Current JD- Where Should I Consider PhD?

[JD2PHD]

I am new here so any information would be greatly appreciated. 

 

I am a current JD student at a top 10 law school. I want to ultimately end up in legal academia, specifically I wish to be a legal historian.

 

My biggest question is what caliber of schools should I be considering for my PhD?

 

My undergraduate degree (did not major in history) was about a 3.7 from a large state school in the top 100.

As far as language, I have elementary skills in 1 other language, though I want to focus on early american legal history.

 

In law school I am working on getting some legal scholarship published, and hope to have 1 to 2 student notes published by the time I apply. 

 

Questions: 

(1) Would I be competitive at Chicago, Northwestern, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, or Stanford?

(2) Would my JD being from a "top" law school help me?

(3) How committed to a particular era do I need to be before applying? I assume in my statement of purpose I would need to have this narrowed down. Of course I know I want to do US legal history which already is fairly focussed. Regarding specific eras I am interested primarily in 18th and 19th century (the founding up until incorporation). Is this already specific enough?

(4) What do I need to be doing now (outside of studying for GRE, working on LOR, and publishing?)

(5) How important is the school my LORs earned their PhD and/or JD from?

 

Thank you!

Edited November 21, 2014 by JD2PHD

[czesc]

Hi there. I did what you're doing (sort of. Got a JD, worked at a law firm for several years and then went for my PhD) so I may be in some position to answer your questions.

 

The fact you didn't major in history may be an issue. You're going to want to show some commitment to / knowledge of the discipline. Are you at least taking legal history courses in law school? Do you have the ability to take history courses outside the law school at your university? Have you produced historical writing? (this will be important when it comes to the writing sample)

 

Your language skills sound okay - Americanists are generally only expected to learn one, although it'd be better if you at least had that one down at more than elementary level.

 

Publications may help you somewhat but many historians aren't going to put as much weight on law journal publications as peer-reviewed journal ones.

 

As for your numbered questions:

 

1. The caliber of school you can expect to get into? It's hard to say. You should really be thinking harder about your interests and where you'd be a better fit. PhD admissions aren't like law school admissions at all. Your GPA will be a lot less important than it was during law school admissions. And while you're at an advantage later on the job market going to a more highly-ranked school, and you should be thinking of that your ability to gain admission will hinge a lot on whether or not the faculty see you as someone who's a fit with their specific research interests - and often that means fitting with the research interests of a whole potential committee of faculty members at a given school rather than just one. That consideration might mean you may need to widen the number of schools you're applying to beyond those with marquee names.  

 

By the way, if you're aiming for the stars with your list of schools anyway, you should really be considering Princeton; Hendrik Hartog works with people who have your profile. 

 

2. Your JD may help you, may be immaterial, or may be harmful. Some (probably older) historians will think it's strange you're applying to a history program (JDs picking up PhDs in another discipline to go into legal academia is a relatively recent trend) and think they won't be able to train you to the same extent as their younger, more impressionable students. Some historians will just not see you as part of the same intellectual trajectory. And you will also be competing against students with undergraduate and masters degrees in history, which will have given them connections to historians writing their LORs who may know faculty at other schools personally. That said, none of these things are an absolute bar to admission and I'm sure many will find your JD impressive as well. I pin my greatest hope on schools which have a record of producing JD/PhDs in history.

 

3. The era you've identified is specific enough (be careful with your terminology though; a US legal historian who reads your application might know what you mean by "incorporation," but other people in the department will also be reading your application and will not). That said, you should identify some more specific potential areas of inquiry that you might want to look at and potentially develop research projects from,

 

4. Beyond the things you're already doing, I'd say right now you should be invested in tying yourself to the historical discipline in some way. Taking history seminars, meeting people in the discipline, beginning scholarship tied to history if you haven't already.

 

5. The prestige of your recommenders' degrees is almost immaterial compared to their connections with the people who will be reading their recommendations. I would use at maximum one recommender from your law school, ideally supplemented with at least two and ideally three historians' recommendations (where you're allowed to submit more than three recommendations total).

 

Just to warn you - you're entering a very competitive arena. US legal historians aren't in deep demand in law schools, particularly those studying the 19th century. And you're even more disadvantaged by your degrees; the majority of US legal academics come from the top 3-5 law schools - the profession is even more hierarchical than history. Combined with the recent downturn in law school hiring, you're more likely to be employed as a historian than a legal scholar after this training, I'd say. In contrast to law school hiring, your JD would be a much greater asset on the history job market, which is (I know this will be unbelievable to some forumers who are used to hearing nothing but sturm und drang about humanities jobs) doing somewhat better right now. 

[Mandarin]

If--IF--you really want to keep the option of legal academia open, then the range of viable schools is actually very small.  Looking at the list of American legal historians who have gotten law school jobs in the past five years, all but one got their PhDs at Yale, Princeton, UPenn, or UVA, and the one outlier did an American Studies PhD at Michigan and was a SCOTUS clerk.  Name brand is incredibly important for law schools, wisely or not.

 

But then again, most legal historians from these places or comparable schools (Harvard, Chicago, UCB, NYU, Columbia, etc.) completely strike out on the law school market.  There are, at maximum, 2 to 3 American legal history positions open each year in legal academia (for at least 10-15 people with JD-History PhDs), and usually only 1-2, so as czsec said, you probably want to look at backup options in history departments, in which case name brand is somewhat less important.

[JD2PHD]

Czesc,

 

That was an incredibly detailed response, thank you. Let me address some of what you said in order, provide you with more information, and see if you can provide me with any more insight. 

 

Legal Courses: Yes, I am taking some legal history courses. These are courses that are cross enrolled with PhD students as well law students. The type where if you are a law student you take it under the title LAW### and if a history student you take it under HIST###. I wonder if there is a way to make that obvious to history programs when I apply? Though the course names are pretty obviously legal history related, I wonder if it could provide me a "boost" if I could explain that grad students cross enroll.

 

I also have the opportunity to take "regular" grad history courses (as in not cross enrolled). I have not yet, but I intend to take at least one (I think I can max take 2) before graduating law school.

 

Language: That is what I gathered, I will work on it still.

 

Scholarship: My current goal with my scholarship is to write 1 - 2 legal history notes that will show history department that I am dedicated to the field (to make up for my lack of history major in college). If published they would probably be in law reviews, not history peer reviewed journals as you mention. So with my scholarship and taking history courses, those are the main ways I am trying to have my resume speak "history" 

 

LOR: You say use a max of one from law school. Does the fact that I intend rot only ask LOR from professor who have both a JD and History PhD change things? I am not sure how else I could get a LOR from a historian. 

 

Legal Market: I have done some substantial research into legal academia and understand how the hiring works. I understand the state of things and I appreciate you giving me a fair warning. 

 

 

---------

Mandarin,

 

You are right, because I have done most of my research into legal academia I supposed I assumed "brand" was just as important in history. Is that not the case? I am of course, interested in both legal departments and history departments, I should have made that clear.

[czesc]

You can always mention the connection between your law courses and history in your statement of purpose / personal statement. You would be well advised to take regular history department courses when you have the opportunity, though, and to point these out as well. These courses can also serve as a source of recommendations from historians (someone with a JD/PhD in history who works in a law school could be okay for a second law school recommender...but it would really help if that person was plugged into a network of historians as opposed solely to other law professors).

 

Institutional prestige is not important to the same degree for historians, but it is still much more important than it arguably should be, and much more important than it is for other disciplines (say, in the sciences). There's also a different hierarchy involved - Wisconsin is considered a strong university for history, for example, whereas no one would say it ranks nearly so high in the legal world.