In addition, Washington has recently enacted additional, post-Bar Exam educational requirements.

Comparisons to the LL.B.

The Bachelor of Laws degree (LL.B.), the most common law degree in common law countries (e.g., the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Singapore, etc.), is a usually three- or four-year undergraduate degree (whereas the J.D. is a post-graduate degree).

The exceptions within the Commonwealth are Canada, India and Australia, where the LL.B. – although still an undergraduate degree – is typically offered as a second-entry bachelor's degree, not as a first-entry bachelor's degree.

For entry into common law LL.B. programs, Canadian and Indian universities require either a first bachelor's degree, or three (sometimes two) years of undergraduate studies towards the first bachelor's degree. The University of Toronto has renamed its LL.B. degree to J.D. For entry into bachelor's degree programs (LL.B., B.C.L., or LL.L.) in Quebec civil law, universities in Quebec and the University of Ottawa generally require a CEGEP diploma. However, now in India a system of law schools has developed which offer a first-entry bachelor's degree in law which is an integration of LL.B. with another bachelor's degree mostly that in Arts. The pioneer in this regard being the National Law School of India University at Bangalore.

Australian universities offer three methods of entry to the LLB. If a student has exceptional secondary school marks, they can undertake an LL.B as an undergraduate degree over four years or undertake a heavily overloaded, joint degree programme, where a B.A. (or B.Sc. or Bachelor of Commerce) and an LL.B. are taught concurrently over 5 to 6 years. An Australian student may also transfer into a four year LL.B. programme after a minimum of 1 year's study of any other discipline. Finally, the LL.B. is taught as an American-style, three year postgraduate qualification.

In the United Kingdom, students are admitted into the standard three-year undergraduate law course straight out of secondary school; three A-level certificates and satisfactory performance in the standardized LNAT test are normally required for admission. An undergraduate LL.B. or BA degree does not qualify a person however to practice law in the United Kingdom. Instead, one must still attend the postgraduate Bar Vocational Course (for individuals who want to qualify as barristers) or, alternatively, the Legal Practice Course (for those wishing to qualify as solicitors). Practical training in the form of pupillage for prospective barristers and the training contract for prospective solicitors is also required.

History

• See also Doctor (title).

In the United States law was originally learned by apprenticeship. Someone seeking to join the profession would apprentice with a local lawyer. After several years, the lawyer would file a motion with a local court for admission of the apprentice to the bar and the court would enter an order admitting the apprentice as an attorney.

After the concept of law as an elite profession collapsed during the era of Andrew Jackson, a typical law student would usually attend a short undergraduate program – usually of two years or less in length – which culminated in a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) degree. Most lawyers then underwent a brief oral examination in the chambers of a local judge, and became members of the bar.

South African universities previously presented a post-graduate LL.B. degree, admission for which a first degree was required. The LL.B. degree was required for a calling to the Bar as an Advocate. The post-graduate LL.B. was replaced with a four year undergraduate LL.B. in 1998 and the B.Proc- and B. Iuris degrees were abolished.

The creation of the modern J.D. program is largely credited to Christopher Columbus Langdell, who served as dean of Harvard Law School from 1870 to 1895. Langdell dedicated his life to reforming legal education in the United States; the historian Robert Stevens wrote that "it was Langdell's goal to turn the legal profession into a university educated one — and not at the undergraduate level, but through a three-year post baccalaureate degree." He was generally successful in remaking most American law schools in Harvard's mold, since they often drew their faculty from Harvard. First, Harvard extended its LL.B. program from 18 months to two years in 1871, and then to three years in 1899. Then, in 1896, Harvard was the first law school to officially require an undergraduate degree as a prerequisite to admission (although the rule was not strictly enforced until 1909). By 1921, the same rule had been adopted by the law schools at Columbia, Pennsylvania, Case Western Reserve, Stanford, and Yale. Still, although the entry-level law program was revamped as a graduate program, the degree conferred continued to be called an LL.B.

However, upon its opening in 1902, the University of Chicago chose to award the J.D. rather than the Bachelor of Laws. Some schools started conferring the J.D. as a Latin honor for students with high grades. Eventually, the disparate treatment prompted schools to abandon the distinction and call all degrees conferred a doctorate. Yale Law School was the last to rename the degree - it conferred the LL.B. until 1971.

Length of study

The course of study usually takes three years for full-time students and four years for part-time students. The ABA previously required at least 36 and no more than 84 months of study for a school to receive approval. In 2005, the ABA amended the rules to permit as few as 24 months of study; however the total amount of instruction required was unchanged. Interestingly, the ABA does not mandate a specific number of credit hours for graduation. Instead, it mandates the number of minutes of instruction each student must receive. Currently, schools with ABA accreditation must require that graduating students have completed 58,000 minutes of instruction time during their course of study. According to the ABA, this typically translates to 83 semester hours or 129 quarter hours.

Titles

Licensed attorneys in the United States may append a variety of titles to their names, most of which are intended to convey that the person is licensed to practice law in at least one jurisdiction. "Attorney," "attorney-at-law," "Esquire" ("Esq."), "lawyer," and "J.D." are all generally acceptable titles that an attorney may use. However, "J.D." may be used by anyone who has received the degree from a law school, regardless of whether or not licensed to practice law. Those who are not admitted to practice law, but nonetheless represent or imply they are an attorney, may be subject to penalties for the unauthorized practice of law or impersonating a lawyer, both of which are criminal offenses in many jurisdictions.

While permissible, very few U.S. attorneys who hold the J.D. use the title " Doctor".

Comparison with other degrees

A Juris Doctor is considered a first professional degree. In the United States, a professional degree is a type of postgraduate degree that is specific to a particular vocation, such as law, medicine, or theology. The J.D. is such a degree because it is the educational requirement to become an attorney.

In the United States, the U.S Department of Education states on its website that "first-professional degrees [ . . . ] are first degrees, not graduate research degrees. Several of the degree titles in this group of subjects [ . . . ] incorporate the term 'Doctor,' but they are not research doctorates and [are] not equivalent to the Ph.D."[2] The web site also lists the Juris Doctor as a first-professional degree. Although the thought on whether J.D. is a terminal degree is changing.

Though the J.D. is the only degree required for the practice of law, further degrees in law may be earned. These are the LL.M. (Master of Laws) and the J.S.D. (Doctor of Juridical Science, sometimes abbreviated as S.J.D). The LL.M. generally focuses on a specific aspect of law, such as tax law; the J.S.D. is similar in spirit to the Ph.D. and is intended for would-be academics rather than practitioners.

A J.D. program requires three years of post-baccalaureate course work with any bachelor's degree (B.A., B.Sc., B.Eng., etc.) as a prerequisite; it does not typically require academic (as opposed to legal) research. By comparison, an M.D. requires two years of post-baccalaureate course work and two years of a combination of clinical practice and post-baccalaureate course work; it does not typically require individual research. For admission into the M.D. program, the prerequisites are any bachelor's degree (B.A., B.Sc., B.Eng., etc.) and certain required undergraduate courses. A Ph.D. typically requires five or more years of post-baccalaureate course work with related bachelor's and master's degrees as prerequisites, and requires significant original research that is of publishable quality.

Although the J.D. is not a research degree and law students in the J.D. program do not complete a thesis, many U.S. law schools require students to undergo a year-long legal research and writing program. Also, many U.S. law schools require all students to complete a substantial research paper, of publishable quality, in order to obtain the J.D. degree; the ABA makes this a requirement for accreditation. Finally, the scholarly publications in the field of law – unlike in other fields – are (under the mentoring and supervision of professors) edited and published by J.D. students. Being a member of one of the law reviews or other publications requires the writing of a student "note" or "comment" which is often comparable to an intermediate-length scholarly article.

One of the generally-accepted definitions of a doctoral research degree is that its holder has written and defended a dissertation that embodies significant, original research in his or her field; the doctoral research degree in most academic disciplines is the Ph.D. degree. The requirements for a J.D. do not include such a dissertation. Law schools prepare their graduates to perform legal research, as practicing attorneys must be able to do so as an important part of their jobs, regardless of which degree (J.D. or LL.B.) is awarded. Typically, legal research in the J.D. program and in the practice of law refers to the discovery and analysis of the legal philosophy and the specific rules embodied in statutes, regulations, treaties, case law, and other legal texts.

In contrast to the J.D. (which is a professional doctoral degree and not a doctoral research degree), the S.J.D. requires the writing and defense of a dissertation and is a doctoral research degree in law. Even where a paper, essay or note prepared as part of the J.D. program contains original research to some extent, its extent would generally not satisfy the S.J.D. dissertation requirements that parallel the Ph.D. requirements.

The U.S. Department of Education distinguishes between first-professional degrees and research doctorates as follows:

"It is also important to recognize that first-professional degrees...are first degrees, not graduate research degrees. Several of the degree titles in this group of subjects...incorporate the term 'Doctor,' but they are not research doctorates and not equivalent to the Ph.D. Master's degrees and research doctorates in these fields of study are awarded, but they have different names and students enroll in those programs after having earned a first-professional degree."

In some cases, university presidents (or would-be presidents) holding a J.D. as their highest degree have been criticized for their lack of a terminal doctorate.

There is no Ph.D. in law in the United States. In the U.S., the terminal academic degree in law is the Doctor of Juridical Science. In the U.S., a J.D. is the minimal requirement for teaching at a law school, although many law professors hold LL.M. degrees in their area of specialization. Universities in some countries outside the U.S. offer a Ph.D. in law (e.g., University of British Columbia [3] in Canada and University of Cambridge[4] and University of London in the United Kingdom) or an LL.D. (e.g., University of Ottawa) as the equivalent of the Doctor of Juridical Science. (Note that, in the U.S. and generally in Canada as well, the LL.D. is an honorary degree.)

Other law degrees in the United States

Paraprofessional degrees

• Some schools offer paraprofessional degrees at either the undergraduate or graduate level, such as a Bachelor of Legal Studies or a Master of Legal Studies. A Bachelor of Legal Studies degree is not equivalent to a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.), and paraprofessional degrees are not considered to be law degrees. They do not satisfy the academic requirements for admission to practice law. Holders of these degrees often are employed as paralegals or in a law-related field such as insurance, trust companies, or banking. The ABA "approves" schools offering paralegal education in the form of 2-year associate degrees or 4-year bachelor degrees. See the list of approved schools.
• Executive J.D. See Executive Juris Doctor (degree).

Above the J.D.

• Master of Laws (LL.M.) is generally a post J.D. degree in law and is usually held in a specialized area such as tax law, intellectual property law, international law, or advanced tort law. As well, some U.S. law schools offer an LL.M. degree in comparative law or a Master of Comparative Law degree for graduates of non-U.S. law schools as the terminal professional law degree. The comparative law program generally consists of twenty-four semester hours of courses surveying U.S. law, because the foreign law graduates are expected to be fluent in English and to understand legal reasoning and the main concepts of tort, contract, property, procedure, and other major areas of law.
• Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) is an honorary law degree awarded in the United States, although in Canada and most other common-law jurisdictions it is a terminal academic degree.
• Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D.), is the terminal research degree in law, i.e., the equivalent of a Ph.D. in law, typically earned by those wishing to pursue academics rather than practice as an attorney. Unlike a J.D., a J.S.D. program includes a doctoral dissertation and other features common to other research doctorates such as a Ph.D.

See also

• Bachelor of Civil Law (B.C.L)
• Bachelor of Laws (LL.B)
• Legal education
• Admission to the bar in the United States
• Call to the bar - other common law jurisdictions
• Admission to the bar (non-U.S.) - other common law jurisdictions

References

• Chapter I of Title 8 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York, Section 3.47. Requirements for Earned Degrees and Section 3.50. Registered Degrees