page_title: Juris Doctor
section_title: The history of legal training in England
hierarchical_section_title: Juris Doctor / Historical context / The history of legal training in England
caption_attribution_description: Inns of Court, London&#160;: 1. Lincoln's Inn, 2. Middle Temple, 3. Inner Temple, 4. Gray's Inn
context_page_description: The Juris Doctor degree, also known as the Doctor of Jurisprudence degree, is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. In Australia, Canada, the United States, and some other common law countries, the Juris Doctor is earned by completing law school. It has the academic standing of a professional doctorate in the United States, a master's degree in Australia, and a second-entry baccalaureate degree in Canada.
  The degree was first awarded in the United States in the early 20th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree. Originating from the 19th-century Harvard movement for the scientific study of law and first denominated LL.B., it is a degree that in most common law jurisdictions is the primary professional preparation for lawyers. It traditionally involves a three-year program, although some U.S. law schools offer a two-year accelerated program in which students complete courses over two additional summer semesters. The LL.B. was replaced by the J.D. in the US in the later 20th century.
context_section_description: The nature of the J.D. can be better understood by a review of the context of the history of legal education in England. The teaching of law at Cambridge and Oxford Universities was mainly for philosophical or scholarly purposes and not meant to prepare one to practice law.  The universities only taught civil and canon law (used in a very few jurisdictions such as the courts of admiralty and church courts) but not the common law that applied in most jurisdictions. Professional training for practicing common law in England was undertaken at the Inns of Court, but over time the training functions of the Inns lessened considerably and apprenticeships with individual practitioners arose as the prominent medium of preparation. However, because of the lack of standardisation of study and of objective standards for appraisal of these apprenticeships, the role of universities became subsequently of importance for the education of lawyers in the English speaking world.
  In England in 1292 when Edward I first requested that lawyers be trained, students merely sat in the courts and observed, but over time the students would hire professionals to lecture them in their residences, which led to the institution of the Inns of Court system. The original method of education at the Inns of Court was a mix of moot court-like practice and lecture, as well as court proceedings observation. By the fifteenth century, the Inns functioned like a university akin to the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, though very specialized in purpose. With the frequent absence of parties to suits during the Crusades, the importance of the lawyer role grew tremendously, and the demand for lawyers grew.
  Traditionally Oxford and Cambridge did not see common law as worthy of study, and included coursework in law only in the context of canon and civil law (the two "laws" in the original Bachelor of Laws, which thus became the Bachelor of Civil Law when the study of canon law was barred after the Reformation) and for the purpose of the study of philosophy or history only. The apprenticeship program for solicitors thus emerged, structured and governed by the same rules as the apprenticeship programs for the trades. The training of  solicitors by a five-year apprenticeship was formally established by the Attorneys and Solicitors Act 1728. William Blackstone became the first lecturer in English common law at the University of Oxford in 1753, but the university did not establish the program for the purpose of professional study, and the lectures were very philosophical and theoretical in nature. Blackstone insisted that the study of law should be university based, where concentration on foundational principles can be had, instead of concentration on detail and procedure had through apprenticeship and the Inns of Court.
  The 1728 act was amended in 1821 to reduce the period of the required apprenticeship  to three years for graduates in either law or arts from Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin, as "the admission of such graduates should be facilitated, in consideration of the learning and abilities requisite for taking such degree". This was extended in 1837 to cover the newly established universities of Durham and London, and again in 1851 to include the new Queen's University of Ireland.
  The Inns of Court continued but became less effective, and admission to the bar still did not require any significant educational activity or examination. In 1846, Parliament examined the education and training of prospective barristers and found the system to be inferior to that of Europe and the United States, as Britain did not regulate the admission of barristers. Therefore, formal schools of law were called for but were not finally established until later in the century, and even then the bar did not consider a university degree in admission decisions.
  Until the mid nineteenth century, most law degrees in England (the BCL at Oxford and Durham, and the LLB at London) were postgraduate degrees, taken after an initial degree in Arts. The Cambridge degree, variously refer
caption: The Inns of Court of London served as a professional school for lawyers in England
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