PhD after law school? Forum

[neimanmarxist]

If you have a PHD, you don't need to teach law .

That's right, with your PhD you can, uh... well, PhDs qualify you to... I mean you can always... oh, a non-law faculty job!

Oh that's right, I almost forgot that getting a tenure-track jobs with a PhD is ALSO insanely difficult, getting tenure once you have the tenure track job is less likely, and the compensation isn't close to as high as for a law faculty position.

dingdingding. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

[09042014]

I want to be the first JD/Astronaut.

[Doritos]

I want to be the first JD/Astronaut.

Too late...http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/holmquest-dl.html

[kittenmittons]

I want to be the first JD/Astronaut.

Too late...http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/holmquest-dl.html

180 for the hair

[MTal]

You've already put off the real world, e.g. getting a job, living on your own, raising a family, etc. for 7 years, why stop now?

[00TREX00]

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[februaryftw]

That's right, with your PhD you can, uh... well, PhDs qualify you to... I mean you can always... oh, a non-law faculty job!

Oh that's right, I almost forgot that getting a tenure-track jobs with a PhD is ALSO insanely difficult, getting tenure once you have the tenure track job is less likely, and the compensation isn't close to as high as for a law faculty position.

Just heard some professors at my LS give a talk and say that in the world of distinguished academia, law is considered the "easy to get a job" field in comparison to actually using your PHD in the discipline it was issued. Of course, these assholes all clerked for SCOTUS, so what was easy for them sure as hell wouldn't be easy for most of us.

With the exception of a few select fields, this is definitely true. You have to consider that the huge glut of Phds (with only Phds) have spent 6+ years on a PhD and did so because they were devoted to academia; it is difficult to move on after that kind of commitment. And the huge glut is huge - there are simply way too many Phds being produced for too few positions. There are just way more opportunities for lawyers than Phds outside of academia (or at least for the kinds of lawyers that are competitive for academic jobs in the first place) for the market to stay as tough as it does for other fields.

That said, it is still a very difficult field to get into.