lawyer legal-education
Why are lawyers not called &quot;doctor&quot;?
<p>I don't quite understand the education process for lawyers, but I do understand there are a number of different degrees, and one of them is 'JD', the <em>juris doctor</em>. My Latin is quite rusty, but I believe that is "Doctor of Law."</p>

<p>So why are they not called "doctor" in common practice, like any PhD is? Is the JD actually not similar to a doctorate program? If not, then why does it take the name <em>doctor</em>?</p>

<p>I understand that the JD is what they call a "1st degree" and there are even higher degrees. The LLM, for example, is a "Master of Laws", which really confuses things now because "master" degrees are normally less than "doctor" degrees. So if a JD is not not called a "doctor" for some logical reason, what about the LLM, since it is a higher degree?</p>

<p>The answer isn't really legal (though some jurisdictions regulate the use of such titles through statute), but academic. It depends on specific countries. Italy, for instance, allows all graduates, including undergraduates, to use the title doctor.</p>

<p>However, in general the title <em>doctor</em> is reserved for those in medical professions, upon graduation, or holders of post-graduate doctoral degrees - the PhD, DLitt., LLD, and so on.</p>

<p>The purpose is, for medical graduates, to allow them to identify themselves as medical practitioners.</p>

<p>However, for doctoral graduates, the purpose is to recognise your contributions to the academic field. The JD is a qualifying degree - you've hardly contributed to the field.</p>

<p>The JD is absolutely <em>not</em> similar to a doctoral program. It is far more similar to the LLB, however its origins are rooted in the equalisation of professional degrees in the USA - the LLB was conferred upon those who had already completed their first degree, and so the change to a JD was merely so that they could confer a "second" degree.</p>

<p>To add to jimsung's detailed response, some U.S. state ethics panels have issued opinions regarding the usage of the title "doctor."  Over the last couple decades, formal positions suggesting that JDs ought not to use the title (including the ABA's own position) have begun to erode as the various states have relaxed the strictures (albeit with cautionary guidance).</p>

<p>Here are a few good reads:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/lawyers_are_doctors_too/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Lawyers are Doctors, Too</a>  ...concerning state panels</p>

<p><a href="http://www.uakron.edu/dotAsset/d20fd39e-586c-45e7-a90b-f0c366bbe974.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Lawyers and the title "Doctor"</a> ...from a JD who insists on being called "Doctor"</p>

<p><a href="http://apps.americanbar.org/legaled/accreditation/Council%20Statements.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Council Statements</a> ...from the ABA on it's position that the JD is equivalent to the PhD for employment purposes</p>

<p><strong>The last two links should be read with a grain of salt.</strong>  In paragraph 2 of the third link, it's important to remember trade organizations like the ABA have incentives to promote the status of their regulated degrees (<em>e.g.</em> the JD).  The equivalence in paragraph 2 is based on an a <em>subset</em> of the PhD requirements rather than their full complement.  In particular, it equates roughly a year of legal coursework (the difference between 90 and 60 credit hours) with all of the omitted PhD requirements.  In many doctorate programs this omission amounts to roughly 4-7 years of teaching and original research.</p>

<p>At the end of the day, much comes down to culture, custom, and the importance of disambiguation.  Even state ethics opinions that authorize use of the term are careful to emphasize that its use ought not to confound existing custom.</p>

<p>In the US, the terminal degree in law equivalent to an academic doctorate (i.e. a Ph.D.) is not the J.D., or the L.L.M. It's the S.J.D. Here's <a href="http://law.harvard.edu/academics/degrees/gradprogram/sjd/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Harvard's program.</a> Here's <a href="https://law.ucla.edu/llm-sjd/sjd-program/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">UCLA's</a>.</p>
<p>Hardly anyone gets them anymore. Here's a Georgetown Law Weekly <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110515105617/http://gulawweekly.org/features/2011/3/29/sjd-whats-that-a-brief-history-of-an-overlooked-mysterious-d.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">blurb.</a></p>
<p>Lawyers may jokingly call each other &quot;doctor.&quot; I do that sometimes when I run into someone from my law school class. It's affected and pretentious to insist upon it seriously, because (as above) the J.D. is not equivalent to a Ph.D.</p>

<p>The customary honorific in the United States used to identify someone who has a J.D. (doctor of laws a.k.a. "Juris Doctor"), which is a recent invention, or an L.L.B. (bachelor of laws), the more common historical name for the same degree, if that person is also admitted to the practice of law, is to state someone's name followed by the honorific "esquire". Hence, "Andrew Oh-Willeke, Esquire" or "Andrew Oh-Willeke, Esq."</p>

<p>Strictly speaking "Esquire" should generally only be used by a third person referring to a lawyer, and not by the lawyer himself or herself, but sometimes lawyers use the title reflexively anyway to clarify to someone to whom the lawyer is writing that the author is a lawyer.</p>

<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquire" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Esquire</a> is a quasi-aristocratic rank in England immediately below that of a knight (the lowest aristocratic rank and not always hereditary) and above that of gentleman, that is not a true aristocrat as it is not a hereditary rank and does not have a well defined meaning other than that someone is "upper class". </p>

<p>This vague modern English meaning was crystalized to have a more specific meaning in the U.S. (per the previous Wikipedia link):</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>In the United Kingdom, Esquire historically was a title of respect
  accorded to men of higher social rank, above the rank of gentleman and
  below the rank of knight. It later came to be used as a general
  courtesy title for any man in a formal setting, usually as a suffix to
  his name, as in "John Smith, Esq.", with no precise significance. In
  the United Kingdom today, it is still commonly used as a written style
  of address in formal or professional correspondence.[4][5] In certain
  formal contexts, it remains an indication of a social status that is
  recognised in the formal Order of Precedence.[6]</p>
  
  <p>In the United States, Esquire is mostly used to denote a lawyer; in a
  departure from traditional use, it is used irrespective of gender. In
  letters, a lawyer is customarily addressed by adding the suffix
  Esquire (abbreviated Esq.), preceded by a comma, after the lawyer's
  full name.[7] An exception to this would be the American magazine
  Esquire which, as a publication for men rather than lawyers, uses the
  term in the original British sense.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>As of 1894, when the term still had a formal definition in England, it was defined as follows:</p>

<blockquote>
  <ul>
  <li>The younger sons of peers and their eldest sons. </li>
  <li>The eldest sons of knights and their eldest sons. </li>
  <li>The chiefs of ancient families are esquires by prescription. </li>
  <li>Esquires by creation or office. Such the heralds and serjeants at arms and some others, who are constituted esquires by receiving a
  collar of SS. Judges and other officers of state, justices of the
  peace, and the higher naval and military officers are designated
  esquires in their patents or commissions. Doctors in the several
  faculties, and barristers at law, are considered as esquires, or equal
  to esquires. None, however, of these offices or degrees convey
  gentility to the posterity of their holders. </li>
  <li>The last kind of esquires are those of knights of the bath; each knight appoints two to attend upon him at his installation and at
  coronations.</li>
  </ul>
</blockquote>

<p>The use of the term "Esquire" treads some fine lines, because the United States Constitution categorically forbids the creation of true titles of nobility. Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution states in the petinent part: "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States" and Article II, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution states in the pertinent part: "No state shall . . . grant any Title of Nobility."</p>

<p>The fact that many lawyers do not have a J.D. and instead have an L.L.B, and more importantly, that no lawyers had a J.D. at the time that customary forms of address for lawyers were formulated (the legal profession in the United States was formalized in the late 1800s and the first law school was established at Harvard in 1870), is part of the reason that the title "Dr." is not used. </p>

<p>The degree "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juris_Doctor" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Juris Doctor</a>" was not widely used until the 1960s. The first law school to grant a J.D., <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Chicago_Law_School" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the University of Chicago Law School</a>, was founded in 1902 and wouldn't have had a graduate with a J.D. until 1905 or so. As explained in the Wikipedia article "Juris Doctor":</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The University of Chicago Law School was the first to offer it.[84]
  While approval was still pending at Harvard, the degree was introduced
  at many other law schools including at the law schools at NYU,
  Berkeley, Michigan and Stanford. Because of tradition, and concerns
  about less prominent universities implementing a J.D. program,
  prominent eastern law schools like those of Harvard, Yale and Columbia
  refused to implement the degree. Indeed, pressure from them led almost
  every law school (except at the University of Chicago and other law
  schools in Illinois) to abandon the J.D. and readopt the LL.B. as the
  first law degree by the 1930s.[85]</p>
  
  <p>It was only after 1962 that a new push—this time begun at
  less-prominent law schools—successfully led to the universal adoption
  of the J.D. as the first law degree. Student and alumni support were
  key in the LL.B.-to-J.D. change, and even the most prominent schools
  were convinced to make the change: Columbia and Harvard in 1969, and
  Yale, last, in 1971.[86] Nonetheless, the LL.B. at Yale retained the
  didactical changes of the "practitioners courses" of 1826 and was very
  different from the LL.B. in common law countries other than
  Canada.[66]</p>
</blockquote>

<p>As noted in the answers and comments to this question, many countries with a different historical experience do address lawyers as "Dr." and in Japan, lawyers (or at least the Japanese equivalent of barristers) are addressed "Sensei" which literally means "teacher" or perhaps "professor" but is a term of respect used for all learned professionals (including doctors).</p>

<p>It is improper and often considered fraudulent to use "Esquire" if you have a J.D. or L.L.B degree, but are not admitted to the practice of law. People in that position can write: "Andrew Oh-Willeke, J.D.", although even that puts you on thin ice as it might be used to give the impression that someone is admitted to the practice of law, when they are not.</p>

<p>I was a professor for a while, and many of my peers who were not lawyers used the title "Dr." as they had PhDs. It was not considered proper, even then, for either me or a peer who also had a J.D., to go by the title "Dr." and instead I was addressed "Professor Oh-Willeke" or "Mr. Oh-Willeke".</p>

<p>All of these useages are, of course, arbitrary, but they are also well established. As noted in the citations made by Pat W. in that answer, ethics opinions have not reached a consensus on the ethics of a lawyer using the title "Dr." since the J.D. came into wide use, although the "Council" statement referenced in that answer applies primarily to make clear that a J.D. is equivalent to a PhD for the narrow purpose of being qualified to be a university professor, and not for the purpose of title of address.</p>

<p>In some Eastern European countries lawyers are in fact called doctors.
They use this title as physicians (medical doctors) do.</p>

<p>There is actually a terminal law degree.  It is Doctor of Juridical Science - J.S.D.  It is appropriate to use the &quot;Doctor&quot; honorific as it would for any PhD.</p>
