Reader query on joint JD/PhD programs

In the comments section of our most recent "how can we help you?" post, 'Prospective Student' writes:

I'm a prospective PhD student, but I'm also a prospective J.D. student. I would like to enter a joint J.D./PhD program. I don't really care where. I love philosophy, and I want to write a dissertation and attend conferences. Surely, I want to teach; but I'm sticking to weak generalizations about my interests because I'm still a student.

My dilemma is this. I'm not really interested in the philosophy of law or value theory. I want to do a joint PhD/J.D. strictly out of interest and financial gain. I'm hoping to write a dissertation in metaphysics or in a related area. But I'm also hoping to graduate with a J.D. so I can leave academia if I can't find a job. I'm okay with not finding a job in philosophy. I'm not ok with not writing a dissertation, publishing, or attending conferences. I hope to do this my entire life, even if I'm not a professional philosopher.

That being said, will departments think that this is not feasible if I lack an interest in philosophy of law? For example, I am thinking about applying to UCSD for metaphysics and then UCSD law school; would it be audacious of me not to include that information in my statement of interest for UCSD and then, if I were accepted, to inform the department that I would like to go ahead with the joint program (or otherwise do a joint program elsewhere). Thanks all.

In response, Craig wrote the following (which I have abridged due to its length):

My advice here is not to do the JD/PHD if you aren't interested in philosophy of law or value theory. You are right to suspect that programs will look askance at this. This is in part because a phd is hard and requires tremendous concentration, and disrupting it for three years to study a topic mostly unrelated to your research is going to make it far, far less likely that you'll succeed...

[B]y seeking the JD/PHD, you are going to limit the schools you might attend, on both hooks. There are good law schools where you won't find good phd programs (not naming names, b/c I don't want to be a jerk), and there are good phd programs without competitive or any law schools (e.g., UCSD does not have a law school). If you want a shot at academia, give yourself the best possible shot by going to the best possible school--it matters significantly.

Finally, your goals as I understand them would be far better served considering these projects in serial. A JD/PHD program is not a good way to save time or money or to increase one's employment chances--it is a good way to do interdisciplinary research...

Although I'm probably not in the best position to judge (more on this below), I'm inclined on the basis of my own experience to agree and disagree with Craig. As someone who barely made it through my PhD program (and have seen more than a few people not make it), I know in a very personal way just how psychologically difficult it can be to go through a PhD program without a backup plan waiting in the wings (which a joint JD/PhD program might have given me). When I had been in grad school for seven years, and it looked like I would never finish the degree, I was positively terrified. I had nothing to fall back on for an alternate career--and I wished for all the world that I had pursued a joint JD/PhD (which my grad institution, Arizona, offered!). When I entered grad school, I had no interest in moral or political philosophy: my primary area of focus had been metaphysics. Which is one of the reasons why I didn't pursue the JD. Oh, how things change! Several years later I was doing my comp exams in ethics and political, and a JD would have very much been up my alley. So, I'm not sure it's a good idea to choose or not choose a joint program on the basis of one's interests (which can, and often do, change in grad school).

The more salient issue, I think, are the job-prospects involved. However, here too I sort of disagree with Craig. As Carolyn Dicey Jennings' recent job-market analysis shows, only 37.4% of all philosophy PhDs get tenure-track jobs three years out of grad school, and in fact, when the figures include those with unknown AOSs the figure drops to just 26.5%). Given that, as far as I can tell, a fairly sizable number of candidates even coming out of top-ranked Leiter programs don't get tenure-track jobs, this makes a philosophy PhD an enormous risk no matter what one does--no matter how good the program one joins might be (and it is worth bearing in mind significant grad program attrition rates as well!). Although pursuing a joint JD/PhD may or may not harm one's chances for an academic job, one's chances for those jobs were bad already. So, why not at least have a good backup? Finally, on that note, I'm less convinced that a joint JD/PhD would significantly harm one's chances for a good career in law. Although of course the highest-rated law schools (Harvard Law, etc.) tend to have the best placement records by far, I've known more than people who made fine careers in law for themselves (including becoming a partner at top law-firms) not coming out of a top-program.

For these reasons, I'm more sanguine about joint JD/PhD programs. Although, admittedly, I never went through such a program myself--and so I'm surely far from well situated to judge--I can say, retrospectively, that I wish I had availed myself of the opportunity at Arizona. In any case, I'd be very curious to hear from who are better placed to judge--people who either did pursue a joint JD/PhD, or else grad-program placement directors who have seen how well individuals do with joint degrees.

Do any of you have any helpful insight? I think this is an important (and not oft-discussed) issue!

Comments

[Amanda]

I don't have a comment on this issue, but I just wanted to mention I am surprised that the earlier statistics did not include unknown AOS's. Why on earth wouldn't they be included? There is a big difference between placing 37% and 26%, and apparently the latter number is more accurate.

[rutabagas]

Craig's point seems right to me. IF the only or primary reason you're doing a JD is to have a backup plan, then I don't see why you wouldn't get your JD only once you've decided a PhD won't work out for you. I don't think a joint program generally offers tons of extra funding, but it would be a more disjointed grad school experience, I think. (I've known people who've done joint PhD/JDs and PhD/MDs, and their grad school experiences involved a fair amount of whiplash, and that was even though their PhD and professional school research was interconnected.) If it's just a backup, well, it's not like law schools are going anywhere while you're doing your PhD.

Also, I don't know you, so take this advice from an internet stranger with a grain of salt. But literally 2/3 of my friends from undergrad have gone on to become lawyers of various types, and all of them (maaaybe except one) wish they were doing something else. IF you're thinking about a JD as a backup plan just because it generally seems like a prudent backup plan (and, like I said, I don't know you or your reasons for being interested in a JD, so this may not apply), I'd encourage you to look pretty carefully into what law school/lawyering entail.

[Carrie]

I'll just say this about law school, since I have had a number of friends get law degrees on the post-2008 world. There are good jobs out there without coming out of a top 5 or 10 law school program, but I would make sure you understand what it is you're interested in law and why it would be a good backup program. My friends who are at big firms all came of top law schools and obsessively focused on law school. My friends who went to schools outside of the top 10 have had more varied trajectories, and although all of them are doing okay now (and are probably making around the same or more than an average philosophy professor), it's not always been a very stable road and the hours have often been very long. On joint programs: I agree with Craig that a common philosophical interest between the two programs is important--otherwise, why not do law school later if things just don't work out on the philosophy job market? Because here's the thing: unless your research interests are linked, the metrics by which you'll be judged in each program have nothing to do with one another. In other words, you may find that you end up doing half as well at each as you could have if you'd focused on one at a time. You'll be out of step with the stages of people from both programs in many joint programs, which means you may not get the cohort support that I found in my experience makes a huge difference (I am just about to defend my PhD, so I am at the end!).

Another option to consider: a woman in my cohort applied to a separate law school program in our city after her first year of the PhD. She completed it concurrently with the PhD, and did, in the end, quite well at law school. She has a very good law job now, but she didn't finish the PhD because a whole ton of law requirements conflicted with departmental requirements for qualifying exams, proposal defense, etc. and in her case, her philosophical interests overlapped significantly with philosophy of law and she was able to get dual credit for a bunch of philosophy courses, so it was really the best case. if that's an outcome you'd be okay with it, it's an option to consider. But, I suspect it's not for you. And if so, I'd think long and hard about why you really want to go to law school. If it's just a backup plan, you can always do it after the PhD, and it won't take a ton longer than doing a joint program.

[UK reader]

Just another data point from me backing up rutabagas: I have 9 friends from uni who went into law careers after uni (all of them at top firms, being paid relatively high salaries). 3 of them have already quit, and 3 more plan to. 3 are carrying on, although only one of these is truly happy with their choice of career. So, from my experience, lawyers themselves are well-advised to have back-up plans, since many people end up hating working in law. I'm therefore not sure I'd want law to be my back-up plan.

You might reply that all careers are ones that people may dislike and may need to activate a back-up plan to escape. That's true, but none of the other careers my friends have gone into have had anything like as high a ratio of quitters as law. Again, information from an internet-stranger probably isn't worth much, but it's perhaps worth doing what you can to make sure you'll definitely enjoy law if you ultimately end up having to do it (and, if you pursue the route you're suggesting, the chances are you will).