Whatever doesn't kill me...

November 2, 2006 4:10 PM

J.D. & Masters: has anyone here done this concurrently? Better yet, has anyone here done this at the University of Maryland (J.D.) and St. John's College (M.A.L.A.)? Am I crazy to think about this? Complication: I'm Canadian.

I'd like to hear from people who've done a J.D. and Masters at the same time. I'd also like to hear from people who've attended either of these institutions. Finally, if any Canadians have experience going to school in the US they'd like to share, that would be helpful as well (i.e. experience with financing). I'd like to get an idea of whether or not this sort of program is prohibitively intensive, prohibitively expensive, or both.

posted by smorange to education (15 comments total)

Doesn't UofM have some existing JD joint degree programs?
posted by k8t at 4:16 PM on November 2, 2006

Yes, they have one with SJC. But I don't know exactly what to expect.
posted by smorange at 4:18 PM on November 2, 2006

Masters in what?

A good friend of mine got his JD concurrently with his MBA at the University of Virginia.
posted by brain cloud at 4:19 PM on November 2, 2006

Can you e-mail the admissions department and ask for some contact info for some students currently doing it?
posted by k8t at 4:20 PM on November 2, 2006

brain cloud, the SJC Masters program is explained here. I think I'd basically love it.

k8t: Yes, and I plan to, but I'm worried about selection bias.
posted by smorange at 4:26 PM on November 2, 2006

If you can afford it, go for it.

I don't know about the intricacies of getting an MA and JD at the same time (I only have a JD) but my friends who have gone to SJC got an amazing education in philosophy that I imagine would pair quite well with law school. In fact, my one friend who went to SJC and then law school is really the only person I know who didn't feel intellectually alienated by law school, although he did find the lecture format disappointing compared to the SJC seminars.

The only problem I see is that St John's is going to be so much more engaging than LS! Maybe the best combination would be to start and end with semesters at SJC so it can frame your legal education. Most likely your MA is going to influence your work as a lawyer, rather than the other way around. It would be great to start out law school with some Greeks already under your belt, then finish up your education with another chance to sit back and think about things in the superior intellectual atmosphere of St John's.
posted by footnote at 4:44 PM on November 2, 2006

Caveat on cost: the more you spend on your graduate education, the longer you might have to practice a kind of law you really don't like at a big law firm.
posted by footnote at 4:46 PM on November 2, 2006

In general, it is an excellent idea. Law schools are pumping out lawyers by the thousands every year. Anything that you can do that provides you with a skill or expertise that sets you apart from the rest will serve you very well.

However, an MALA probably would not be one. It may be worth doing for personal reasons, to make you a (better-rounded? more well-rounded?) person, but it is not much of a credential to accompany the practice of law.
posted by yclipse at 7:33 PM on November 2, 2006

SJC sounds wonderful. i wanted to go there as an undergrad, but $$$$ (or the lack thereof) got in the way.

plan on doing nothing but law during your first year of law school (1L). most aba-accredited schools require this of 1Ls, and i'd be very surprised if UM didn't as well. indeed, you may be well into your 3d year before you can jump into the SJC program, unless you frame it as an earlier poster suggested (which is a GREAT idea, by the way, and if you can make it happen).

the M.A.L.A. would probably make you a better lawyer, in the long run. the trick is, would employers recognize this? there's a good chance they wouldn't, depending upon the kind of law you want to practice. (if you want to be an academic, while UM is a fine fine law school, it'll be very difficult to land a professorial position without a J.D. from Harvard, Michigan, NYU, Yale, Columbia, and a few other elite law schools).

there are, on the other hand, masters' degrees that do make you more instantly employable, and they don't have to be the bone-crushing MBA-type of degree. the real question is: what kind of law do you want to practice? your answer to this question is, as we say in the field, outcome-determinative.

also: do you want to stay in the MD area? if not, you may want to re-think your decision as well.
posted by deejay jaydee at 7:37 PM on November 2, 2006 [1 favorite]

strike "and a few other elite law schools."

insert "or a few other elite law schools."
posted by deejay jaydee at 7:39 PM on November 2, 2006

I think that trying to do a JD and the MALA at St. John's at the same time is impossible: the load of reading, writing, pondering, etc., would overwhelm you. Better to do first one and then the other. Speaking as a former director of admissions at the St. John's Annapolis campus (and '61 graduate).
posted by LeisureGuy at 7:55 PM on November 2, 2006

Oh, wait: if you interweave the sessions, so that you are doing only one at any time, that might work. Indeed, they each might provide a respite from the other. I'm thinking a semester here, a semester there sort of thing. Don't know whether that's possible.
posted by LeisureGuy at 7:57 PM on November 2, 2006

My advice, as a law school grad: don't do it. For the three years of law school, you need to focus on law school. The M.A.L.A. program will just distract you from your focus on the nuts-and-bolts of the law, which is what you're going to law school to learn.
posted by jayder at 8:54 PM on November 2, 2006

I agree with jayder to the extent that while you're in law school you should focus on law school -- but I don't see why you couldn't alternate years/semesters. True, you need to exclusively focus on law in your first year, but after that, it's really just more of the same. With the exception for a few 2L and 3L classes (corporations, fed courts, admin, etc) it's much more important to get out and do internships and clinics than it is to spend time in class.
posted by footnote at 4:49 AM on November 3, 2006

My wife did a joint degree program - she got a JD and a Masters in Social Work. I got a JD from the same school.

For the first two years, she was basically full-time at each school for a year apiece. She did year one at social work school, then year two as a 1L at law school. Years three and four she was primarily devoted to law school but did her practicum and a couple of social work classes here and there. She also took some law classes for which she also received social work credit. All in all, it took an extra year but did not seem to be all that much extra work each year. We had very similar schedules.

As some people above have noted, if you want to be a law firm lawyer the MA may be more a liability than an asset. My wife is very pretty (if I do say so myself), is a good interviewer, and was in the top 10% of our class at law school (at a top 20 law school), so I expected that she would have lots of offers for summer associate jobs at big law firms. She did have some, but many of them were directly skeptical about her intentions and basically asked her to explain her MA.
posted by AgentRocket at 6:49 AM on November 3, 2006 [1 favorite]