Yale Law School today announced that it is launching the nation's first Ph.D. in Law:
To its array of innovative legal programs, Yale Law School has added yet another – a Ph.D. in Law. The first such degree program in the country, Yale’s Ph.D. in Law is designed to prepare students who have earned a J.D. degree from an American law school to enter careers in legal scholarship. It will give students a broad foundation in the canon of legal scholarship and provide them the support and specialized training they need to produce their own scholarship. The Ph.D. will stand alongside Yale Law School’s other very successful law teaching degrees – the J.S.D. and LL.M. – which are designed primarily for students who received their initial legal education outside the U.S. …
Yale Law School already is the most important institution in the United States for the education of future law professors. Despite the Law School’s relatively small size, approximately ten percent of law professors currently teaching in the United States – including the deans of eight of the top ten law schools – received their legal education at Yale. Dean Post said that the Ph.D. program would help solidify the Law School’s preeminence in placing its graduates in teaching positions, even as the market for junior law professors changes.
“It’s becoming increasingly hard to transition directly from law practice to teaching,” the Dean said. He explained that to secure entry-level appointments at law schools, candidates are now expected to present a relatively mature scholarly profile; they need a defined research agenda and a substantial portfolio of writing. Students who do not pursue a Ph.D. in an allied discipline increasingly obtain these qualifications by completing post-J.D. fellowships, which afford the time and opportunity to write, but such fellowships do not provide in-depth scholarly training. By contrast, students completing the new Ph.D. in Law will be required to take coursework, pass qualifying examinations, and write a dissertation. Students will also learn how to teach, and will have the full support of Yale Law School’s Law Teaching Program, which has had remarkable success in placing graduates in tenure-track positions at law schools. The Ph.D. in Law will ensure that students have the necessary background and skills to launch them on successful scholarly careers.
“Yale Law School’s Ph.D. in Law will offer a new, alternative route into a career in law teaching and legal scholarship,” said Dean Post. “Some students will no doubt seek advanced degrees in cognate disciplines, but for those who wish to concentrate on law, we expect that the Ph.D. in Law will provide an attractive option.”
The first class of Ph.D. students will begin their studies in the fall of 2013. Applications will be accepted in fall 2012. The program is open to those who have earned a J.D. degree at an American law school. Ph.D. students will be entitled to a waiver of the cost of tuition and will receive a stipend to cover their living expenses. For more information, visit the Ph.D. web pages.
Update #1:
- ABA Journal
- Above the Law
- Jack Balkin (Yale)
- Bloomberg
- Dan Filler (Drexel)
- Jeffrey Harrison (Florida)
- Kevin Jon Heller (Melbourne)
- Brian Leiter (Chicago) ("the worst idea in the history of legal education")
- Jeff Lipshaw (Suffolk)
- Jason Mazzone (Brooklyn)
- National Law Journal
- Larry Solum (Georgetown)
- Wall Street Journal Law Blog
- Christopher Zorn (Penn State)
Update #2: Lauren B. Edelman (UC-Berkeley) emails: "Berkeley has had a PhD Program in Law, the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, since 1978. The JSP program, which is part of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, is widely recognized as the premier interdisciplinary PhD program in law. We have now produced 115 PhDs, who teach at law schools such as Chicago, Virginia, Berkeley, Duke, Indiana (and many more)."
