For positions in academia, will a J.D. substitute for a Ph.D. since it is also a doctoral degree?

[MettaSutta]

I just got my J.D. last year.  Subjects in academia that interest me are Sociology, Anthropology, Religion, Asian Studies, History, Literature, and Spanish. 

[ZeChocMoose]

No.  I am assuming you mean that you want to use your J.D. to be a professor in one of those subjects?  That is not how it works.  You need a PhD in one of those fields or a closely related one to being able to secure a tenure track position. Even then - you would not be competitive unless you had teaching experience, publications, possibly grant-funded research, great references from well-known scholars, etc.  It is very difficult to get a tenure-track position!

The easiest thing at this point if you want to be a professor would be look into job postings for TT professors and instructors at a law school.  You can see what qualifications that they are looking for to get a more realistic idea whether you can work towards that goal. My guess is that you will have need to practice law for x number of years, probably written articles for law journals to be competitive, and maybe also have a LLM. 

 

[Sigaba]

11 hours ago, Bodhicaryavatara said:

This is not my experience.  Law schools do a poor job of teaching lawyering skills; the instruction is very theoretical.  

As the attorneys I know say, It's law school, not lawyer school.

[frenchlover]

All that said, you could probably find adjunct positions somewhere, especially with an additional master's degree in the subject you want to teach.

[ZeChocMoose]

16 hours ago, Bodhicaryavatara said:

Also, what is an "R1"?

It stands for one of the Carnegie classifications for colleges and universities. R1 = Research I University.  It has the highest research activity of all the universities. Usually the expectation is for tenure track/tenured faculty to spend more of their time on research than teaching and they have lower teaching loads because of it. 

[ZeChocMoose]

44 minutes ago, Bodhicaryavatara said:

So the undergrads are mainly taught by grad student TAs?

It is unusual for grad student TAs to be the instructor of record for a class. I know of a couple cases where it has happened - but I wouldn't say it was common.  Usually, grad student TAs teach a discussion section or a lab and are supervised by the instructor of record.

What is happening and has been happening for decades is that undergraduate students and some graduate students are increasingly been taught by adjuncts, which are non-tenured track members of the faculty who hold terminal degrees (usually PhDs). These positions vary widely in expectations, benefits, and pay, but usually they are teaching only positions with higher teaching loads than the tenured/tenure track faculty in the same department. Some adjuncts are part-time, have no benefits, are paid a couple thousands dollars per class, and are on either semester-to-semester contracts or year-to-year contracts. Other adjuncts may have it a little bit better with multiple year contracts and have full-time pay for a more reasonable teaching load, but often they have lower salaries and limited benefits compared to T/TT members. 

Part of the reason why it is becoming difficult for new PhDs to secure TT positions is because as tenured members retire from/leave the department, they are being replaced by adjuncts not tenured lines.  If you are interested in learning more about this, I would look into the adjunctification of higher education. This is not my research area, but a bunch of people in my field are looking into the causes and consequences of this.

[Eigen]

25 minutes ago, Bodhicaryavatara said:

Does this also apply to adjunct prof positions, either teaching undergraduates or law students?

More than likely, yes. And those won't earn you a livable income, anyway.

From what I know, anyone adjuncting in a law school is usually an experienced practicing lawyer brought in for expertise.

In the other areas you mentioned the job market is so tight that there are going to be dozens to hundreds of people with PhDs willing to adjunct that you're competing against. If you're an exceptional teacher with a good track record, or have connections, it's possible.

[ZeChocMoose]

3 hours ago, Bodhicaryavatara said:

Does this also apply to adjunct prof positions, either teaching undergraduates or law students?

I am not sure what "this" is - but I just going to say that in order to teach X at a college or university, you usually need to have a terminal degree in X even as an adjunct.  Sure there are some exceptions to this rule as community colleges can allow people to teach with only 18 graduate level credits or so in X -or- if there is an emergency situation or if you are well known to the department, the university may allowed someone with only a master's degree in X to teach, etc.

I restate though that you should look at actual job postings to see what qualifications and experience that you need. 

[ExponentialDecay]

No. PhDs train you to do research. JDs train you to do law. The two are not the same thing.

@ZeChocMoose not in legal academia, but a friend of mine who is says the credential needed to teach law school is called the JSD.

[ZeChocMoose]

@ExponentialDecay After I posted, I poked around a bit for positions listed on higheredjobs and I saw that the JSD came up a couple times especially for TT positions at R1s.  I had never heard of it so I am glad that you mentioned it. It is super fascinating to me because I wondered how law professors were trained to do research given that the JD is so practice based and that some of the TT job descriptions sounded very social sciencey in terms of research expectations so it all makes sense to me now. 

[MettaSutta]

17 hours ago, ZeChocMoose said:

@ExponentialDecay given that the JD is so practice based 

This is not my experience.  Law schools do a poor job of teaching lawyering skills; the instruction is very theoretical.  

[MettaSutta]

17 hours ago, ZeChocMoose said:

@ExponentialDecay After I posted, I poked around a bit for positions listed on higheredjobs and I saw that the JSD came up a couple times especially for TT positions at R1s.  I had never heard of it so I am glad that you mentioned it. It is super fascinating to me because I wondered how law professors were trained to do research given that the JD is so practice based and that some of the TT job descriptions sounded very social sciencey in terms of research expectations so it all makes sense to me now. 

Also, what is an "R1"?

[MettaSutta]

11 hours ago, ZeChocMoose said:

It stands for one of the Carnegie classifications for colleges and universities. R1 = Research I University.  It has the highest research activity of all the universities. Usually the expectation is for tenure track/tenured faculty to spend more of their time on research than teaching and they have lower teaching loads because of it. 

So the undergrads are mainly taught by grad student TAs?

[Eigen]

7 hours ago, ZeChocMoose said:

It is unusual for grad student TAs to be the instructor of record for a class. I know of a couple cases where it has happened - but I wouldn't say it was common.  Usually, grad student TAs teach a discussion section or a lab and are supervised by the instructor of record.

This is highly field dependent. Math and languages (for example) fairly commonly have graduate students as the instructors of record, in my experience.

[Sigaba]

6 hours ago, Eigen said:

This is highly field dependent. 

I would add that it's also dependent upon the institution and the department.

As an undergraduate, I received so much instruction from graduate students that I didn't see some of the big names at my UGI ... until I attended as a graduate student lectures they gave half way across the country.

Hey, OP. You're all over the place with your questions and your offers of support. Please keep in mind that for many aspiring graduate students, this BB is an important resource.

[ExponentialDecay]

3 hours ago, Sigaba said:

Hey, OP. You're all over the place with your questions and your offers of support. Please keep in mind that for many aspiring graduate students, this BB is an important resource.

Not that OP isn't posting bizarre threads and asking easily googleable questions, but none of that really precludes others from using these boards for their intended purpose.

[MettaSutta]

On 6/24/2018 at 7:49 AM, ZeChocMoose said:

No.  I am assuming you mean that you want to use your J.D. to be a professor in one of those subjects?  That is not how it works.  You need a PhD in one of those fields or a closely related one to being able to secure a tenure track position. Even then - you would not be competitive unless you had teaching experience, publications, possibly grant-funded research, great references from well-known scholars, etc.  It is very difficult to get a tenure-track position!

The easiest thing at this point if you want to be a professor would be look into job postings for TT professors and instructors at a law school.  You can see what qualifications that they are looking for to get a more realistic idea whether you can work towards that goal. My guess is that you will have need to practice law for x number of years, probably written articles for law journals to be competitive, and maybe also have a LLM. 

 

Does this also apply to adjunct prof positions, either teaching undergraduates or law students?

[Boolakanaka]

For academia outside of law, the J.D. is not considered a terminal degree. Now, there are  a few programs in law that do offer a PhD, however they are quite rarified and extremely competitive, see: https://law.yale.edu/studying-law-yale/degree-programs/graduate-programs/phd-program 

I would venture to say that these degrees would be considered on the same level in non-law topics....

[MettaSutta]

12 hours ago, ZeChocMoose said:

 

I restate though that you should look at actual job postings to see what qualifications and experience that you need. 

 

I've seen a posting for a Hindi/Urdu professor that required a masters degree but not a PhD, but that doesn't seem to be the norm.  

[Entangled Phantoms]

14 hours ago, ExponentialDecay said:

Not that OP isn't posting bizarre threads and asking easily googleable questions, but none of that really precludes others from using these boards for their intended purpose.

It is easy to clog BBs with silly enough threads that other users feel that their Qs would get lost in the sea of spam.