The ubiquity of "juris doctor" is a fairly recent development, is it not?
I can think of one pseud that rhymes with your post title, but he doesn't comment here anymore.
Yes, JD is new as far as degrees go. It used to be LL.B., so LL.M. as the next degree made sense. My dad always said that lawyers in the federal govt. pushed for the name change to get higher pay (i.e. we have a degree that is equal to a doctorate, not a bachelors).
AFAIK JD is US only. (an exercise to see how many initials I could get in a short comment.)
4 makes sense. Federal pay scales are very rigid.
Is the question why "jus" is genitive singular and "legum" genitive plural? Because there's a whole long history of the difference between jus and lex wrapped up in there, although the US degrees are very recent and therefore fake.
Come to think of it, I'm not sure whether I have a J.D. or an LL.B. Should probably check.
My Latin is way, way rusty. But if I remember rightly, jus makes more sense as referring to the topic of law generally than lex -- I think of 'lex' as referring to a law, almost the equivalent of 'statute', while 'jus' applies to the topic of justice generally. (I could be inventing this distinction, of course -- my memory of fine shades of meaning in Latin is more fictional than real.)
2: You mean this guy? He shows up now and again.
That crossed with Halford, but the singular/plural thing fits in with that -- being a master of 'lex', singular, wouldn't make sense, because 'lex' would refer to a particular law rather than to Law. So you're a master of laws, as in the whole body of statutes. But that's still not as all-encompassing as 'jus', singular.
Yeah, 10 is my sense, although my Latin is now pretty much non-existent and probably worse than LB's.
The whole concept of a university-awarded law degree in common law countries (or, really,of the common law having a place in the university at all) is extremely recent, so the use of Latin for the degree title is pretty much just pure pomposity -- the degree should really just be called a M.L., for a Masters in Law, akin to an M.B.A. What you're studying in an American law school is law in the Anglo-American sense and the continental jus/lex distinction has no application at all to the subject matter.
There's an ABA opinion on circumstances in which people with a JD can call themselves 'doctor' -- it is not a null set.
"I'm a doctor; there's no need to be embarrassed about a little nudity."
Haven't seen Modesto Kid around here in some time.
"I'm a doctor; I have every right to be on this ambulance."
13: Seriously, what are those circumstances. Nothing comes to mind except maybe a graduation.
Mark Levin (the crazy right-wing radio guy) apparently refers to his J.D.-possessing self as a doctor.
5: Lino Aldani a.a.s. 82, d.s.p.m.s. (sexist), ux Mirella, filia Elettra.
17: Nazi stormtroopers looking for lawyers to send to the concentration camps come to your door: "Actually, I'm a doctor."
The question isn't about the singular or plural, but about the word choice in the first place. If the LL.M. is the temporally prior degree, why isn't the doctorate the LL.D.?
Whoever came up with J.D. believed (possibly for the reasons I give in 8 and 10) that jus more accurately describes the topic taught in US law schools than lex?
17: Part of the explanation: "Oh no, I'm not one of those real types of doctors."
(but this has been a joke among my various friends just graduating from law school, with me serving as the humorless defender of the PhD's unique prestige)
21: Because there already is (rare) a LL.D. for people bored enough to write a dissertation on the law.
21 -- The whole system of law degrees is largely arbitrary and reflects the fact that common-law jurisdiction lawyers weren't trained in Universities at all until the late 19th Century. Harvard Law School came up with the idea for the "J.D." professional school in the 19th Century, at a time when common law-lawyers were trained as apprentices. The idea of the "Doctorate" was that it would give University-trained American lawyers something like the prestige of a continental legal academic (in France and Germany, good practicing lawyers often do get real Doctorates and are referred to as "Doctors" honorifically). But some US law schools (including, I think but am not sure, mine) used the LL.B. formula, which is what you get in England with an undergraduate law education (also a late 19th/20th Century development).
When legal education moved into the university and became the lowest-level qualification for practicing law, some folks decided that there needed to be some kind of higher degree in the US law schools for folks (mostly foreign lawyers) who already had a basic law degree, and so the LL.M. degree was born, riffing off of the LL.B. But as a result the two degree names still don't really make sense together. Now, some US law schools award something called a "S.J.D." or Doctorate in Juridical Science, which is supposed to be the equivalent of a Ph.D. in law.
Wait, I thought S.J.D was also called LL.D. Not that I've ever known anyone who had one.
SJD is the American LlD.
There's an ABA opinion on circumstances in which people with a JD can call themselves 'doctor' -- it is not a null set.
Apparently, like everything else having to do with lawyers, it varies by state. Seems that the ABA under the Canons disallowed it except in an academic setting, but under the Code backed off from that position.
Speaking of foreign languages, Google languages is translating "EFE" as "Reuters." Directly. It's like translating "Washington Post" as "Le Monde." Weird.
But if undergraduate legal education didn't exist before the late nineteenth century, what were law professors doing before then?
31: Or so the jurists would have you believe.
Didn't Georgetown (and perhaps others) give out J.D.s retroactively? I think I remember that from several decades ago.
30 -- Undergraduate legal education existed in continental Europe since at least the 13th century, but the common law of England and America wasn't taught in universities. Actually, Oxford/Cambridge have had professors of Roman and Canon law from the middle ages until today, but the common law/equity/other laws of England weren't taught until recently and I'm fairly sure that a university degree in law wasn't a requirement to practice in England until sometime in the late 19th or 20th century.
Blackstone was a professor (at Oxford, I think) who wrote about the common law, but he was the first and he wasn't training future lawyers. In the US, university-based law schools didn't get going at all until the late 19thC, although there were some non-university-based law schools around before then, some of which later merged into the university law schools. Even today, in some states (California is one) you can take the bar without having gone to law school if you apprentice with a lawyer for a few years, although I've never ever met anyone who actually did that.
34: She's home. Cedars wanted her in their acute rehab facility until the 17th but the insurance company kicked her out last Friday. She's getting some P.T. at home and is moving around a little using a walker.
36 -- Aggh, insurance companies. Best wishes to her!
I hink the word that's missing from this conversation is "jurisprudence". Both in terms of what law professors were doing in the olden days and (probably) what Harvard thought they were doing in inventing th JD. The distinction between jurisprudence and the study of practical law obviously gets elided as legal qualification becomes academicised.
30: Even now, in England many (most?) lawyers don't study law at the undergraduate level. They'll do some other subject (among my sadly many lawyer friends: history, biochemistry, classics, PPE) for a BA/MA, then take a one year conversion course.
re: 42
Many, yeah, although I suspect the law degree route is probably the most common for solicitors.
Among friends I know how are barristers the conversion course option seems more popular. Philosophy then conversion course then pupillage seems a fairly common route.
43. Yes, the only academic lawyer I know did a full law degree (BA in Jurisprudence at your gaff). A lot of the practicing lawyers I know/have known converted. I think for many it's a question of picking a subject area that interests them at 18, then later thinking, "Shit, how am I going to get a job that doesn't involve fried chicken with this."
I find it quite amusing that one of the most distinguished legal academics that I know, is not a lawyer and does not have an undergraduate degree in law.
She used to find it more amusing until she had to keep correcting people all the time "No, not a lawyer. No, NOT a lawyer. No, unless you need advice on my particular academic legal speciality, I am unlikely to be able to help you."
...mind you, I expect most acalawyers have that last problem.
"Yes, I can tell you all about the legal rights of penguins from South America in British zoos, but I can't help you if you need to know if it's legal for your neighbor's tree to lean over your property."
"Many, yeah, although I suspect the law degree route is probably the most common for solicitors."
Maybe. I can only really go on my acquaintances, who include both solicitors and barristers (and aspiring versions of each). Even the ones who did a law degree say it was more or less worthless.
Yes, I can tell you all about the legal rights of penguins from South America in British zoos,
Which are, of course, scutage, common of turbary, tallage, herbage, pasturage, acornage, tillage, fillage, ullage, spillage, carnage and wreckage. Assuming the zoo's in England, of course. Under Scots law the penguin is a fish, and thus falls into the category of ferae naturae.
The important thing to remember is that for any penguin captured in British waters, the feet, beak, and tailfeathers escheat to the crown.
48: and if the penguin has been responsible for the death of a British subject, it would be forfeit as deodand anyway.
IANAL, but if I were defending the penguin in court I would observe that when those legal definitions were handed down, a penguin was a Great Auk, and that its subsequent extinction renders them null and void.
A penguin would be classified as an auk but in the handicapped auk category, since they are basically like auks that can't fly.
Why are penguins so popular while auks, the evolutionary level above penguin, are ignored in animated film after animated film?
Auks are awesome. One of the great WOW!!! moments of my life was at Monterey Aquarium, where I was standing watching the fish going about their business in about 30 feet of water, and suddenly this bird flew past. Inside the tank. It was some kind of auk, and seemed not to care what element it flew around in.
Great Auks, sadly, couldn't fly.
"March of the Auks" could have gotten through the same amount of material in about twenty minutes. Isn't this a lot more efficient than standing around in a crowd for months and then walking across a continent?
The Emerson Plan would be more attractive if one were a penguin.
54: Pretty much anything is better if there are one or more penguins involved, including but not limited to (a) banned book lists, (b) zoos (c) this thread.
Why are penguins so popular while auks, the evolutionary level above penguin, are ignored in animated film after animated film?
It's an aukward question.
OK, OK, I'm going.
The idea of the "Doctorate" was that it would give University-trained American lawyers something like the prestige of a continental legal academic (in France and Germany, good practicing lawyers often do get real Doctorates and are referred to as "Doctors" honorifically).
One relevant difference between the J.D. and those continental Dr. of Laws degrees is that you have to write a doctoral dissertation to get the latter.
This penguin seems to have divided loyalties.
He's 37. How long does a penguin usually live? (Bearing in mind that an upper middle class penguin with the rank of Colonel-in-Chief probably has all sorts of advantages over some pleb on an ice flow.) It sounds pretty good.
re: 57
I'm inclined to think that anything that gets the title Dr appended to it bloody well ought to involve a doctoral dissertation [with grudging exceptions granted for medical doctors].
re: 59
One of my ex g/friends used to teach in a very rough school on Glasgow's south side. We took the kids from her school to Edinburgh zoo one year, and we were warned before we left that one of the kids from a nearby school had managed to steal a penguin the previous year. They'd gotten it as far as the school bus before it was discovered.
As somebody with a Masters, I'm inclined to endorse 60. Bearing in mind that most practicing physicians in Britain are MB.
61: They just reached over the fence and put it in their jacket?
re: 63
They have a penguin parade through Edinburgh zoo every day. They all come out of the enclosure and sort of march through the crowd. I presume one enterprising youngster managed to slip a straggler under his coat.
Again! Why take penguins all the way around the world to the Arctic Circle to have them march around the Edinburgh Zoo, when there are penguin-like creatures right there on the coasts of Scotland, ripe for the taking?
It's because penguins can't fly, right? They're easier for The Man to manipulate and control.
64: Must be why our zoo keeps the penguins behind glass. Maybe I'll see how secure the aviary's penguins are.
There's also the possibility that the penguin theft story was exaggerated, of course. Although it was told to me by a teacher who swore it had happened.
Don't worry, I won't try penguin theft without proper planning. As I said, the zoo would probably be too hard. The penguins are in the aquarium building and there's always a crowd. Plus they're behind glass and largish types of penguins. I'll have to check out the aviary as they just got their penguins. Probably have new staff and other weaknesses. Plus, once you got a penguin, you'd only be about 100 feet from your car.
59: He's really 24. He's a body double who took over when Sergeant Nils Olaf died.
60/62: On this side of the pond, in another generation or two they'll be giving out doctorates as goodie-bad treats at the inevitable late spring parent/child campus visits.
Ok it's not quite that bad. But JD's are a bit of a joke.
I have a marginally related story from a recent trip to the zoo.
I'm there with my 1 1/2 year old, and we stop to look at the crocodile exhibit. The croc is asleep. The zoo is crowded. Three 15-16 year olds are standing in front of the cage, two girls and a guy, laughing in that annoying teenage way and shouting to wake the Croc up.
That seemed annoying, but not particularly notable, until one of the guys (a) climbs up over a six foot railing (b) into the crocodile cage (c) runs up and hits the crocodile on the nose (d) does a little dance (e) the crocodile opens an eye, but does not move and (f) the teenager hops out of the crocodile cage. There is now a crowd of people standing around, speechless, literally stunned into silence by this guy's stupidity. The guy's life was undoubtedly saved by whatever live chickens the croc had just eaten -- otherwise, I would have witnessed a live-action version of the Darwin Awards.
Oh, young love, and the things it makes us do.
runs up and hits the crocodile on the nose
Did you whip out a camera? That's the stuff of Youtube classics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Y-wioA1ZI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeDxO5vXZJA
67: I think, not to put too fine a point on it, that the penguin theft story is a classic FOAF urban legend.
(I've been to Edinburgh Zoo. Yes, every day some of the penguins leave the enclosure and go for a short walk round the zoo. There are keepers following and leading the penguins, warning people off the path: it's a popular, crowded event, and while it is possible someone could get on to the path and grab one of the smaller penguins, it is absolutely impossible that anyone could do so unnoticed.)
re: 74
It's possible, yeah, re: urban legend. Who knows. That one of those kids would try and fail is well within the bounds of possibility, though.
75: Oh, try-and-fail, sure. I can totally see some idiot thinking "hey, I will show how cool I am by p-p-p-picking up a p-p-p-penguin". But the usual extension of the story - the theft not being discovered till the kid gets the penguin to the school bus or even back home - that, I just don't believe. The penguin march is pretty closely supervised, and there's a lot of zoo staff on hand so that if one penguin is way behind the others, there's a keeper standing right by it to make sure it doesn't literally wander off...
Click through on 58, but also read the article on William Windsor the goat:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Windsor_(goat)
"He served as a lance corporal from 2001 until 2009, except for a three month period in 2006 when he was demoted to fusilier, after unacceptable behaviour during the Queens' birthday celebrations while deployed on active service with the battalion on Cyprus.
The deployment to Cyprus with the 1st Battalion was Billy's first overseas posting, and despite being ordered to keep in line, he refused to obey. He failed to keep in step, and tried to headbutt a drummer. The Goat Major, Lance Corporal Dai Davies, 22, from Neath, South Wales, was unable to keep him under control.
As a result of his actions, Billy was marched before his commanding officer, Huw James, after being reported for "unacceptable behaviour" and "lack of decorum". He was reported through the chain of command, accused of disobeying a direct order, and following a disciplinary hearing was demoted from lance corporal to fusilier. The change meant that other fusiliers in the regiment no longer had to stand to attention when Billy walked past, as they had to when he was a lance corporal."
The whole thing is very definitely AP Herbert territory. Read on for the question of whether pimping out the regimental goat counts as a) lese majeste b) disrespect to an officer or c) an act of compassion.
