Law School or PhD in Public Law?

Parents Forum
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<p>I'm currently a senior year undergraduate, really stuck on a decision: Law School OR Political Science PhD, researching in the American Politics subfield of judicial politics/public law/law & courts? Because the fields are similar and have a good deal of content overlap, I'm having a lot of difficulty deciding between them. I guess what it really comes down to is whether I want to be a professor or an attorney. If I go the attorney route, I'd like to work in public service--either public interest law or a government position. If I go for the PhD, I'm hoping to do research on judicial decision making. I will admit, however, that I'm worried about finding a TT position in political science after grad school or having to take a job in an undesirable location. Are these fears warranted?</p>

<p>Any suggestions on how I should go about deciding between these two paths? Or maybe I should do both the JD and PhD? I would greatly appreciate any advice, as I have been contemplating this decision for a while and I can't seem to make up my mind.</p>

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<p>They are really pretty utterly different, even though the reading lists may overlap somewhat. If you go to law school, it is very likely that you will wind up being an attorney, at least for a while. If nothing else, the debt you incur to attend will force you to make a lot more money than junior faculty make.</p>

<p>Attorneys do comparatively little analysis of judicial decision making -- although there is a lot of that in law school. And most of the "analysis" consists of figuring out a way to ignore or nullify something your client doesn't like. Attorneys, by the way, have clients; political science professors generally don't. That's a difference that's hard to stress enough. The day-to-day feel of being a practicing attorney is quite similar across very different contexts, including public service, and not at all similar to being an academic. And attorneys are pretty much free to live where they want. As an academic, you will probably go through a time of having difficulty supporting yourself, much less a family, and you will soon learn that "having to take a job in an undesirable location" is reason to break out the champagne and celebrate.</p>

<p>Doing both is great if you want to teach law school, and/or improve your chance of acceptance to a top law school. Within the legal profession, a political science PhD would have just about no marginal value. Within the political science profesion, a JD would probably have negative value, since it isn't intellectually respectable, and it would take quite awhile for people to feel comfortable that you weren't going to bail out of academia to earn a real living.</p>

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<p>I see these as entirely different directions, with very little overlap. A lot like my bschool students who say I am thinking of being a consultant, an analyst, an investment banker....or instead, doing research in business and being a professor. One is application and doing, the other is studying the field at a level of abstraction and doing research on it, not applying it. </p>

<p>I would talk to, and ideally shadow folks in both occupations to see what the day to day is like. </p>

<p>I always recommend that students who think they are interested in a PhD try to get some experience doing research in the area they find interesting (it is not the same as sitting in on a class in that area and writing term papers). You may like the topic area but you have to also like doing research and doing it the way its done in your field. </p>

<p>I am sure the profs in poli sci (and the graduate students too) can tell you about the job prospects. Are post-docs the norm? Do students at the best schools in the field even get academic positions? What else can they do with a PhD? My hunch is the job market is weak. </p>

<p>As for location, even in my field where there are jobs for everyone and salaries are high, you take a tenure-track position at the best school you can get, and maybe you'll be lucky with location but its quite secondary. Its rare to have the luxury to choose your location and then find a job (like other occupations).</p>

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<p>I disagree with some of what's said above, particularly by JHS.</p>

<p>Going to law school does not rule out the possibility of being a professor. However, to have a "shot" at teaching at a top law school or undergraduate college, you will have to be a <em>star</em>. If you are, you can get a teaching job. You don't have to worry about paying off law school debt because the top private law schools have loan forgiveness programs. How much you have to pay back depends upon how much you earn. So, you can take that junior faculty position. How much it pays will determine how much of your loans you have to repay. (With the best of the loan forgiveness programs, you could, if you chose, take a job teaching in a boarding school and you wouldn't have to pay back the loans either. )</p>

<p>Second, if you look at who is teaching undergraduate poli sci courses in con law, you will note that at top colleges in universities with top law schools, those courses are often taught by members of the law school faculty, who have JDs, not Ph.D.s. Indeed, in many cases, the TAs in those courses are law students, not poli sci candidates. </p>

<p>Take a look at who is teaching con law courses at top colleges, even those without an affiliated law school, and you will see that many poli sci profs have BOTH degrees. A JD is NOT viewed as a negative; it's seen as a positive. Look up the bios of profs in the poli sci departments teaching con law courses, and you will see that many have JDs. Often, they were poli sci Ph.D.s, but at some point, decided to get that J.D. too. </p>

<p>Even if you pursue both degrees at one, nobody thinks that someone who spent 5-7 years on average getting a Ph.D. is going to "bail." After all, in most cases you've had the JD for a couple of years--if you were going to bail for more money, you'd already have done it. Taking SOME sorts of jobs, e.g., a staff attorney with the ACLU or in the Honors program at the DOJ would make you a more desirable candidate, if you were to apply for a teaching position FROM that position. </p>

<p>Third, applying to both programs--especially in poli sci--will NOT improve your chances of getting into a top law school. It just doesn't. You have to apply to both programs separately and both make independent decisions. Indeed, there are some people who end up getting the degrees from different schools--e.g., poli sci Ph.D. from MIT and Harvard J.D. </p>

<p>There are other issues to think about--one is are you really willing to sink the next 8 years of your life into this? Are you interested in taking all those OTHER courses you have to take in law school--torts, property, estates and trusts, etc.? How many foreign languages do you know and how many are required for the Ph.D.? (If you need to learn one or more to at least the intermediate level, that can lengthen the time required to earn the Ph.D.) </p>

<p>And, finally...this may not be politically correct, but...how much of a superstar are you? This is an overcrowded field, and I do agree with JHS that getting a teaching job in poli sci at any accredited college is tough. </p>

<p>JHS is right that being a practicing attorney and a prof are two very different things. If you want to practice law, go to law school. However, if you are convinced you really, really want to teach, the choice is not that easy. As bad as the teaching market is, you are more likely to be able to get a teaching job with a Ph.D. in poli sci from a top school than you are to get a teaching job from the middle of the law school class at top law school. However, should you end up at the TOP of your law school class, it will be easier to get a teaching job --maybe at a law school--than it will be with that poli sci Ph.D.--or at least that's my impression.</p>

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<p>There are dual PhD/JD programs -- for example, at UC Berkeley School of Law (formerly Boalt Hall), the Jurisprudence and Social Policy PhD/JD. There may be other such programs worth investigating.</p>

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<p>I read the OP to suggest s/he was interested in research primarily, but Jonri gave a lot of attention to the teaching aspect of law school. That reminds me to suggest another thing for you to think about. </p>

<p>With the PhD idea, were you interested in a research job (ie. tenure track in Poli Sci), or is the primary interest in teaching (e.g. lecturing at a community college or non-research oriented school; being a lawyer who teaches as a sessional at a law school)? </p>

<p>Also were you interested in teaching/research in a Poli Sci environment or a law school environment?</p>

<p>Teaching and research can go hand in hand but not necessarily (almost all research faculty teach but only some teaching faculty do research). Your ultimate goal may push you down different paths.</p>

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<p>Thanks for all the responses so far--they've been helpful!</p>

<p>And just to clear up, I'm interested in both research and teaching. I definitely wouldn't want a college-level position that was 100% teaching and no research. I'm mostly aiming towards working in a political science department if I go the PhD route, but I would be interested as well in being a law professor if I get a JD. (Although I hear that the competition for Law Professor positions is intense!)</p>

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<p>I just saw jonri's post. I think we disagree less than his/her post assumes, and to the extent we disagree jonri is probably right. I was not aware of the number of political science professors who also have law degrees. Very few of the people I know with JD/PhDs are doing something other than practicing law, teaching law, or consulting on legal matters. The law world is a lot more lucrative than the academic world.</p>

<p>I am aware that law professors often teach constitutional law courses to undergraduates. Indeed, I took such a course when I was an undergraduate, with a famous law professor. (I will note that the course was fun, but not academically respectable. I took it as a sign of the low regard in which the political science department held con law and in which the law faculty held undergraduates.)</p>

<p>I did not mean to suggest that applying to a joint JD/PhD program was a back door into a top law school. I did mean to suggest -- because it is accurate -- that having a PhD or an ABD is seen as a big plus in elite law school admissions. I am not certain whether jonri meant to say anything different, but if so I disagree strongly with that.</p>

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<p>Another consideration might be the time commitment of practicing the profession. I went PhD route; had to fight family at every family gathering to justify this. Friends went JD route. I don't know gender of OP, but for a woman who wants to raise her own children and continue her career, college teacher is ideal and uncertainty of employment is, to my mind, a worthy risk to take. If you can't find a college teaching job,(though everyone I know eventually did) then according to JHS's above post, you will be in a good position for law school acceptance. </p>

<p>Many PhD's are totally subsidized; I know mine was. So although my salary is not handsome (or beautiful either) I went into my job debt free; my TA stipend paid all my living expenses while I got my degree.</p>

<p>My friends who went JD route had great difficulty reconciling working and family life; several stopped practicing law to raise their children. That might be okay; it might not, depending on the values of the OP. Same with day/care nanny route, again, depending on values and life style choices. I am not at all judgmental about choices -- just laying some issues out.</p>

<p>I have never been sorry I didn't go to law school. My D will definitely go, but she really wants to practice law! More power to her.</p>

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<p>Don't have much to add, except to second a point made earlier--look at the superstars in the public law/con ed field, especially judicial politics. They aren't JDs. They are folks who've gone to the top graduate programs in political science (Harvard, Stanford, Michigan). My spouse got a PhD from one of the top schools and specialized in the judicial politics. He was lucky in that his first teaching job was at a a top 10 university. However, he decided that teaching/research wasn't his thing--actually the university decided for him (he didn't get tenure). He did get job offers from other colleges, but had an opportunity to go into the business world, so he left academia. It was a good decision for him. He loves what he's doing and in his first year, he made a bonus that was equal to his salary as a professor. Anyway--back to question of what path to follow--I think mythmom and JHS laid out the pros and cons of each path quite well. Good luck with your decision.</p>