Which degree is more intellectually rigorous: the JD or the PhD?

A JD is more tangible results dependent (practice), while there is more exploratory breathing room with the PhD. The PhD is about abstract theory, with room for inquiry about hypothetical scenarios without actual application and a JD is about having to perform professionally in the field on a level that will allow you to keep a license to practice.

Theory deals with studying concepts of law in a society and the progress of the societal mores that lead to the creation or dissolution of them, while the professional application in the JD is about the immediate application of professional skills and their impact on attaining justice for or defending a client.

So I guess it comes down to personality and individual talents and whether or not you respect someone intellectually assessing the likely success of a defense based on previous wins vs. the exploration of the concept of law, period.

Simple way to find out -- look at the differences between a JD and a PhD in Law.

There's your answer. JD is a professional doctorate; PhD is a research doctorate.

I remember hearing that about 90% of people who want to go to law school end up getting in somewhere. There are a lot of shitty ones out there. And it's not hard to finish law school. But your unlikely to actually practice law.

PhDs are all different. A doctorate in English lit is going to be no comparison to one in Genetic Engineering. It's obviously going to be easier to get a job in the hard sciences. We've all seen people with doctorates in History at the supermarket checkout line.

Many US Universities now have a PhD in Social Work and a JD that you can obtain simultaneously. Hard to get into but a very lucrative career choice. I think Medicine and Engineering are probably the most academically rigorous. Your poll really can't be answered without talking about specific disciplines. I agree with R3.

[quote] We've all seen people with doctorates in History at the supermarket checkout line.

Not really. If they don't get a job teaching in academia they normally get one in administration or development, or go into an adjacent field like archival work, information science, freelance writing, etc. Their training makes them quite versatile and employable. And a degree in English isn't necessarily less rigorous than one in genetic engineering. But you probably think that a degree in literature is just a matter of reading and appreciating beautiful words.

r3, you're confusing the marketability of a degree with its intellectual rigor.

A degree in comparative literature isn't going to help you much outside of academia; that said, it's incredibly difficult to work in the literatures of four different languages, as many comp lit programs require. And I know scholars with doctorates in English lit who have working knowledge of several languages, including Latin, French, Classical Greek, Old English, Middle High German, and modern German -- to name a few.

Good insight r1

Can anyone else weigh in?

The results of this poll pretty much say it all r8. The vast majority of people would acknowledge that getting a PhD is more difficult than getting a JD. Just look at how much work goes into getting a PhD, there is a reason it takes so long to complete.

Exactly r6. Career prospects are not the same as rigor. A PhD in the popular-to-hate-on-now humanities is still very rigorous to complete.

After working for lawyers for over 25 years, I can say without hesitation that any maroon with the money for tuition can pass the Bar. Even bigger maroons can also pass because the State Bar lets them keep trying till they do. Peter Principle in action.

[quote]that any maroon with the money

Oh, dear.

[quote]Even bigger maroons can also pass

Oh, DEAR.

Not that this matters much, but I found the LSAT much more difficult than the GRE. It's been a long time. I should've taken a prep course for the LSAT & learned how to break those questions down. I just bought a few books and thought I was prepared...nope.

I have a JD but not a PhD. A JD is useless. It is a monetary transfer mechanism from stupid youth (mostly) to universities. And it is financially more lucrative from Harvard than Charlotte but practically useless in either case.

The One Where We Confuse "Intellectual Rigor" With "Future Job Prospects"

Carry on.

A PhD requires creativity, you are supposed to come up with an original thesis after all. A JD does not.

[quote]I can say without hesitation that any maroon with the money for tuition can pass the Bar.

Stop picking on my dead brother

r13

In other words you're stupid

Bill Cosby has a PhD, so does Shaquille O'Neal

Bill Cosby has an Ed. D. (Doctor of Education). It's not the same thing as a PhD or JD at all. "In 1973, he received a master's degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and he earned his Doctor of Education degree in 1976, also from UMass. His dissertation discussed the use of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids as a teaching tool in elementary schools."

[R12] Don't know why the "Oh Dear". I Meant maroon; this was not a misspelling of moron. "What a maroon!" is a fairly well known remark from Bugs Bunny movies.

R11

Out of college I was thinking about law school. I’d HATED my last year of Uni and was done with school.

My LSAT was 172, and I spent a few weeks studying the bar exam, got multiple offers, but decided that wasting 2 years on that was useless. I would be bored senseless. I didn’t know about some of the specialty programs for very specific legal perspective at a few schools or I would’ve pursued it.

R12

Maroon is the correct term, albeit anachronistic. So, OH, DEAR back at ya!!!

If I can answer you're question from a more prosaic angle, since I'm not in academia and don't know any PhDs...

I know a boatload of fucking stupid lawyers--mostly in solo practices doing immigration, criminal, and family law. They do alright in their careers and earnings, because (most importantly), they were able to absorb a limited set on rules and provisions and apply them in not very intellectually trying circumstances. But they are not bright people.

^^^of, not on

^^^you're/your

Sorry, I'm on my phone.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

R24

No kidding. I have had the pleasure of working with some awesome lawyers- viciously smart, usually unhappy, but extremely fun in small doses.

I’ve also worked with a few (usually because I’m the family quasi legal counsel) that were just dumb. They had a skill set, but any questions outside that parameter- blank expression.

AI is going to replace 75% of the functions currently served by lawyers. Big firms might be able to license this technology and make small law firms virtually extinct. If they can still charge you $100 an hour for research but benchmark it against the computer system, 25 seconds worth of AI work could be billed for a full hour.

The technology won’t be free, but the licensing will hopefully be competitive for small firms as well.

Unfortunately, that would mean that every lawyer in the country would be fighting for clients that can get a 50% discount from any local lawyer that uses the technology. That will drop the prices down, and leave many struggling lawyers trapped in debt.

Is there any use for a law graduate other than lawyer? I’m just being facetious!! You can run for office!

.

MD.

[quote] They had a skill set,

R28 is exactly right--they are a skill set, and until the computer takeover happens and more and more paralegals are allowed to do things via template, they are simply hawking out a very specific skill set that no one else is allowed to touch (legally). For the kinds of lawyers I mentioned (criminal, immigration, family), they are the scribes of the county courts who do very expensive paperwork--and that's about it.

The smarter people go into big law/corporate, and most of them flunk out. One of my best friends from college went this route and had a nervous breakdown. Now she's a university administrator.

Quite honestly, I have a JD and it was pretty easy to get. I went to a T2 school and drank my way through. I didn't do any of the "recommended" work like briefing or outlining and just subsisted off old info I found on the net. The bar was even easier to pass, I actually tried to study at first but found at 30 never having really developed study skills it was REALLY hard to sit there and focus. I ended up reading the answer keys for the old published questions for 4 months, sitting on a beach in Mexico the week before, and going into the test with the attitude of "I'm fucked", which I guess in a way, motivated me to just write down whatever I could. Either way, I "collected" enough points to pass.

A couple years out and I really still have no idea what I'm doing. I was really like "They just let ANYONE have a law license if they let me have one."

Phd has GOT to be harder.

R31, in which state did you take the bar?

By the way, if you want to watch an awful legal job in action, go to your county courthouse and sit in on traffic court for an hour. If I were that judge, I'd shoot myself.

R31, another question: what type of law do you practice?

Ph.D.

R34

Louisiana and civil law. Successions/transactions/divorces.

For each, depends on a) the program and b) how well you want to do.

On average a Ph.D. is probably more intellectual rigorous than a J.D., but to do really well at a really good law school is really hard.

I went to a top ten law school and could have passed the bar without going to law school. So no question: PhD. is tougher.

R30 nice cautionary tale.

Sociopathic traits seem predominant in the bigger leagues.

Because research is so expensive, and finding case law that supports anything that you are trying to argue can be extremely difficult, some lawyers are currently worth every penny.

When AI can parse a complaint and find any relevant case law before the prospective client leaves the office (giving both parties more information on the chance of success) then “Legal Scribes” will finally be replaced by autistic robots. Same difference.

The lawyers and politicians are both lower than shit.

lol r18 - I have a PhD from a top 5 Ivy & have mentioned quite a bit of insider detail about the faculty that I interacted there on DL over the years who appear in the media often (details that one wouldn't know unless they went there)... but do go on about how I'm "stupid."

The GRE is easy. The LSAT is not. Which one did you take and what were your scores, dear genius?

Vivian Vance

I will expand on my post and answer more of the question: PhDs have much more difficult criteria for publishing and building theoretical arguments than lawyers do. We need evidence, much of which we have to figure out how to discover on our own, with usually no assistance. Then, we have to fight just to get that evidence to matter at a very tough statistical barrier and THEN convince others we've discovered something. Lawyers already have statutes and case law that they have to look up, and they don't have to derive it. They can write opinions and cite cases for their law journals or law review but it doesn't even come close (maybe it's similar to a theoretical paper for a PhD but the peer reviewers are not the same level of difficulty). I've also found lawyers are very narrow in their thinking whereas PhDs have to look at things from far more angles and tend to consider a larger picture more fully.

I know many lawyers and PhDs, having become friends with lawyers and been around PhDs for 5 years every day. The two think differently, and the programs are extremely different. Nobody holds your hand or structures your life within a PhD program, unlike law school. Every day is your own schedule and you have to create the program and research path you want to pursue. Furthermore, PhD programs can have an excessive amount of politics and bullshit to get your thesis proposal approved and to form your committee. 1/3 of my time was devoted to administrative / political / conference networking kind of BS that JDs just do not have to do in school.

R11 Did you get yours? The question here is that you asserted “any maroon” but are you that maroon as well.

The LSAT is not easy. The highest score I got on the practice test was a 165. I took the actual test three times, the third time I got a 162.

The LSAT is like a mental marathon. You wouldn’t run a marathon without running 3-4 miles a day for several months, and likewise, you shouldn’t take the LSAT without preparing regularly and doing plenty of practice tests.

In my case, the hard work practicing it paid off. I got a renewable $30,000 scholarship at my law school which is renewable every year as long as I stay out of the bottom 25% of the class.

I would look at the culmination of both courses of work. The decisive stage in a PhD is defending your dissertation. The decisive phase in studying law isn’t being granted your JD, it’s passing the bar.

What percentage of people unsuccessfully defend their dissertation? What percentage of people fail the bar?

The OED disagrees with r23

Defending your dissertation is not the decisive stage r45, making it the point where you defend your dissertation is. The way it is supposed to work is that once you make it to that stage you are ready to defend and receive your PhD. If you aren't up to snuff you will have been removed in the years preceding that point.

If we're strictly speaking on intellectual rigor, I'd have to say the JD (although it goes without saying that many PhD programs can be intellectually challenging well beyond a JD). In terms of work load, I'd definitely say the PhD. First off, there's a major distinction between getting a JD and doing well in a JD program. This problem is magnified by the fact that most, if not all, JD programs will grade on a very generous curve to get even the most bum-minded students through successfully in an effort to boost their public numbers; this makes the JD look easier than what it truly is. Most programs allow a path for challenged students to pass through (even in high ranked schools). Of course, these students generally don't succeed in the field (if they can even find a legal job at all) and move on to other fields. So despite the fact that the JD is intellectually tough, it's not uncommon to see people get through law school who, objectively speaking, don't have the intellectual stamina. Part of what makes the JD challenging to do well is that there are very few under graduate degrees that really prepare a JD student for the massive shift in thinking that the JD, and the legal field generally, requires. Most people don't realize how much they depend on assumptions, and the JD is essentially a three-year long course attempting (with varying success) to destroy that thinking habit. With that said, I know several PhD candidates who have had major challenges with their programs. And I am definitely not as familiar with the intellectual rigor required of a PhD student. Do any PhD candidates/possessors have any stories that would shed some light on the level of academic rigor required? I'd be interested in someone changing my views.