Juris Doctor
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Doctor of Law, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Juris Doctor (abbreviated J.D. or JD, from the Latin, Doctor of Law) is a degree in law offered by universities in a number of countries.
In the United States, it is a first professional degree, usually earned after three years of full-time (four years of part-time) study after earning a bachelor's degree. One of the main purposes of the degree is to provide the professional training for those who wish to become lawyers. The J.D. (or its equivalent) is the degree required for admission to the bar in nearly all U.S. state and territorial jurisdictions.[1] (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.)
Outside of the United States, the equivalent degree in many nations with legal systems based on the common law is generally still the LL.B., or Bachelor of Laws degree, though some law schools in Canada, Hong Kong, and Australia have renamed or changed LL.B. to J.D., or offer both J.D. and LL.B. A number of universities such as Australia's University of Melbourne, Hong Kong's City University of Hong Kong, and the newly opened faculity of Law of the 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".[2][3]
Since 2004, the J.D. degree is also awarded in Japan, a civil law country, where it is known as Homu Hakushi (法務博士) and is a helpful (but not yet necessary) prerequisite to becoming an attorney at law.
Contents |
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,[4] 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.
Following the arrival of the Ph.D. program in the United States (Yale, 1861), 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."[5] 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. Today, the basic degree offered by all American law schools is the Juris Doctor.
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, which may generally be in any subject. One's undergraduate grades and Law School Aptitude Test (LSAT) score are generally considered the primary determinates for admission. However, many law schools sometimes 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[6] and an admission exam[7] (the LSAT remains the de facto standard exam) as a condition of admission.
A few law schools have combined baccalaureate/J.D. programs that allow students to enter the J.D. program prior to completion of the bachelor's degree, thereby allowing the student to obtain the B.A. (or B.S.) and J.D. within a combined 6-year period during which the student must satisfy the usual credit hours for each degree. Others have combined J.D. programs with other graduate degrees, so that students earn the J.D. jointly with an M.B.A., for instance.
Length of Study
The curriculum usually involves no fewer 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 course of study usually takes three years for full-time students and four years for part-time students. The American Bar Association 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.[8] 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.[9]
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.
Course of Study
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.
Specialization
At some law schools it is now possible to take a series of courses as a second-year law student and third-year student in a specialization which is then mentioned on a graduate's diploma and transcript. Some law schools have introduced "integrated," "honors lawyering," and certification programs which include research components.[10] 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
In order to practice as a lawyer, one must be licensed and admitted to the bar of a state or territory, and/or the bar of the federal courts. Generally speaking, graduation from an ABA-accredited law school satisfies the academic educational prerequisite for taking a bar examination and for the admission to practice law, and is far and away the most common preparation for sitting for a state's bar exam.
Some U.S. states accept only a degree from an ABA-accredited school for this. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts allows non-ABA accredited law school graduates to sit for its bar exam, most notably, graduates of the Massachusetts School of Law. Other states will accept foreign legal education, with or without subsequent U.S. legal education, but typically require that the foreign degree be 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 allow students to sit for the bar exam from non-ABA-approved law schools, including correspondence and "on-line" law schools (such as Concord Law School) that are actually located within the state of California; 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. New York allows those who complete a certified clerkship under a lawyer, essentially a form of apprenticeship, to sit for the bar exmination, but this route is almost never used today.
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.
Though the Juris Doctor is a doctoral degree, few U.S. attorneys who hold the J.D. use the title "Doctor". One possible reason for this is that former rules of professional conduct prohibited self-laudation. The ABA, and many state ethics committees, now permit anyone holding a J.D. degree to use the title of Doctor (ABA Informal Opinion 1152).[1] Some attorneys do use the title when they are testifying as expert witnesses.
The relationship of the J.D. to the Ph.D., and degrees beyond the J.D.
A Ph.D. typically requires three or more years of course work beyond a related bachelor's degree, plus teaching experience, as a prerequisite, and requires a significant original research dissertation or project that is of publishable quality. The Ph.D. typically takes at least five years after the bachelor's degree to earn. The United States Department of Education makes a distinction between graduate degrees and graduate research degrees, and distinguishes between first-professional degrees and research doctorates as follows:
- "[F]irst-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."[10]
The ABA has stated that, for the purpose of academic employment in education institutions, the J.D. and Ph.D. are equivalent degrees:[11]
- "WHEREAS, the acquisition of a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree requires from 84 to 90 semester hours of post baccalaureate study and the Doctor of Philosophy degree usually requires 60 semester hours of post baccalaureate study along with the writing of a dissertation, the two degrees shall be considered as equivalent degrees for educational employment purposes;
- "THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that all appropriate persons be requested to eliminate any policy, or practice, existing within their jurisdiction which disparages legal education or promotes discriminatory employment practices against J.D. degree-holders who hold academic appointment in education institutions." [12]
As such, most professors of law at independent law schools and in university law schools in the United States possess only the J.D.. Full professors with tenure at a wide range of universities hold only the J.D. degree as their graduate qualification.
Beyond the J.D., scholars may earn the LL.M., Master of Laws, usually in a specific area such as taxation law or international business law. The highest academic research degree in law is the Doctor of Juridical Science, but this degree is extremely rare, even among members of law school faculties. The LL.D., Doctor of Laws, is awarded only as an honorary degree in the United States.
Universities in some countries outside the U.S. offer a Ph.D. in law (e.g., University of British Columbia [2] in Canada and University of Cambridge[3] 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.
Although the J.D. is not a research degree and law students in the J.D. program do not complete a dissertation, many U.S. law schools require students to undergo a year-long legal research and writing program (some, such as the George Mason School of Law, require two years). Many U.S. law schools also 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.[13] Finally, the scholarly publications in the field of law – unlike in other fields – are edited and published by J.D. students under the mentoring and supervision of their law school professors. 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.
The American J.D. and the LL.B. elsewhere
The Bachelor of Laws degree (LL.B.) is the standard law degree in many common law countries (e.g., the United Kingdom, Ireland New Zealand, Singapore, etc.). In most commonwealth nations, the LL.B. is a three to four-year undergraduate degree.
In Australia, Canada, India and Pakistan, the LL.B. is offered as a second-entry bachelor's degree, rather than as a first-entry bachelor's degree. This degree path typically requires five years of undergraduate study to achieve both the first and second bachelor's degree. Many of these same regions (e.g. Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and India) also offer the doctorate level J.D., which typically requires four years of undergraduate study and three years of graduate study to complete the bachelor and doctoral degrees.
Specific national examples within the Commonwealth include:
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. In India a system of law schools has developed in which the schools offer a first-entry bachelor's degree in law which is an integration of the LL.B. with another bachelor's degree, typically one in the arts. Its duration is five years, and the pioneer in this regard is the National Law School of India University at Bangalore.
Australian universities offer three methods of entry to the LL.B. 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., B.S., or Bachelor of Commerce and an LL.B. are taught concurrently over five to six years. An Australian student may also transfer into a four year LL.B. programme after a minimum of one year's study of any other discipline. Finally, the LL.B. is taught as an American-style, three year postgraduate qualification. Bond University and the University of Queensland offer the J.D.[14]
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 B.A. 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.
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.
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
- ^ Exception: Washington State, Admission to Practice Rule (APR) 6, Washington State Bar Association. Retrieved February 21, 2007.
- ^ Course Overview: Juris Doctor Australia - University of Melbourne
- ^ Juris Doctor Asia - Chinese University of Hong Kong
- ^ Anton-Hermann Chroust, The Rise of the Legal Profession in America, Volume 2: The Revolution and the Post-Revolutionary Era (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), p.286. This era is commonly referred to as the "deprofessionalization" of the American legal profession.
- ^ Robert Stevens, "Two Cheers For 1870: The American Law School," in Law in American History, edd Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1971), p.427.
- ^ Standards for Approval of Law Schools, Standard 502(a), American Bar Association. Retrieved July 3, 2006.
- ^ Standards for Approval of Law Schools, Standard 503, American Bar Association. Retrieved July 3, 2006.
- ^ Standards for Approval of Law Schools, Standard 304(c), American Bar Association. Retrieved July 3, 2006.
- ^ Standards for Approval of Law Schools, Standard 304(b), American Bar Association. Retrieved July 3, 2006.
- ^ a b http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-professional-studies.html
- ^ http://www.abanet.org/legaled/standards/councilstatements.html "J.D. Degree - Ph.D. Degree Equivalency.
- ^ http://www.abanet.org/legaled/standards/councilstatements.html "J.D. Degree - Ph.D. Degree Equivalency.
- ^ Standards for Approval of Law Schools, Standard 302(a)(3), American Bar Association. Retrieved July 3, 2006.
- ^ Description of Australian Law School Programs, Retrieved March 23, 2007.
