Thoughts on a dual JD/MA program?

[123]

2 hours ago, Ben said:

I have a very hard time imagining a person who has the reading, writing, and research chops to get into a strong PhD program in a law-adjacent field but not to get the JD grades needed to at least be competitive for an appellate clerkship. 

2 hours ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

There are literally people in law school with PhDs from good programs who fail to get the JD grades needed to compete for appellate clerkships. That's largely because you don't need reading, writing, or research chops to do well in law school, and those skills are honestly of pretty limited utility for law school exams. 

@Ben,@BlockedQuebecoisis entirely correct in saying that doing well on law school exams has nothing to do with how good you are at academia. The people who do well in law school apply the law to the facts better than their classmates. They spot all the issues. They apply the framework correctly. They collect any easter eggs the prof leaves. They don't run out of time. In other words, they execute better than their classmates. They're not writing beautiful prose. They're not doing any research. They just know the stuff they need to know, and then they are quicker, more organized, and more disciplined in their analysis than average students like me. Those are the people who get appellate clerkships. And they're elite at something so specific that it's very weird to compare it to all PHDs in difficulty, which have completely different challenges. 

Your profile states you are a law student, and I'm assuming that you are a 1L based upon what you're writing here. I'm not saying this to be mean. But as someone who didn't really know what law exams were until after I'd written the 1L midterms, and then was unpleasantly surprised when I got my first marks back, I would suggest starting on some practice exams relatively soon. FWIW. 

[Ben]

7 minutes ago, realpseudonym said:

@Ben,@BlockedQuebecoisis entirely correct in saying that doing well on law school exams has nothing to do with how good you are at academia. The people who do well in law school apply the law to the facts better than their classmates. They spot all the issues. They apply the framework correctly. They collect any easter eggs the prof leaves. They don't run out of time. In other words, they execute better than their classmates. They're not writing beautiful prose. They're not doing any research. They just know the stuff they need to know, and then they are quicker, more organized, and more disciplined in their analysis than average students like me. Those are the people who get appellate clerkships. And they're elite at something so specific that it's very weird to compare it to all PHDs in difficulty, which have completely different challenges. 

Your profile states you are a law student, and I'm assuming that you are a 1L based upon what you're writing here. I'm not saying this to be mean. But as someone who didn't really know what law exams were until after I'd written the 1L midterms, and then was unpleasantly surprised when I got my first marks back, I would suggest starting on some practice exams relatively soon. FWIW. 

Lol, I'm not a 1L, but thanks, and I'm sorry you had such a hard time in first year. I hope everything worked out for you. I don't take every opportunity I get on this board to brag about my law school grades, and I'm not going to break that habit here.

If you want a useful illustration of how people in top-flight PhD programs tend to perform in law school, look no further than people who graduated from (or at least were in, since many people don't finish it) U of T's JD/PhD philosophy. It is a laundry list of ONCA/SCC clerks, and people whose subsequent professional achievements strongly suggest they had the grades to clerk even if they didn't. 

[BlockedQuebecois]

I have nothing more to add on the substantive discussion because I think it's pretty clear where everyone stands, but I do just want to point out how funny it is that someone whose only memorable post before today was this one: 

Has their whole online persona be... well... this: 

5 minutes ago, Ben said:

Lol, I'm not a 1L, but thanks, and I'm sorry you had such a hard time in first year. I hope everything worked out for you. I don't take every opportunity I get on this board to brag about my law school grades, and I'm not going to break that habit here.

And least CleanHands and I are up front about being dicks. 

[Ben]

5 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

I have nothing more to add on the substantive discussion because I think it's pretty clear where everyone stands, but I do just want to point out how funny it is that someone whose only memorable post before today was this one: 

Has their whole online persona be... well... this: 

And least CleanHands and I are up front about being dicks. 

There's an obvious difference between being rude to someone who asks a question and has never spoken to you before, and being rude to someone who condescendingly suggests you "start on some practice exams relatively soon" because they don't agree with your position on the relationship between strong JD grades and the ability to get into prestigious doctorate programs. 

Quote

And least CleanHands and I are up front about being dicks. 

Yes, you guys are very cool. I still remember @CleanHands telling me that asking him to be nicer on the old board was like walking into a "biker bar" and trying to change the vibe. 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Ben

[CleanHands]

3 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

And least CleanHands and I are up front about being dicks. 

Not to deny that, but for what it's worth I was quite drunk when I wrote the post he was responding to in the thread you just linked. One of my more cringe moments here and I could have gone without it being resurrected (dick).

[WiseGhost]

I don't know, seems to me that Ben has a right to be snippy after having most commenters here interpret his posts in the worst possible light. 

Edited November 20, 2021 by villiuski
f-ed up sentence eww

[mistertubby]

1 minute ago, villiuski said:

I don't know, seems to me that Ben has a right to be snippy after having most commenters here have interpreted his posts in the worst possible light. 

keep your voice down, theyll come for you next! 

[Ben]

1 minute ago, CleanHands said:

Not to deny that, but for what it's worth I was quite drunk when I wrote the post he was responding to in the thread you just linked. One of my more cringe moments here and I could have gone without it being resurrected (dick).

Lol, why didn't you just apologize then? You have great advice to offer people here on the early stages of a career in criminal law, and that's terrific, but you obviously knew that was a mean thing to do and you probably could've said so. 

[CleanHands]

Just now, Ben said:

Lol, why didn't you just apologize then? You have great advice to offer people here on the early stages of a career in criminal law, and that's terrific, but you obviously knew that was a mean thing to do and you probably could've said so. 

Fair.

[Deadpool]

10 minutes ago, Ben said:

Lol, I'm not a 1L, but thanks, and I'm sorry you had such a hard time in first year. I hope everything worked out for you. I don't take every opportunity I get on this board to brag about my law school grades, and I'm not going to break that habit here.

If you want a useful illustration of how people in top-flight PhD programs tend to perform in law school, look no further than people who graduated from (or at least were in, since many people don't finish it) U of T's JD/PhD philosophy. It is a laundry list of ONCA/SCC clerks, and people whose subsequent professional achievements strongly suggest they had the grades to clerk even if they didn't. 

One of my law school professors had a PhD in philosophy from Oxford and was a Rhodes Scholar. I am not sure if philosophy is the best example to use here, because a lot of the skills tested in a philosophy program is also tested in law school. Philosophy majors tend to perform better on the LSAT on average than most other majors. Philosophy is also a difficult degree even at the undergraduate level and not many people get one. I think this major is more the exception than the norm.

https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.apaonline.org/resource/resmgr/Data_on_Profession/Philosophy_performance_on_LS.pdf 

[Ben]

Just now, Deadpool said:

One of my law school professors had a PhD in philosophy from Oxford and was a Rhodes Scholar. I am not sure if philosophy is the best example to use here, because a lot of the skills tested in a philosophy program is also tested in law school. Philosophy majors tend to perform better on the LSAT on average than most other majors. Philosophy is also a difficult degree even at the undergraduate level and not many people get one. I think this major is more the exception than the norm.

https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.apaonline.org/resource/resmgr/Data_on_Profession/Philosophy_performance_on_LS.pdf 

Philosophy is probably the best example. It seems like by far the most common graduate degree for law professors to have, besides SJDs. A DPhil in philosophy at Oxford is, 150%, more difficult to get into than any appellate clerkship in this country, probably including the SCC. 

[WiseGhost]

I think people are underestimating the difficulty of getting into a top tier PhD program. If you're able to get into an Ivy League or Oxbridge PhD program for the arts, you probably have analytical skills that are better than most of your colleagues at law school. Philosophy majors might have higher LSAT scores, but there is an element of self sorting involved. If you don't have strong analytical skills, I doubt you're going to complete a philosophy major without switching out. 

 

[LegalPerson]

3 hours ago, Deadpool said:

@Ben I do have experience with graduate studies and am considering doing a PhD for personal interest and because I think there is value to having it for my career goals.
I think we need to clarify what you mean by strong PhD programs. And in what fields specifically. There are people that get PhDs from York in the humanities field and teach at Osgoode; and these PhD programs are not particularly difficult to get into, last time I checked. When you talk about strong PhD programs, are you referring to those being offered at schools like Oxbridge, ivy league, etc., or ones at Canadian schools. Some programs like psychology are really competitive, while others like philosophy or political science are not. 

I was nowhere near appellate or SCC clerkship levels in law school. I have been told by a number of ivy league schools and Oxbridge that I can get into some of their top graduate programs because of my strong undergraduate GPA and specialized practice experience. However, I am not competitive for LLM and SJD programs at these same schools. I am in touch with professors at these schools who have encouraged me to apply to their PhD programs. According to them, I have a "very strong profile". Honestly, I think you are overestimating how difficult it is to get into top PhD programs compared to securing appellate and SCC clerkships. Performing at the top of your class in law school takes very different skills than it does to perform well in academia.

Lmao philosophy is not competitive? The acceptance rates at top-15-20 programs (the only ones worth going to if you want a job) range typically range from 2-5%. U of T's philosophy PhD acceptance rate last cycle was about 2.4% (with about 470 applicants). U of T law's acceptance rate was almost 5x higher than that. Most admitted students in philosophy have an undergrad GPA over 3.9 (which is much more difficult in philosophy as compared to, say, political science or commerce) and GREs in the high 160s (philosophy majors have the highest GRE scores). Moreover, those stats are considered necessary but not even close to sufficient, as the most important factor is the writing sample, which must be graduate-level if you want to have a shot at admission.

As someone who has gotten into a top law school and a top philosophy program and has paid very close attention to trends in both fields over the past 3-4 years, I feel justified in voicing my view that getting into a top law school and excelling in law school are much easier than getting into a top philosophy program and excelling in philosophy, respectively. Neither are easy, but the latter is much more difficult than the former. Anecdotally, the philosophy majors at my law school are almost all distinction or near-distinction students. It's no surprise that philosophy (and other humanities) students often see law as the backup if their (more unattainable) ambitions in their field of choice don't work out.

As Ben has suggested, it seems like this debate is between people who have deep knowledge of both processes, and people who are going off of (more or less) conjecture. I would second the suggestion to head over the grad cafe and check the results for the top-ranked programs in philosophy (or another humanity, but especially philosophy).

I'd also like to specifically vouch for my econ brothers and sisters, who also do rigorous work that typically leads to tons of success in legal academia.

2 hours ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you here, but you're not seriously suggesting it's harder to get a 3.9 GPA in undergrad and a great GRE score than it is to get the undergrad grades and LSAT necessary to get into a top Canadian law school and then finish in the top 5% of your law school class and get an appellate clerkship, are you? 

I found law school and the LSAT remarkably easy, and I am quite vocal about that, but even I wouldn't say it's easier to get into law school, finish in the top 5% of your law school class, and secure one of a few dozen jobs than it is to do well in undergrad and ace the GRE.

See my above comment. Those stats are necessary, but not even close to sufficient. Those are the scores of a large pool of applicants, most of whom get rejected.

Edited November 20, 2021 by LegalPerson

[CleanHands]

Anyways, the argument this thread transformed into is dumb even by my standards.

• Being at the top of one's class in a JD program and getting an appellate level clerkship is difficult (unless you are a superstar).
• Getting into a world class, top tier graduate program is difficult (unless you are a superstar).
• JD programs and graduate program admission requirements (while all of course requiring general intelligence) require and assess very different skills.
• The vast majority of people who obtain a JD will not end up being competitive for legal academic positions.

Anyone who disagrees with any of the above propositions doesn't know what they are talking about.

I don't see any value in a dick-measuring contest about what is relatively more difficult (especially one where everyone is defining terms differently).

[123]

52 minutes ago, Ben said:

being rude to someone who condescendingly suggests you "start on some practice exams relatively soon" because they don't agree with your position on the relationship between strong JD grades and the ability to get into prestigious doctorate programs. 

Sorry, I hadn’t meant to be condescending. That was my mistake. 

[LegalPerson]

8 minutes ago, CleanHands said:

Anyways, the argument this thread transformed into is dumb even by my standards.

• Being at the top of one's class in a JD program and getting an appellate level clerkship is difficult (unless you are a superstar).
• Getting into a world class, top tier graduate program is difficult (unless you are a superstar).
• JD programs and graduate program admission requirements (while all of course requiring general intelligence) require and assess very different skills.
• The vast majority of people who obtain a JD will not end up being competitive for legal academic positions.

Anyone who disagrees with any of the above propositions doesn't know what they are talking about.

I don't see any value in a dick-measuring contest about what is relatively more difficult (especially one where everyone is defining terms differently).

Those are all reasonable conclusions, though I'd still disagree with the third. I would only add that the original point was that if you weren't going to be competitive for top law positions (e.g., SCC clerkship), you're probably not going to be competitive for a top PhD program in law-adjacent fields like philosophy and economics. I stand by that. I'm not seeing that they measure such different skills. No doubt, actually being a lawyer requires a whole host of different skills. That's not the case for law school. Once again, if you've never formally studied philosophy (I'd include other fields, but for now I'd like to stick to what I know well), perhaps you shouldn't feel justified in making that kind of claim?

Edited November 20, 2021 by LegalPerson

[Ben]

Just now, realpseudonym said:

Sorry, I hadn’t meant to be condescending. That was my mistake. 

I appreciate it, thanks for saying so. I was too rude in my response, I shouldn’t have gotten my back up quite so much. 

[BlockedQuebecois]

At the very least the question "what's more difficult to accomplish, being the Gold Medalist at U of T and clerking at the SCC or being admitted to Oxford's DPhil of Philosophy" leads to a more interesting conversation that our usual "will Lakehead take into account that my chemistry degree was really really really difficult compared to the art history major who just looked at paintings all day" debate.

Even if it's completely divorced from poor OP's "should I do a JD/MA in Criminology?"

Edited November 20, 2021 by BlockedQuebecois

[WhoKnows]

10 minutes ago, BlockedQuebecois said:

"what's more difficult to accomplish, being the Gold Medalist at U of T and clerking at the SCC or being admitted to Oxford's DPhil of Philosophy"

There is enough overlap in these people we could probably just ask one of them. 

Edited November 20, 2021 by WhoKnows

[Deadpool]

@LegalPerson, nice of you to join the conversation. This discussion kept changing directions that I am not even sure now what the original points were. We were having a discussion about PhD programs in general, and then the other poster readjusted their statements to mean humanities specifically, and then humanities programs at top universities/ internationally renowned schools, ... and now you seem to suggest that this entire conversation focused on PhD in philosophy programs. I used philosophy as one example in a list of examples, at a point in the discussion where we had not yet decided on what we meant by "top schools". I admit it was not a good example. Philosophy and economics are considered the more rigorous arts programs. No one is disputing that. No one is also disputing that these majors are often correlated with success on the LSAT and in law school. But this discussion did not begin with this topic.

[LegalPerson]

56 minutes ago, Deadpool said:

and now you seem to suggest that this entire conversation focused on PhD in philosophy programs

What a wonderfully charitable reading of my post! I'm glad that we can all come together and really *understand* each other, even if we disagree

I focused on philosophy because it's the one with which I'm most familiar. What exactly did I say that suggested that the conversation as a whole was centered on philosophy. Don't put words into my mouth.

Plus, you seem to have some amnesia. Have you read the thread recently? I'm not seeing this progressive narrowing of the claim. The claim all along has been that top PhD programs in law-adjacent fields are at least of similar difficulty to getting top appellate clerkships. Ultimately, the point goes back to the fact that law is a good field if you're interested in academia but want some options should that fail and wouldn't hate working in law

Edited November 20, 2021 by LegalPerson

[Deadpool]

7 hours ago, Ben said:

If you’re also open to practicing law should it not work out, getting a JD is probably the smartest path to non-STEM academia. “Lawyer” is a significantly better backup plan than most philosophy PhD students have (for example). If you can’t pull the JD grades for appellate clerkships, you’re probably not someone who has a legitimate shot at the kind of PhD programs that place their students well in the academic job market (to the extent that any do, lol). Plus, although I don’t pay super close attention, I get the sense that there are more jobs in legal academia than in the academic humanities. ... By "strong PhD programs," I mean programs that have strong placement records in the academic job market. 

@LegalPerson Where is it suggested in the original discussion that we were only discussing "law-adjacent fields" like philosophy? When this post was made, I assumed we were talking about academic humanities programs in general. 

Edited November 20, 2021 by Deadpool

[LegalPerson]

5 minutes ago, Deadpool said:

@LegalPerson Where is it suggested in the original discussion that we were only discussing "law-adjective fields" like philosophy? When this post was made, I assumed we were talking about academic humanities programs in general. 

An assumption that would follow from the abstract meaning of the quoted post but not in its context. It's quite obvious to me that the (original) claim wouldn't have extended to, say, musicology or French. That much I read from the context, as I assume anyone reading it charitably would.

If this discussion was simply a result of that initial mistake, then I suppose it can now be laid to rest!

Also lmao at "law-adjective". Damn my autocorrect!

Edited November 20, 2021 by LegalPerson

[lolnodude]

I really don't have a dog in this fight, but if you consider UofT's science programs as "strong PhD programs" (which I think you should, given their reputation and ranking), you can absolutely get in with a B+ undergrad average. My observation as someone with a UofT JD and MSc who worked a ton of PhDs has been that the quality of the students at UofT law (and difficulty getting in) is absolutely higher than the students in science PhD programs. Half my undergrad class is doing a PhD man, it's not that difficult to get in. You don't even need a GRE for a bunch of programs. The only obstacle is a $100 fee and two reference letters. PhD admission rates means nothing when the program has a gazillion international applicants and grad students looking at bleak career opportunities who apply haphazardly since there are barely any costs associated with applying.

Edited November 20, 2021 by lolnodude

[LegalPerson]

1 minute ago, lolnodude said:

I really don't have a dog in this fight, but if you consider UofT's science programs as "strong PhD programs" (which I think you should, given their reputation and ranking), you can absolutely get in with a B+ undergrad average. My observation has someone with a science masters who worked a ton of PhDs has been that the quality of the students at UofT law (and difficulty getting in) is absolutely higher than the students in PhD programs. Half my undergrad class is doing a PhD man, it's not that difficult to get in. You don't even need a GRE for a bunch of programs. The only obstacle is a $100 fee and two reference letters. PhD admission rates means nothing when the program has a gazillion international applicants and grad students looking at bleak career opportunities who apply haphazardly since there are barely any costs associated with applying.

What you're saying about science may be absolute right. I have no idea. But it doesn't apply at all to the programs that I was referring to.

Though I should mention that that doesn't seem to be the case for physics and math, having many friends who study those things at U of T

Edited November 20, 2021 by LegalPerson