Hall, James Parker

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University of Chicago Law SchoolChicago UnboundJournal Articles Faculty Scholarship1907American Law School DegreesJames Parker HallFollow this and additional works at: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/journal_articlesPart of the Law CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Chicago Unbound. It has been accepted for inclusion in JournalArticles by an authorized administrator of Chicago Unbound. For more information, please contact unbound@law.uchicago.edu.Recommended CitationJames Parker Hall, "American Law School Degrees," 6 Michigan Law Review 112 (1907).AMERICAN LAW SCHOOL DEGREESL AST August, at the annual meeting of the American BarAssociation held at Portland, Maine, the Committee on LegalEducation made a report proposing that the Association shouldrecommend to the various state legislatures the adoption of certainrules suggested by the committee to secure uniformity in law degrees.These rules provided that an L. B. should be conferred by.law schoolsmaintaining a two years course; an LL. B. for three years of legalstudy; an LL. M. for four years, of which one should be post-graduate; and a D. C. L. or J. D. for five years, of which two shouldbe postgraduate. None of these degrees was to be conferred uponother terms -than those specified. A minority of the committeedissented from the report.. Consideration of it was postponed bythe Association. The year before, this committee had made asubstantially different report upon the same subject.'In the main, this latest report appears to be governed by theprinciple that substantial distinctions in legal education should bemarked by appropriate distinctions in law degrees. Granting theexcellence of this principle, it seems to the writer that the committeehas departed from it in failing to approve the use of J. D. as a firstdegree in law by those schools that tegularly require a college educa-tion for admission. The distinctions recognized in the report are allbased upon the length of time' spent in legal study. Another distinc-tion, based upon the extent of preparation for legal study, is atpresent even more important than some of those recognized by thecommittee, and this the majority ignores.Of" late years the efforts of the American .Bar Association toimprove legal education have been directed toward, two ends: first,to secure a three-year course in law schools; second, to secure anadequate educational preparation for beginning the study of law.In most of our states the first has been :practically secured today, andoutside of the south there are very few schools of any reputationhot requiring three years for a degree. As regards the second, the-attainment of what is desirable is much fuither away. Nearlyeveryone admits that a college education usually affords the bestpreparation. for legal study, and the obstacle to its general adoptionhas been entirely economic, just as was the objection originally madeto lengthening the law course from two to three years. It is notonly that a college education is likely to make its possessor a morecapable and well developed man,. but no one can doubt that the129 Am. Bar Assn. Reps. 496 (r9o6).HeinOnline  -- 6 Mich. L. Rev. 112 1907-1908AMERICAN LAW SCHOOL DEGREEScollege graduate is usually far better fitted' seriously to study lawand to get a good legal training in three years than is the boy ofi8 or 19 from the high school. The committee thinks that the differ-ences between two, three, and four years of legal study are sufficientso that each should have a distinctive degree, L. B., LL. B., andLL. M. Surely a college graduate who has completed a three-yearlaw course at a school where most of his fellow students are alsocollege graduates, has had a much better preparation for practicethan has a high-school boy who attends for three years at a schoolwhere most of his fellows are also high-school boys. This differenceis easily greater than that between the training represented by anLL. B. and an LL. M., and is at least as great as that between anL. B. and an LL. B. Under the rules in New York, for instance, acollege graduate may be admitted to the bar after two years of legalstudy, while three are required of all others. If a superior trainingdue to a longer period of legal study is represented by a distinctivedegree, why should not a superior training due to a collegepreparation be likewise recognized?Beginning with Harvard in 1896, and followed by Stanford,Chicago, Columbia, and California in the order named, there arenow five law schools in this country that require a college educationfor regular admission?2 Believing that it would be appropriate todistinguish law graduates with such a preparation from those witha lesser education, the faculty of the Harvard Law School suggested,about 19o2, that the degree of Juris Doctor (abbreviated J. D.) beused for this purpose. This is a form of degree parallel with theJ. U. D. conferred in German universities, and with the doctorate inlaw conferred in several other continental countrieg. The Germanand continental degree is not an advanced or second degree in law,Students enter the law schools of the German universities after com-pleting the gymnasium, which corresponds roughly to the Americancollege, and at the completion of the law course they receive thedegree of J. U. D. This doctorate represents not postgraduate workcin law but the completion of the ordinary course-of professionalstudy, following the academic training obtained in the gymnasium.It is not a degree reserved for the relatively small number of menwho will take really postgraduate work in law as a preparation forteaching or writing, but it is the degree taken regularly by those menwho are to become the lawyers and judges of the German Empire.It was believed that a degree like this might properly be conferredin American law schools, being distinguished on the one hand from2 Harvard alone requires a college degree. The others permit a student to count thefirst year of law as the fourth year of college.HeinOnline  -- 6 Mich. L. Rev. 113 1907-1908MICHIGAN LAW REVIEWthe LL. B. conferred by schools not requiring a college educationfor admission, and on the other from a really postgraduate degree inlaw like the D. C. L. Accordingly the Harvard law faculty voted infavor of conferring this degree, and, though their proposal has notyet been accepted by the Harvard Corporation, the new degree ofJ. D. has since been established in three of the four other law schoolswith similar admission requirements-Chicago, Stanford, and theUniversity of California. It is also conferred by the University ofNew York upon college graduates completing the three-year daycourse there. Since its original introduction, three other schools-George Washington, Boston University, and Northwestern-haveannounced it as a postgraduate degree in law, but it does not appearfrom their catalogues that any American college graduate has everbeen a resident candidate for this degree at these schools. None ofthese three schools requires any college work for regular admission,and only George Washington requires that candidates for J. D. becollege graduates.If there is any advantage in a degree which shall indicate that therecipient began the study of his profession with the maturity andtraining afforded by a college education, instead of as a high-schoolboy, J. D. seems the most convenient and appropriate for thispurpose. It is a new degree in this country, and was introduced andfirst used for resident law work solely with thiq significance. It isnot a degree heretofore used for postgraduate work, which it wouldbe improper to pervert to some less dignified purpose. In Germanyand on the continent of Europe generally its equivalent and parallelform is used exactly as the American schools that introduced it areusing it, as a first degree in law following a college preparation.The majority report of the committee not only advocates the use ofthis degree in a way unknown in Europe and contrary to the practiceof a majority of the American schools that have adopted it, butrecommends that the Bar Association urge all American statelegislatures to forbid its use in the way in which the schools thatintroduced it have used it. Such a proposal is inconsistent with theposition the Association has heretofore taken regarding the impor-tance of a thorough preparation for legal study; it is unfair to theschools that have adopted this degree for a legitimate educationalpurpose; and it is an unnecessary means to achieve the objectsought-an appropriate postgraduate law degree.The principal complaint lodged against the stream of young menpouring into the legal profession is not that they have not spentenough time in law schools, and need postgradpate courses, but thattheir general and preparatory education is far below the demandsHeinOnline  -- 6 Mich. L. Rev. 114 1907-1908AMERICAN LAW SCHOOL DEGREESlikely to be made upon them in practice. The recent records of theAmerican Bar Association are eloquent of this fact. A committee ofthe Association has recommended-not that more than three years bespent in the law school by the young practitioner, desirable though thismight be-but that at least two years of college work be required foradmission to the law school. Nor will it stop there. The recom-mendation will soon be that a college degree be required as aprerequisite to a law degree, and to this all the principal schools inthis country are certain to come. In a very few years all of thegreat state universities of the middle west will require at least twoyears of college work for admission to their law schools, and withina dozen years more we shall see most of them requiring a third year.Almost everywhere the first year of law may be counted as thefourth year of college, and the J. D. will appropriately follow as thelaw degree two years later. A very short look into the future showsus that this degree has a far greater field of practical usefulnessbefore it than have postgraduate degrees, which will never be takenby more than an insignificant fraction of the well-trained men at theAmerican bar.3Shall the Bar Association, then, recommend legislation designed toforbid any law school from giving a J. D. degree to those studentswho have complied with what the Association has declared to be themost urgent need in legal education? Is the desirability of this soclear that development should be stopped at once by'legislation, or"should this educational experiment be permitted to go on and justifyitself, or not, by the result? Wise lawyers recognize the folly oftrying to codify a subject before it has fully developed. The time isnot ripe to say the last word about American law degrees. Highadmission requirements to our law schools are too recent and stilltoo rare. It is quite likely that a distinctive degree given by schoolsrequiring a college education for admission will be of substantialeffect, among other influences, in inducing some schools to raise3 In addition to the five schools already mentioned that require three or four years ofcollege work for regular admission, the following law schools now require, or will soonrequire, some college work either for admission or fo- candidacy for their ordinarydegrees:Boston University (beginning with x9o8, certain specified work in logic, history, andpolitical economy, or two years of college as an equivalent); George Washington (begin-ning with x9og, two years of college); University of Illinois (beginning with s9o8, oneyear of college for degree, unless candidate obtains high grade, or is member of IllinoisBar)- University of North Carolina (two years of college for degree); Ohio State Univer-sity (two years of college for degree); University of Texas (beginning with 19o9, one yeaiof college); Trinity (two years of college); University of Washington (one year ofcollege); West Virginia University (two years of college for degree); University ofWisconsin (two years of college); 19 ale (beginning with x9o9, two years' of college). It isnoteworthy that fo.Vr of these eleven schools are in southern states.HeinOnline  -- 6 Mich. L. Rev. 115 1907-1908MICHIGAN LAW REVIEWtheir admission requirements; and it is certainly reasonable thatschools whose graduates have a superior preparation should be freet6 indicate this by their degrees if they see fit.If some appropriate degree is to be given for two years ofpostgraduate law study, why should not the committee confine itsrecommendations to the D. C. L.? Through the usage of severalAmerican schools this degree is already somewhat familiar as anadvanced degree, in law, and it adequately serves this purpose. Whyshould the J. D. be reserved also for exactly the same purpose, if theobject is to secure uniformity in law degrees? There is no need fortwo different degrees to indicate advanced work taken by a merehandful of men, while the vastly more important and practicaldistinction between a college preparation for legal study and a high-school preparation is left unmarked. Two years of postgraduate workin law could hardly be well spent without sufficient attention to thecivil law to make the title Doctor of Civil Law appropriate; but,should any school think otherwise, the corresponding title-Doctorof Common Law-may be used instead. There is no good reasonwhy the American Bar Association should approve the use of twodegrees to indicate the same postgraduate work; nor why it shouldbe asked to recommend legislation denying to any school the rightto use the J. D. as nearly all of our law schools with high admissionrequirements wish to use it.Last year it was urged in discussion that giving a -doctor's degreeas a first degree prevented a master's degree being given. Schoolsthat wish to give a master's degree of course will not give the J. D.A number of schools, however, including most of those with highadmission requirements, do not wish to give a master's degree in lawat all, on the ground that it is taken by few students, seldom thebest ones, and that it tends to cheapen the school's regular degree.Students who have spent the time to go through college and thenhave taken three years in a law school are likely wisely to think thenext year can be better spent in beginning practice than in gettinga master's degree in law. The number of college graduates whotake master's degrees in law is very trifling. For instance, fromi9oi to 19o6 the total number of such degrees conferred upon collegegraduates at Columbia was only 4, at Michigan i, and at Yale 4. Itcannot be doubted that a college education, followed by three yearsat a law school, is a better preparation for practice than is a high-school education followed by four years at a law school. If thelatter is deemed worthy of a distinctive degree, why not the formeralso? Any schobl that wishes -.to give a master's degree should befree to do it, but this is no reason for forbidding all others to giveHeinOnline  -- 6 Mich. L. Rev. 116 1907-1908AMERICAN LAW SCHOOL DEGREES 117the J. D. to the vastly larger number of college graduates who mighttake it as a first degree in law.If the Committee on Legal Education renews its suggestions foruniform laiw degrees next year, it is to be hoped that it will recognizethe useful possibilities of the J. D. degree in indicating a collegepreparafion for legal study, and that it will adopt a more liberalattitude toward a practice that at least may claim toleration as apromising experiment. Only thus are advances made in both theform and substance of educational methods. Failing this, the BarAssociation should certainly refuse to recommend legislation upon amatter relatively so unimportant and concerning which such disagree-ment exists among those chiefly interested. It is hardly likely thatany state legislature would enact such a prohibition as is suggested,against the vigorous protest of even a single reputable law schoolwithin its borders, and the Association may wisely reserve its influencefor measures promising more real benefit as well as greater prospectsof succss. JAess.E S PARKER HALL.UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAw ScHooL, November, 19o7.HeinOnline  -- 6 Mich. L. Rev. 117 1907-1908

American Law School Degrees

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American Law School Degrees

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