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Just found out that even though Princeton doesn't have a law school, they award honorary "Doctor of Laws" degrees (one to three per year most years). That's some world-class chutzpah, Princeton - well played.

I'm pretty sure that in this country, the Doctor of Laws is a generic honorary degree that all schools give out, nothing at all to do with law. My undergrad, which has no law school (and no grad school at all beyond very small MA programs in Art History and Development Economics), gave a Doctor of Laws to Billie Jean King this year. (They've also given one to Cory Booker. Authors get D.Litt, and this year they gave Annie Lennox a DFA.)

The JD is technically a doctorate degree and it is not incorrect for a lawyer to refer to him/herself as a doctor (subject to state bar restrictions - e.g. in Texas it's permitted unless it could lead to confusion, such as medical malpractice)

guano wrote:The JD is technically a doctorate degree and it is not incorrect for a lawyer to refer to him/herself as a doctor (subject to state bar restrictions - e.g. in Texas it's permitted unless it could lead to confusion, such as medical malpractice)

Which has what to do with honorary degrees? The Doctor of Laws (LLD) is entirely different from the JD, and purely honorary - it doesn't confer anything besides esteem.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

guano wrote:The JD is technically a doctorate degree and it is not incorrect for a lawyer to refer to him/herself as a doctor (subject to state bar restrictions - e.g. in Texas it's permitted unless it could lead to confusion, such as medical malpractice)

Which has what to do with honorary degrees? The Doctor of Laws (LLD) is entirely different from the JD, and purely honorary - it doesn't confer anything besides esteem.

Just a fun fact.

What's worth noting is that an LLD is a real degree in Sweden, where it is the highest degree a lawyer can earn

But yeah, the trend has become for honorary degrees to be of a kind that cannot be achieved any other way, to avoid confusion

guano wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

guano wrote:The JD is technically a doctorate degree and it is not incorrect for a lawyer to refer to him/herself as a doctor (subject to state bar restrictions - e.g. in Texas it's permitted unless it could lead to confusion, such as medical malpractice)

Which has what to do with honorary degrees? The Doctor of Laws (LLD) is entirely different from the JD, and purely honorary - it doesn't confer anything besides esteem.

Just a fun fact.

What's worth noting is that an LLD is a real degree in Sweden, where it is the highest degree a lawyer can earn

But yeah, the trend has become for honorary degrees to be of a kind that cannot be achieved any other way, to avoid confusion

Their LLB, LLM, LLD system seems much more intuitive than the U.S. JD, LLM, JSD system

RetakeFrenzy wrote:

guano wrote:What's worth noting is that an LLD is a real degree in Sweden, where it is the highest degree a lawyer can earn

But yeah, the trend has become for honorary degrees to be of a kind that cannot be achieved any other way, to avoid confusion

Their LLB, LLM, LLD system seems much more intuitive than the U.S. JD, LLM, JSD system

Our system made more sense when the JD was an LLB, before the profession got the degree elevated to make lawyers look more fancy (and probably make law schools look more important).

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

RetakeFrenzy wrote:

guano wrote:What's worth noting is that an LLD is a real degree in Sweden, where it is the highest degree a lawyer can earn

But yeah, the trend has become for honorary degrees to be of a kind that cannot be achieved any other way, to avoid confusion

Their LLB, LLM, LLD system seems much more intuitive than the U.S. JD, LLM, JSD system

Our system made more sense when the JD was an LLB, before the profession got the degree elevated to make lawyers look more fancy (and probably make law schools look more important).

Yeah.. it is a source of great confusion...

In my country, there has even been a court case about it! The court ruled that a U.S. JD is not equivalent to a doctorate

RetakeFrenzy wrote:Yeah.. it is a source of great confusion...

In my country, there has even been a court case about it! The court ruled that a U.S. JD is not equivalent to a doctorate

Well, it's really not. But I'm biased on this.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

RetakeFrenzy wrote:Yeah.. it is a source of great confusion...

In my country, there has even been a court case about it! The court ruled that a U.S. JD is not equivalent to a doctorate

Well, it's really not. But I'm biased on this.

I know.. now that I'm about to get one in three years, I'd like to think of it as a doctorate

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

RetakeFrenzy wrote:

guano wrote:What's worth noting is that an LLD is a real degree in Sweden, where it is the highest degree a lawyer can earn

But yeah, the trend has become for honorary degrees to be of a kind that cannot be achieved any other way, to avoid confusion

Their LLB, LLM, LLD system seems much more intuitive than the U.S. JD, LLM, JSD system

Our system made more sense when the JD was an LLB, before the profession got the degree elevated to make lawyers look more fancy (and probably make law schools look more important).

relevant

guano wrote:The JD is technically a doctorate degree and it is not incorrect for a lawyer to refer to him/herself as a doctor (subject to state bar restrictions - e.g. in Texas it's permitted unless it could lead to confusion, such as medical malpractice)

Attorneys in Brazil are referred to as doctors. Kinda makes me wanna practice law down there. Dat title...

My UG gives a doctor of laws honorary. Totally normal

Thanks for all the input. I thought it was kind of lulzy that a college was awarding honorary versions of degrees that they don't normally confer, but if "Doctor of Laws" is *always* an honorary degree in the U.S., it makes sense now.

Has anyone had a professor insist to be called doctor because they held also a Ph.D?

cavtrpr wrote:Has anyone had a professor insist to be called doctor because they held also a Ph.D?

Only once, and it was kind of a special case. When I was in undergrad, we had a grad student who had been working as a TA in several of the computer science/engineering courses. Right after he got his Ph.D, he preferred to be called "doctor", since "professor" wouldn't have been appropriate because he wasn't actually teaching any classes yet.

In graduate school, everyone just went by "professor", whether they actually were a full professor with a Ph.D, or a "senior lecturer" without a Ph.D. I thought it was strange at first, but the system worked for them, and no one was really hung up on titles anyway.

cavtrpr wrote:Has anyone had a professor insist to be called doctor because they held also a Ph.D?

My brother is a surgeon and a PhD, but I don't think that counts.
My cousin is a professor, who joked about it once shortly after he got his PhD, by the wasn't serious

Every professor I've ever had asked to be called by their first name. Addressing someone as professor so and so sounds weird as fuck.

dr123 wrote:Every professor I've ever had asked to be called by their first name. Addressing someone as professor so and so sounds weird as fuck.

You have very limited experience, then. I worked at one school where everyone went by their first names, but that's definitely the minority in academia - Prof. Whoever is totally standard.

I have an almost creppy, fetish level obsession with physicians, to the point where I didn't realize that my torts professor was being sarcastic when he was "celebrating" the fact that in some states with tort reform doctors are treated as nearly immune to civil liability, I thought that sounded like a reasonable situation).

However, in my mind anyone who earns a doctorate deserves to be called Dr if they feel like it. IMHO, its MDs, D.O.s, ophthalmologists, and podiatrists that are misnamed, they don't have a doctorate (a terminal degree marking the creation of new knowledge), but rather a professional degree teaching them how to perform a skill.

Professors, on the other hand, should be a term used only for an actual tenured (or possibly tenured-tracked) person who devotes their life to research and instruction whether they are doing actual, useful research or if they are a useless, ivy-towered intellectual participating in some sort of mental circle jerk.

Lawyers only pretend they have doctorates because prior to the modern general schedule used to pay government workers, compensation was directly tied to level of education, lawyers wanted to be paid like Doctors, not like people with master's degrees.

TL:DR: Titles in the US make no sense, but everyone wants to steal the prestige of doctors, especially TTT lawyers who insist its a juris Doctor.

RetakeFrenzy wrote: Yeah.. it is a source of great confusion...

In my country, there has even been a court case about it! The court ruled that a U.S. JD is not equivalent to a doctorate

And that is correct. The US JD is equivalent to the LLB. They are both the first professional degree in law.

The US LLM is equivalent to the European LLM, though. It's just that we call our LLB something else. Because we're weird like that.

"In my country, there has even been a court case about it! The court ruled that a U.S. JD is not equivalent to a doctorate"

What court? What are you referring to?

"The US JD is equivalent to the LLB. They are both the first professional degree in law."

The LL.B. and the term first professional degree have both been eliminated in the United States. The JD is a professional degree which is now classified as a "Doctor's degree-professional practice."

https://surveys.nces.ed.gov/ipeds/VisGl ... idlink=942
Doctor's degree-professional practice

"A doctor's degree that is conferred upon completion of a program providing the knowledge and skills for the recognition, credential, or license required for professional practice. The degree is awarded after a period of study such that the total time to the degree, including both pre-professional and professional preparation, equals at least six full-time equivalent academic years. Some of these degrees were formerly classified as first-professional and may include: Chiropractic (D.C. or D.C.M.); Dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.); Law (J.D.); Medicine (M.D.); Optometry (O.D.); Osteopathic Medicine (D.O); Pharmacy (Pharm.D.); Podiatry (D.P.M., Pod.D., D.P.); or, Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.), and others, as designated by the awarding institution."