Is a first professional degree "higher" than a master's?

During a trial, one attorney demanded to be addressed as "Dr." John Doe because he had a JD, so the judge acquiesced to his request and ordered all attorneys present to address each other as "doctor" throughout the trial. LOL

 

QED Like I said, it's silly.

 

The only place I'm called "doctor" is on campus and I always cringe a little inside because the JD isn't the same thing. Had one colleague who pursued an Ed.D after becoming a professor of law just because he hated being called "doctor" and knowing on some level it was a lie. Not like it's chicken feed, because getting through the sheer stress of three years of law school (where an entire semester or year grade is typically based on one big exam) plus passing the bar is not a trivial thing. Takes something out of you; post law school and bar, I felt emotionally exhausted inside, and it's never completely gone away. But...living with one who studied the hard sciences at the PhD level, I know there's no way I could've done what she did--while knowing in my heart she could've done what I did.

 

What about Americans who get Oxbridge degrees? Few Americans I suspect are aware than an Oxbridge BA converts to an MA after a few years.

Robert Reich (who was a Rhodes Scholar) for example lists an MA as one of his degrees (though he also has a J.D. from Yale).

https://gspp.berkeley.edu/directories/faculty/robert-reich

 

The story I was told was that lawyers were pissed that they weren't doctors.

Just like physicians they go through undergrad and then go on for additional study. Four years of medical school = doctor. Four years of dental school = doctor. Four years of podiatry school = doctor. Three to Four Years of Chiropractic School = Doctor. Three years of law school = Second bachelor's degree.

It's a vanity thing and nothing more. It's also a massive annoyance when you see a law school grad list their JD on their resume as a "Juris Doctorate" (the really brave ones refer to a JD as a "Doctor of Law").

 

Thirty years ago, I worked with a lawyer from U.Wis. Madison. His diploma actually SAID "Doctor of Law" in boldface then underneath in parenthesis and italics "Juris Doctor". I remember it well because it took me aback.

 

Americans seem to have an aversion to the idea of a second bachelor's degree (if it's a second degree it's got to be a master's or doctorate!)

 

The actual name for it is "juris doctor". Of course it's silly that the name was changed 50 or so years ago. But still, that's what we're stuck with. If I called it a "Bachelor of Laws" on my CV, it'd be inaccurate. Again, not saying it should be a doctorate, it's more like a masters. That said, the JD I received was way more of a challenge than the MBA or the bachelor's. But then again, the undergrad accounting studies I've been pursuing have involved a couple courses tougher than anything I encountered in law school.

 

Pretty hard to put the toothpaste back into the toothpaste tube I guess.

 

Interestingly, Statistics Canada classifies the JD/LL.B. in the Bachelor's degree category, while having a separate category of "Degree in medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine and optometry." The classification for university degrees is as follows:

Bachelor's degree
Certificate or diploma above bachelor level
Degree in medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine or optometry
Master's degree
Earned doctorate

All of the English-language common law faculties now give out the J.D., and like in the US, it's overwhelmingly a second-entry degree. McGill is the exception and it offers a combined BCL/LLB (common and civil law).

 

Another thing to note is that a lot of professional master's degrees are "first degrees" in the subject as well - MSW, MBA, degrees in education etc. Though they don't meet the criteria for first professional in the sense that they're not required for licensing in the profession itself.

 

This one was always confusing to me :S
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What makes you think that the MBA is a "first degree"? If the MBA is a first degree, then what do you call the BBA?

 

In the sense that many get MBA's without a Bachelor's in business first.

 

I don't think that really makes an MBA a first degree. Many European universities (especially in the German-speaking part of Europe) call these degrees "non-consecutive Master's degrees". There are of course also consecutive Master's degrees. An example in business would be a (European-style) Master of Management degree since you need a Bachelor's in business to get that type of degree at Continental European universities.

By the way, you may know that public German universities are tuition-free, but that only applies to consecutive Master's degrees. Non-consecutive Master's degrees are not tuition-free, and some can be quite expensive, at least by European standards.

 

FWIW, I tick off "Master's" not "Professional". As a side note, however, the LL.M. in Taxation has been called a "second/advanced professional degree". I agree with this. The program is designed to make competent tax law practitioners, not tax law professors. That's why very few LL.M. (tax) programs permit (let alone require) a thesis. Oh, as another aside, had I gotten my LL.M. at the U. Washington, I'd have "walked" in a Master's gown and hood. That's not the rule, though, as near as I can tell.

 

I wonder if there's any data on how many "post-first professional" master's degree holders in the US. Obviously it's a pretty small group.

 

A professional degree, formerly known in the US as a first professional degree, is a degree that prepares someone to work in a particular profession, often meeting the academic requirements for licensure or accreditation. Professional degrees may be either graduate or undergraduate entry, depending on the profession concerned and the country, and may be classified as bachelors, masters or doctoral degrees. For a variety of reasons, professional degrees may bear the name of a different level of qualification from their classification in qualifications frameworks, e.g. some UK professional degrees are named bachelor's but are at master's level, while some Australian and Canadian professional degrees have the name "doctor" but are classified as master's or bachelor's degrees.