ORIGINALLY POSTED OCTOBER 4, 2021
This follows up on a 2017 post on this topic, which takes as its starting point the 2017 PGR section on the study of philosophy in law schools.
Some terminology: by "general jurisprudence," I mean the core philosophical questions about the nature of law, the relationship between law and morality, and the nature of legal reasoning; by "normative jurisprudence," I mean the myriad philosophical attempts to make normative sense (or provide normative rationalizations) of different substantive areas of law, like torts, contracts, criminal law, property, anti-discrimination law, free speech, and so on.
1. The main reason to consider a JD/PhD program at the same university is that it almost always involves saving time on your coursework--that is one of their main advantages, along with a better chance of continuity of supervision and interaction with faculty mentors.
2. Many students, however, do the law degree at one place, and the PhD somewhere else. This can make good sense, depending on a student's interests and the strengths of differing schools. (In the law school here at Chicago, we have had terrific students with PhDs (or DPhils) from Oxford, Princeton, NYU, Brown, Michigan, and CUNY, among other places; in addition, outstanding law graduates from here are now pursuing PhDs in philosophy at Princeton, Pittsburgh, and Cornell, among other places.) (As an aside, a student with a common-law law degree and a suitable background in philosophy can do a 2-3 year JSD here in the law school at Chicago focusing on general jurisprudence.)
3. Legal academia is more pedigree-sensitive than academic philosophy (and I'm sure many of you think academic philosophy is way too pedigree-sensitive!). Four law schools dominate the market for new law teachers: Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale. (With the exception of Stanford, these are also three of the top four faculties in scholarly influence, as well as the four schools that graduate the most Supreme Court clerks.) On a per capita basis, Yale is ahead of the other three in placement in law teaching (primarily a selection effect), and these four are ahead of everyone else (see, e.g., this from 2011 and this from 2007, although not much has changed in the interim). On a placement success rate basis (i.e., percentage of academic job seekers who actually get tenure-track jobs), Chicago and Yale generally dominate. Stanford Law has no serious interest in legal philosophy. Harvard Law has recently added some junior faculty in normative jurisprudence (in addition to senior faculty with philosophical interests--like Richard Fallon [constitutional theory], John Goldberg [tort theory], and Henry Smith [property theory]), so it is a better choice than previously (it remains irrelevant for general jurisprudence, however).
4. If your goal is to enter law teaching, the JD school matters a lot. Besides the four noted above, other law schools that do well in law teaching placement are: NYU, Columbia, Berkeley, Michigan, Virginia, Penn, Northwestern and then, with a drop-off, also Duke, Cornell, Texas, Georgetown, and UCLA. Not all these law schools have a strong investment in philosophy, but several do: NYU [both general and normative jurisprudence], Berkeley [esp. normative jurisprudence], Michigan [both general and normative], Virginia [both general and normative], Penn [both general and normative], Cornell [esp. general jurisprudence], Georgetown [esp. normative jurisprudence], and UCLA [both general and normative]. Obviously, not all the law schools serious about philosophy are at universities with strong philosophy PhD programs.
5. One can do a JD/PhD at most of the preceding schools (I'm a bit unsure about how it works at Berkeley, though one can do a PhD in their "Jurisprudence & Social Policy" program in the law school with a legal philosophy focus, and one can do that concurrently with a JD), and at some the joint degree is very well-funded (e.g., Penn, but NYU, UCLA, Michigan, Berkeley and Yale all offers various kinds of funding packages--Harvard used to fully fund JD/PhDs, but no longer does). (Funding at Chicago for a JD/PhD is ad hoc, and can include full funding of both degrees, but there is no formal program, though we do have JD/PhD students.)
6. Outside the top law schools mentioned in 3 and 4, above, there are other U.S. law schools with serious interest in philosophy, including University of Minnesota at Minneapolis-St. Paul; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Fordham University; Cardozo Law School/Yeshiva University; Georgia State University; University of San Diego; Rutgers University; and Chicago-Kent College of Law, among others.
7. In Canada, the best choice is probably the JD/PhD at University of Toronto, though the jurisprudential group in the law school at Toronto is a bit idiosyncratic (due to the influence of Ernest Weinrib, about whom opinion is divided between utter devotees and utter skeptics [I'm in the latter camp]), but Sophia Moreau and Arthur Ripstein are important contributors to different aspects of normative jurisprudence. Osgoode Hall Law School, at York University in Toronto, is the second best law school in Canada with a good, younger jurisprudence group as well. (Osgoode plays UCLA to Toronto's Berkeley: that's one way to think of it from a US perspective.)
7. Oxford had dominated Anglophone legal philosophy from the 1950s, but that has now ended, with the loss of the key senior faculty. There remain a lot of good younger jurisprudential faculty at Oxford, but many are overworked tutors, who do less graduate supervision. Other leading law faculties in the UK have strong senior faculty in jurisprudence (e.g., Matthew Kramer at Cambridge, Kevin Toh at University College London). Other UK schools worth a look include King's College, London; University of Warwick; University of Edinburgh; University of Surrey; and University of Durham.
8. In Australasia, the University of Sydney probably dominates the legal philosophy scene these days, though there are serious scholars working at many places throughout the region, including at the Universities of Auckland and Melbourne, among others. In Anglophone Asia, the National University of Singapore has built up a large, strong jurisprudential cohort, so is also worth a serious look for law students interested in philosophy.
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