Talk:Juris Doctor/Archive 1

message: Isn't Japan a civil law country? Wouldn't their J.D. kind of different from common law J.D.? Justicelilo 08:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Japan and J.D.

message: Article says a JD is three years of post-graduate law study- and states that this is three years of undergraduate work - wouldn't that mean "post-graduate" should read "pre-graduate", post meaning after, sic, after graduation.
change "post-graduate" to "pre-graduate"??
or is it saying for ABA, 3 years undergraduate and 3 years law study (post graduate)?
The article is saying that it takes three years to earn a J.D. (3 years of post-graduate work), but that the ABA only requires 3 years of undergraduate work in order to be eligible to go to start post-graduate studies (not the 4 four years people usually do to earn a bachelor's degree and THEN go to law school).  The article isn't clear here. I'll see what I can do.Gator1 19:27, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Post-Graduate? 

message: The statement that "[p]rior to the practice of law, a J.D. holder is required to be member of the bar association of the state in which he or she intends to practice" is not entirely accurate. One must be admitted to "the bar," i.e., one must pass the bar examination and be certified by the state's administrative body that oversees the practice of law, but that is not the same as being a member of the state's bar association. A bar association is a non-governmental group that advocates on behalf of attorneys and various law-related causes. There is the national American Bar Association, and state equivalents (e.g. the New York State Bar Association). But it is not always necessary to join such an association in order to practice law.
In some states, like Florida, an attorney must be a member of the state bar association to practice law in that state.
::Quite correct. The situation is complicated, and discussed at Admission to the bar in the United States. rewinn 04:12, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bar Association Membership vs. Admission to Bar 

message: Just want to say that if J.D. is first-professonal doctoral degree it is clearly not equalivent to Ph.D. but it nevertheless a doctor on its own name and category. There is a Ph.D. in law or LLD but they are just different degree altogether isn't it.
Thus, if it is unlikely that a lawyer calls him/herself a Doctor in the professional practice it doesn't mean that the J.D. degree they got isn't a doctoral degree.
: In the U.S. an L.L.D. is only awarded as an honorary degree. In the U.S. the earned law degree equivalent to a Ph.D. is a J.S.D. It requires an L.L.B. or J.D., then an L.L.M. and then additional coursework, a dissertation, defense of the dissertation, etc., exactly like a Ph.D. It has no practical application, so the only people who seek it are faculty at law schools that require a J.S.D. to obtain tenure.
::RickReinckens 07:30, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  J.D. a doctorate of its own 

message: :::Finally, American evidence law is universally agreed to be the most complex in the world (go see the quote I just got out of Larry Friedman's book and put in the Evidence article).  We have lots of crazy rules covering what can and cannot be seen by the finder of fact.  This is because of our heavy theoretical reliance on trial by jury — that is, all cases are litigated as if they are going to be decided by a jury, even if most of them settle before trial nowadays.  --Coolcaesar 17:35, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  4: JD = LLB? 

message: ::::Frankly I don't see how you can make such sweeping statements. America didn't invent the jury trial, nor did it invent stare decisis or, to put it bluntly, anything. We have them here too. Evidence law is highly complex here, as I'm sure it is elsewhere. I reject the argument that the American legal system is so complex just because it has a large number of individual jurisdictions. Plenty of other places have such systems. Australia for example has multiple states and territories, each with their own soverign systems of government, as well as the Commonwealth government. So does Canada.
I subdivided this and moved the question "Are American and Australian J.D.'s equivalent?" to another section covering that topic.
RickReinckens 03:01, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  5: JD = LLB? 

message: Besides, so what? How many American lawyers have passed the bar in more than a handful of states?
* Most American lawyers are licensed only in one state.
* Maybe 10 percent are licensed in two states. (That is a guesstimate.)
* Just because someone is licensed in more than one state does not mean the person has ever practiced in more than one state.
::In the U.S. our exam is broken into three sections: "Multistate" day that tests "national" law, "essay" day that tests the particular state's law and a professional ethics test that can be taken before completion of law school.  (I was licensed before the ethics exam was started, so I'm a bit hazy on the specifics of that test.) Some states hold "essay" day the day before "multistate" and some hold it the day after. To increase their chances of passing a bar exam, some students take essay day in one state, and then multistate and another essay day in another state. The result is that they wind up admitted to two states but only practice in one.  (My situation was a bit different.  I took the bar in New York but moved to Texas before beginning my legal carreer. I ultimately gave up my New York license because I never used it.)
* It is extremely rare to find an American lawyer licensed in more than 3 states. In almost all such cases the person is a "high power" criminal defense attorney such as F. Lee Bailey. The main reason is that in our country criminal law does not vary significantly from state to state but civil law does.
* Most states have "reciprocity" provisions which say that if (a) you meet the educational, etc., requirements of the new state and (b) you have practiced law for 5 out of the past 7 years, you can get admitted to the new state by taking only the essay (state-specific) portion of the exam. Some states, such as Texas, have full reciprocity and don't require any part of the exam.
:RickReinckens 04:11, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a wonderful way to assert domination of the state government (flexing a bit of muscle) and none the less most likely incurring testing fees and other such licensing fees whilst ultimately making no difference in the grand scheme of things.  Talk about over-legislated. 211.30.71.59 10:45, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason for having separate licensing is that each state has plenary power over anything not reserved to the federal government in the Constitution, so each state's laws are vastly different from its brethren.  For example, California has a unique consumer class action statute, the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, which few other states have anything similar to (unlike most consumer laws, the CLRA is both substantive and procedural); its own Evidence Code; its own Rules of Professional Conduct; a law granting nearly anyone the power to interfere in each other's construction projects---the California Environmental Quality Act; a community property system of marital property division; and so on.  The state government regulates over 230 different professions.  Naturally, the rest of the Union thinks our legal system is crazy, but then I could cite a whole bunch of crazy things about the legal systems of Georgia, Texas, Hawaii, and so on.  A lawyer wandering in from another state, perhaps to do a trial, could easily violate several dozen California laws unless associated with California co-counsel. --Coolcaesar 01:30, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I imagine the California legislature was more concerned about protecting the lawyer's clients than keeping the lawyer out of legal trouble.  In other words, the various requirements exist in order to protect the public from a dimwitted attorney. Peyna 03:09, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lawyers licensed in muiltiple states? 

message: A couple of editors are contesting the uncontroversial fact that "doctor" is Latin for "teacher" (from docere, to teach).  To translate "Doctor" as "Doctor" is both unilluminating and inaccurate. --Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 21:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth, I gotta go with Mel Etitis on this point. Translating "doctor" as "doctor" in this context would certainly have gotten me in trouble with my eighth grade English teacher, who was a real terror to us about proper use of the language. "Doctor" in Latin is translated denotatively into English as "teacher." A "doctrine" is a "teaching." If anyone wants citations for this, I'll be glad to provide them. I am not an expert on Latin but as I recall juris doctor (or "IURISDOCTOR" as it would probably have been written, in all capitals, with an I instead of a J, and with no space between the words) should be roughly translated as "teacher of the philosophy of law." Any other doctors of jurisprudence out there who want to provide more perspective? Yours, Famspear 21:39, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The English translation of "Philosophiæ Doctor" is "Doctor of Philosophy" (not Teacher of Philosophy).  Doctor is an English word too.  "Juris Doctor" would translate as "Doctor of Law". --Aquarius Rising 21:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

text: Mel ... I think we have to give readers some credit.  They know that a doctor isn't just a physician. It can also be a dentist, a vet, etc. or a it can be the holder of an academic title such as a doctor of philosophy degree. There is an article on wikipedia which explains the title in detail: Doctor (title), so it makes sense to link to there, if the reader wants to know more about the title of Doctor. The Latin word for "doctor" as a title has entered English usage. However, for additional information to the reader, the change that I had made before you reverted it was to replace Teacher of Law by [ [Doctor (title)|Doctor]] of Law. I thought that my revision was a good solution. --Aquarius Rising 13:17, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The fact that people will know what "doctor" means is irrelevant to what the correct translation is — and it's "teacher", not "doctor".  I don't really understand your insistence on this, as any decent dictionary will confirm it. --Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 14:25, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur.  I took Latin for four years in high school.  Doctor is related to the verb "docere," which means "to teach."  As used in the Latin degree Juris Doctor, doctor means teacher of law. --Coolcaesar 21:35, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Doctor" 

message: The J.D. is the highest and only professional doctorate in the field of law in the U.S..  Just as The MD, DDS, DO, etc. an attorney who wishes to specialize may earn a master's degree in a given specialty.  The SJD is a purely academic degree.  It is similar to a dentist or physician in academics earning a PhD.
Drdouma 19:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  J.D. is terminal professional doctorate 

message: I've taken a small stab, but this article is the epitome of clusterfuck.  Bobak 17:59, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur.  Just cleaning up the mess in Lawyer alone took me four months and a hell of a lot of research.  Cleaning up Juris Doctor, Admission to the bar, Legal education, etc. will take much longer, and I don't have the energy or desire to do it.  --Coolcaesar 19:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps a complete head to toe rewrite would stem some of these problems.  Personally, I think a JD is pretty widely held to be a doctorate, and therefore it should be presented as such, perhaps with a notation that in some circles (perhaps jealous PhD's) the JD is not considered a doctorate.  This article should not focus intently on what various labels various groups think the JD should have.  Besides, it's all arbitrary. Peyna 21:00, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: One of the problems with various edits over time in this article has been that some Wikipedians consider the JD to equivalent to the PhD in terms of both them being doctoral research degrees. Yes, the JD is a doctoral degree, but it's not a doctoral research degree. In contrast, the S.J.D., LL.D. or Ph.D. (depending on the university and the country) is the doctoral research degree in law. All the posturing that somehow the research done in the course of the JD is substantial independent research like a PhD goes too far. Unfortunately, the ABA statement on equivalence of the JD and PhD may be part of the confusion.  Fine, let the two degrees be "equivalent" in terms of hiring and tenure requirements for law professors, but let there be no conclusion that the JD is a doctoral research degree. --Aquarius Rising 21:11, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur.  The J.D. is definitely not a doctoral research degree.  Although there is now a upper division writing requirement at all ABA-accredited law schools, the 30-page paper I wrote to satisfy that requirement in no way comes close to the typical 200-page doctoral dissertation.  Only the S.J.D. is a true doctoral research degree.  --Coolcaesar 01:18, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The clean up this requires is daunting