Is JD a doctorate level?

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by vinodgopal, Oct 31, 2006.

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  1. jdlaw93

    jdlaw93 New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: According to the ABA.....

    Based upon this logic an MD does not meet the "academic rigors" of a Ph.D. because a medical program is fixed in length and well structured. In addition, the levels of professional progression after med. school are academic "board certifications", so does that mean a medical doctor is only a "Master" of medicine until he completes the "highest" professional boards in his area of medical practice? :confused: Respectfully, your argument when taken to its logical conclusion seem to be consistent.
     
  2. Dave Wagner

    Dave Wagner Active Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: According to the ABA.....

    You're right. The M.D. is not the highest degee in medical education and scholarship. The highest degree is the Ph.D.

    Consider that the process of producing an M.D., like the J.D., is primarily endothermic, while the process of producing a Ph.D. is exothermic.

    Dave
     
  3. jdlaw93

    jdlaw93 New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: According to the ABA.....

    It does not take 5-7 years of full time study to earn a Ph.D. The structure of the Ph.D. programs or lack thereof is the reason for the excess number of years. Clearly, if Ph.D. students focused less on "teaching" and accommodating Professor schedules and more on conducting research and academic study it would not take 5 to 7 years to complete. Honestly, are you saying that a well respected Ph.D. programs can be cut down to 4 years of full time study if the "academic community" chose to add more structure to the average PhD program? An MD degree is completed in 4 years post bachelors, precisely because of the full time nature of the program and its academic structure. Is their program less rigorous than that of an MD?
     
  4. little fauss

    little fauss New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: According to the ABA.....

    I'm going to object to your answer here because it was non-responsive.

    As for the "doctoral process", you're begging the question. The only reason the "doctoral process" is what it is happens to be due to the rationale I provided in my posts.

    My point is--to reiterate for the third time--that the "doctoral process" is a hoary sham. It consists of part time coursework--often a joke in and of itself--with virtually no real grading standards, a smattering of quantitative methodologies courses, and a single book-length research work, usually over an unimaginably slim and irrelevant topic within a dusty and forgotten area of a discipline, such as, for example: "A quantitative study of the likelihood of litigants in the Niarobi tribal court system of the 18th century prevailing given control factors of social status and income". The reason the process drags on for 4 - 7 years is because of institutional pressures (such as the desire of professors to teach no more than two courses a semester and have the heavy lifting for their research performed by uncredited graduate students) and the university need for cheap part-time teaching personnel. It has little to do with the rigor of the studies or any imagined notion that, for example, giving the average social sciences graduate student a little knowledge in quantitative methodologies and then imposing them upon the academic world as a "doctor" is any different from giving the avearge five year old a handgun and a bottle of Jack.
     
  5. little fauss

    little fauss New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: According to the ABA.....

    So what? I've addressed this above. I've very well explained the 4-7 year phenomenon in my posts . If the average PhD student were truly filling up those 4-7 years with something of value--rather than part-time studies, undergrad teaching/crowd control, hoop-jumping and groveling--then I'd buy your premise. If they were taking 30 credit hours a year like the average law student and getting 120 - 150 credit hours total in FT specialized study and then topping it off with a dissertation, then you'd have a point. But that's simply not the case. Just ain't so.

    And by the way, I'd take a JD from Berkeley over a PhD from Berkeley in Sociology, History, English, Poly Sci, Psychology, etc.--pretty much anything but for Math, Economics, Physics or the hard sciences--in an absolute rout. I think most people would be on my bandwagon.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 2, 2006
  6. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    True, it often takes longer. The national Science Foundation has been tracking research doctorates for decades as part of the "Survey of Earned Doctorates" program. A recent statistical summary, "Time to Degree of U.S. Research Doctorate Recipients" reported the "time in graduate school less reported periods of nonenrollment", or the "registered time to degree". The latest median results, for 2003, are as follows:

    All Fields: 7.5 years
    Physical Sciences: 6.8
    Engineering: 6.9
    Life Sciences: 6.9
    Social Sciences: 7.8
    Humanities: 9.0
    Education: 8.3
    Health: 8.0

    It's certainly possible to question whether all of those years are really necessary; in fact, many academics are concerned about the growing length of PhD programs. But it's also possible to question whether the third year of law school is really necessary.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 2, 2006
  7. little fauss

    little fauss New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: According to the ABA.....

    Boy, this academic fetish for using scientific terms. You wouldn't happen to be a PhD in the social sciences, now would you, Dave? Anyway, one must truly question how many dissertations and how much academic research as a percentage of the whole truly produces anything exothermic--unless you count the potential economic externalities of the pay bump the scholar "earns" from producing sufficient publications to move from assistant to associate or associate to full.

    And by the way, no hostility on this side. While I still think the PhD process in America is largely nonsense, I'm enjoying the good argument. And I agree that what the ABA did was more about intellectual preening and doctoral pay than anything of substance.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 2, 2006
  8. little fauss

    little fauss New Member

    Why 6 years of part time is intellectually superior to 3 years of full time is beyond me. I have yet to grasp the logic of that premise. If the law school system were set up along the lines of the graduate school system (in the asinine way it's constructed, not intellectual rigor), it would take on average 5 or more years to complete a JD as well. But of course, that wouldn't make the process more rigorous or give the students more insight into the field. It would just be more exploitive of the students.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 2, 2006
  9. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: According to the ABA.....

    In practice, the medical education system does not end with the MD degree; it is followed by a few more years of supervised residency. So yes, the MD is comparable to the PhD. Maybe a JD plus an advanced law degree, such as the LLM, would be too.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 2, 2006
  10. CalDog

    CalDog New Member

    Because it's not part time. PhD candidates at major research universities are immersed in what they do on a full-time basis. Go check; you'll find them in the lab or the library at all hours. Yes, some of what they do is grunt work; but plenty of it is intellectual challenge at the highest level that they can manage (or higher). Fundamentally, PhD programs are for the obsessed -- you have to be obsessed to pursue a traditional PhD, given the high cost in time and the potentially low rewards.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 2, 2006
  11. Dave Wagner

    Dave Wagner Active Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: According to the ABA.....

    Cynical. I'll bet you don't believe in truth, beauty or justice either... ;-) Perhaps what you describe could exist, but the question is whether it does exist in more than few cases.

    Dave
     
  12. sshuang

    sshuang New Member

    J.D./M.D. vs Ph.D.

    You can't really compare J.D./M.D. and Ph.D.
    J.D. and M.D. are mainly professional degrees to allow one to practice law and medicine, while, Ph.D., traditionally, is for academia. For example, a person with Ph.D. in criminology will not be allowed to practice law. Similarly, a J.D. holder will have difficulty securing a university teaching job, except maybe in law school.
     
  13. jdlaw93

    jdlaw93 New Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: According to the ABA.....

    I hate to break it to you the MD degree is earned prior to the residency. The residency is where the MD takes on a specialty, just like a JD seeks an LLM to take on a specialty. But in either event the MD and JD are both earned degrees and awarded prior to either taking on a specialty. :)
     
  14. jdlaw93

    jdlaw93 New Member

    Re: J.D./M.D. vs Ph.D.

    Interesting I have taught criminology at several b&m schools for several years now with a JD? :confused:
     
  15. sshuang

    sshuang New Member

    Re: Re: J.D./M.D. vs Ph.D.


    Perhaps I should clarify this.
    When I said “securing a university teaching job”, I was actually talking about full-time professorship.

    jdlaw93, I remember you were the one who was complaining the following:

    "I have an ABA JD and an MPA. However, it seem very difficult to land a faculty position without the PhD, even at the college level."
     
  16. Dave Wagner

    Dave Wagner Active Member

    Re: According to the ABA.....

    The ABA quote about the J.D. being equivalent to the Ph.D. reminds of me of that Joan Cusack line in the movie Working Girl: "Sometimes I sing and dance around the house in my underwear. Doesn't make me Madonna. Never will."

    Dave
     
  17. vinodgopal

    vinodgopal New Member

    Looks like my question was good :)

    CA state gives the DETC accredited online-schools an option to appear for the bar exam. So in the state of CA, an online JD is good enough to get a candidate practice law if he clears the bar exam. (Though not in all states).

    So why would a law school need to have ABA accreditation? Is it because he cannot practice in other states?!
     
  18. jdlaw93

    jdlaw93 New Member

    Re: Re: Re: J.D./M.D. vs Ph.D.

    I was not "complaining" I was making an observation. You've just make my point. The Ph.D.'s find me more than qualified to teach the course part time, but not qualified to teach it full time. :confused: For the record the PhD's paid me at the higher Ph.D. rate for my inferior JD. Why would they do that if they really thought my JD was not comparable to their PhD? So let me see if I have this right. The academic PhD professionals will hire me to teach criminology part time at the higher PhD pay rate, but find I am not qualified to teach the course full time because I don't have a PhD. All kidding aside - How can anyone with any intellectual integrity defend this inconsistency? If this is the logical analysis PhD's engage in, it does not support the PhD’s intellectual superiority over the JD you guys have been advancing.:mad:
     
  19. jdlaw93

    jdlaw93 New Member

    Re: Looks like my question was good :)

    ABA accreditation simply sets a national standard which is not met by a DETC accreditation. The bar passage rage for on-line law schools is so low, chances are any candidate that passes the bar after attending an on-line law school most likely is a very intelligent individual that may have sold themselves short by attending an on-line school.
     
  20. Dave Wagner

    Dave Wagner Active Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: J.D./M.D. vs Ph.D.

    It's a simple answer. The attorneys on staff at the university (in legal counsel or human resources) can't tell your boss who to hire full time but they can insist on what you get paid for teaching adjunct. Consider that the JD is not a doctoral qualification for teaching, because you didn't write a dissertation and haven't published around your dissertation. There is no intellectual dishonesty at all; this is why people go earn Ph.D.s to teach instead of earning J.D.s to practice law. Conversely, people don't earn Ph.D.s to sit for the bar exam.

    In sum, people don't want to get sued by attorneys with too much time on their hands, so they pay them to teach part time and don't hire them for a position for which they are underqualified.

    Dave
     

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