MOVING TO FRONT FROM NOV. 18 2009, SINCE THE QUESTION IS ARISING AGAIN
A philosophy graduate student writes:
I was hoping you might be able to help me with a follow-up question I had regarding your blog-post on leiterreports regarding the merits of getting a J.D. and a Ph.D. in philosophy. I'm now in my second-to-last year of my Ph.D....working predominantly in political philosophy....My interests have been, over the last year or so, drawing me towards the philosophy of law and I have been considering pursuing my J.D. after I finish my degree, particularly if the academic job market in philosophy is not substantially improved by the time I finish.
My question is this: how much does it matter where I get my J.D. if my aim is to stay in academia and teach (whether predominantly in the law-program or the philosophy department)? I'm sure going to a more prestigious law school helps, but since the more prestigious the school (often) the more expensive it is, if the potential academic job-benefits are not significant it may not be worth the extra expense.
The answer is: it matters a lot if your goal is to get into law teaching (otherwise it matters less). Law school hiring is very pedigree-sensitive, much more so than philosophy hiring, and also without excellence in a specialization compensating for a program that is not overall highly regarded. One need only look at data on where law professors earned their degrees (e.g., here or here) to see that the academic market in law is overwhelmingly dominated by a very small number of schools: Yale, Harvard, Chicago, and Stanford at the very top; Columbia, Michigan, Berkeley, maybe NYU a notch below; Virginia and Penn a notch below those; and then some mix of Northwestern, Duke, Texas, Georgetown, maybe Cornell, maybe Minnesota, maybe UCLA, maybe one or two others.
It is true that scholarly writing is now much more important in law school hiring than it was even twenty years ago--hardly anyone gets hired anymore without having at least one publication post- law school graduation--but before hiring schools even start reading the scholarship, pedigree is used to narrow the pool dramatically. That, I'm afraid, is the reality that anyone thinking about law teaching needs to be aware of.
Law school is expensive, but even the top law schools give 'merit' aid, and those with PhDs or those with potential for academic careers are often viable candidates for that. Should a JD/PhD hopeful pay full price at Harvard over a full ride at Penn? Probably not, and especially given that Harvard Law School is a bit of a wasteland for someone with a serious interest in philosophy, while Penn has a serious commitment to law and philosophy. But should one pay full price at Penn over a full ride at George Washington or Vanderbilt or Emory? There, I think, the answer is probably yes. The latter are all quite good law schools, but in terms of law teaching, the pedigree drop off is probably too great.
ADDENDUM: A more recent study on placement in law teaching, though no significant differences from the earlier ones.
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