Is it possible to do Law School and Graduate school at the same time?

[María de Zayas]

An off topic query today. Is it possible to do your Phd and study another degree (like Law School) at the same time? Not at the same university, but perhaps in the same state (or in very close states). Do universities have a problem with it? I am an international student and I entered a Literature PhD program this year, but I have been thinking lately that I would like to study law as well. Help, opinions, everything is welcome. I am throwing a ball here.

[Ramus]

It might be theoretically possible, but it would take a very long post to explain all the ways it's a bad idea. If you want to do law, leave your PhD program and go to law school. You certainly wouldn't be the first to make that decision. But don't do both, at least not at the same time.

[WildeThing]

Also I should say that as an international student, it might not be feasible. Your visa is sponsored and has limits on the amount of time you can work. While a second degree is not work, will your sponsoring dept allow you to take on this tremendous additional time commitment? Do the terms of your visa allow you to do this? I’m not sure but I’m doubtful.

[onerepublic96]

There are many, many reasons why doing two (incredibly strenuous) degrees at the same time is an awful idea, and potential visa issues aren't even among the foremost concerns.   

[Glasperlenspieler]

Not to be a contrarian, but many universities that have both a law school and a graduate school do have some sort of an option for a Ph.D./J.D. dual degree program. That being said, the degree to which this is ad hoc and the fields one is allowed to pursue for the Ph.D. vary. Schools seem generally more open to a J.D. in conjunction with a Ph.D. in philosophy, political science, or economics (see NYU: https://www.law.nyu.edu/jdadmissions/dualdegreeprograms/jdma). I don't see many schools that really have a pathway for doing an English Ph.D. in tandem with a law degree.

[nęm0]

Doing Both at the same time is going to be a no, but you can do a JD/PHD. Depending on your choice, you can either  start with the JD courses or the PHD courses.

[Sigaba]

6 hours ago, Glasperlenspieler said:

Not to be a contrarian, but many universities that have both a law school and a graduate school do have some sort of an option for a Ph.D./J.D. dual degree program. That being said, the degree to which this is ad hoc and the fields one is allowed to pursue for the Ph.D. vary. Schools seem generally more open to a J.D. in conjunction with a Ph.D. in philosophy, political science, or economics (see NYU: https://www.law.nyu.edu/jdadmissions/dualdegreeprograms/jdma). I don't see many schools that really have a pathway for doing an English Ph.D. in tandem with a law degree.

Questions that follow include how high are the hurdles to getting approval for pursuing dual degrees, what do professors actually think about such opportunities, what is the rate of success, and how well do recipients of dual degrees do in the job market?

[test12341234]

Yes, the best options here are probably JD/PhD, or putting the PhD on hold to get the JD, then resuming later.

[Sigaba]

35 minutes ago, test12341234 said:

Yes, the best options here are probably JD/PhD, or putting the PhD on hold to get the JD, then resuming later.

If you go this route, do not be surprised if your program and school is reluctant to accept the work you did at law school when it comes to fulfilling course requirements.

I had a classmate with a law degree and he was increasingly not happy that he could not transfer credits from law school.

[test12341234]

17 hours ago, Sigaba said:

If you go this route, do not be surprised if your program and school is reluctant to accept the work you did at law school when it comes to fulfilling course requirements.

I had a classmate with a law degree and he was increasingly not happy that he could not transfer credits from law school.

Oh, yeah, I don't see why courses from law school would ever get counted as overlapping with PhD credits. Joint degrees will definitely take longer.

[UndergradDad]

Personally I would only do that if I were wealthy and not worried about finances or employment at all. Both are difficult areas currently to find employment and unless you get a great scholarship law school is very expensive. But you may be in a situation where that is not a concern.

[memento22]

I am also considering doing a PhD/JD program. I am interested in a Public Policy PhD, and with the close relationship to policy and law (policy often "manifest" itself as law) I feel it could be beneficial.

However, it does seem to boost the time for completion up to 6+ years.

[EffervescentMoon]

I went to law school first, now I am pursuing a PhD in English. It was my plan to do it in undergrad. Looking back I likely would still do it in the order I did it because I probably would not have gone to law school after the PhD. I didn't plan on practicing full time, so going first likely was the best option for me. In my experience, depending on the rigors of the law program, both at the same time sounds like torture. The way you analyze and write for law is the complete opposite of law school. I had to break from how I wrote in undergrad for English papers when I went to law school. By the time I finished, I had to do the same with legal writing. I feel like I can easily switch back and forth now, but trying to do it while in school sounds like a strenuous process. I'm not saying it can't be done (one of my classmates was in med school and law school at the same time), but it likely will add more stress that you won't need.

[justhaveaquestion]

1.

This is definitely possible, and many law schools offer dual JD and PhD degrees. But you usually have to apply for a law school and a desired PhD program separately and get into both of them simultaneously. Some schools allow law students to apply for a PhD program while completing the degree and become a dual degree candidate and vice versa. So anyone who says it's not possible have no idea what they're talking about. Even if you're an international student, this is possible. 

2.

But whether this is a good idea or not, I think it's debatable. The only time this makes absolute sense is when you want to become a (non-clinical) law professor. If this is the case, it makes absolute sense to do a dual JD and PhD degree for several reasons. 1. It's increasingly becoming a norm to have both PhD and JD to become a law professor. There's not a single assistant professor at Harvard Law who doesn't have JD and PhD degrees. Yale seems to have folks only with PhD degrees, but don't be fooled--their primary appointment is at a regular graduate school and their appointment at a law school is secondary. Stanford and Chicago has a couple, but there are more with JD and PhD degrees. The "lower" the tier is, you do see more assistant professors only with a JD degree, but there are many articles and stats that show that JD+PhD degree holders are strongly preferred in the field as a whole. The field is already dominated by JD+PhD holders now, and imagine how it's going to look by the time you apply for a legal academia job.

3.

That said, I'm just going to be brutally honest here. If you want to do combined JD and PhD because you want to become a law professor, remember that law is a extremely prestige-conscious field, much more so than a regular academia, and legal academia is the pinnacle of it. So Economics or Political Science PhD are super prestige-conscious as well, but we're not even talking about top 10 or 20 when we're talking about law schools and legal academia. If you want to have a reasonable chance at a reasonably ranked schools, you do want to get into one of the YHS+Chicago (and broadly speaking, Columbia and NYU; if you can get Furman scholar from NYU, however, that's going to be a super competitive option for legal academia). Now, if you want to do a dual degree, that means that you have to get into a PhD programs from one of these schools at the same time. And you can't do a combined degree if you get into a JD only at Harvard and get into PhD only at Yale. It would be fantastic to have degrees from these two schools, but you still can't do a combined degree this way. So to do a combined degree, you'll have to get into the same school at the same time. All of these schools I mentioned generally have top- or highly-ranked PhD programs regardless of the fields, so you have to be extremely talented and lucky for this to happen (As a PhD student, I can't emphasize enough how much luck it takes to get into a PhD program on top of effort and talent). 

So if you want to do PhD+JD to become a law professor but can't get into one of these programs at the same time, don't settle with lower ranked JD schools, but take one and finish it and apply for the other separately. To illustrate, if I get into Penn law and PhD at the same time, as well as Harvard PhD and Yale JD, I'd choose either Harvard or Yale (I'll probably choose Harvard PhD because JD admission is more predictable; PhD admission is not. Applying for a PhD admission would entail a bigger risk), but I'll definitely skip Penn JD+PhD even if that means I can save some years finishing both degrees. (And at some schools, you might "sandwich" your degree even if you're attending different institutions for JD and PhD, as in finishing the first year of JD while deferring PhD for a year, and then coming back to PhD and finishing your coursework, etc. We have some who do this at our graduate school. But do I recommend this? Well.........) 

4.

That said, if you do manage to do a combined PhD and JD degree, you can shorten the period you're at the school. Since there always are a few students who are doing combined degrees, so law schools and graduate programs already have protocols where you can apply your law school credit for your graduate coursework and vice versa (though this might be less applicable if you're not in a law-related PhD field). 

 

TL;DR:

Anyway, I assume most people who said it doesn't make sense or it's not possible to do both are not interested in legal academia. And the former is correct, indeed, if you're not hoping to get a job at a law school. But if you want to become a law professor or be in a field that requires or strongly prefers both JD and PhD, it actually makes total sense to do both, and many are already doing that. And so it's actually not hard at all to navigate the system as long as you can manage to get into one.

And to be honest, I seriously think people shouldn't make comments so conclusively if they're talking about the field they have no knowledge about... It doesn't help OP or people who read this thread in the future. It's better to remain silent that making assumptions based on our own respective field and giving wrong information.

Edited August 8, 2021 by justhaveaquestion

[WildeThing]

22 hours ago, justhaveaquestion said:

1.

This is definitely possible, and many law schools offer dual JD and PhD degrees. But you usually have to apply for a law school and a desired PhD program separately and get into both of them simultaneously. Some schools allow law students to apply for a PhD program while completing the degree and become a dual degree candidate and vice versa. So anyone who says it's not possible have no idea what they're talking about. Even if you're an international student, this is possible.

[...]

And to be honest, I seriously think people shouldn't make comments so conclusively if they're talking about the field they have no knowledge about... It doesn't help OP or people who read this thread in the future. It's better to remain silent that making assumptions based on our own respective field and giving wrong information.

I think maybe you should consider your own advice (and also read the OP's post). They asked about studying at two different universities, not a dual degree. While this is technically possible, as an international student there are many loopholes one would have to jump through (here's just an example from one institution), which can make this practically unfeasible (if it is actually feasible, UMich for instance, would require part-time enrollment in both programs, which can be a tremendous roadblock for many administrative reasons). I feel like sometimes domestic students aren't fully aware of the limitations of being an international student; contrary to what another poster has said, visa status IS the foremost concern for an international student, and dismissing these concerns for incoming students can produce a lot of headaches later on (I cannot begin to describe how much bullshit you can go through as an international student doing basic things like just receiving your stipend, accepting your offer-letter employment, etc.). Of course, if you can get into a dual program then most of the concerns go out of the window because the structure is in place; but, again, this is not what OP, who was already in a PhD program, was discussing and thus is not relevant (for them, but certainly helpful for future readers).

Edited August 9, 2021 by WildeThing

[justhaveaquestion]

4 minutes ago, WildeThing said:

I think maybe you should consider your own advice (and also read the OP's post). They asked about studying at two different universities, not a dual degree. While this is technically possible, as an international student there are many loopholes one would have to jump through (here's just an example from one institution), which can make this practically unfeasible (if it is actually feasible, UMich for instance, would require part-time enrollment in both programs, which can be a tremendous roadblock for many administrative reasons). I feel like sometimes domestic students aren't fully aware of the limitations of being an international student; contrary to what another poster has said, visa status IS the foremost concern for an international student, and dismissing these concerns for incoming students can produce a lot of headaches later on (I cannot begin to describe how much bullshit you can go through as an international student doing basic things like just receiving your stipend, accepting your offer-letter employment, etc.).

I addressed studying at different institutions as well. Read my reply again. I'm talking about people in general who have no idea about this entire field and comment. There are actually quite a few people at my school who goes to a different law school and "sandwich" the degrees, and I mentioned that part too. 

The gist is, if you aren't in the field and unfamiliar with the practice, don't mislead people with your assumption. That's much more gruesome than misreading the OP's question, and that's what most people in this thread was donig. If you don't get the difference between the two, then I don't know what to tell you. 

Cheers.

Edited August 9, 2021 by justhaveaquestion