The Juris Doctor
degree was the first graduate and professional degree in law. The first Juris
Doctorate was bestowed by Harvard University in the late nineteenth century.
The Juris Doctorate degree was intended to replicate the old European doctor of
law degree. The Juris Doctor developed from a movement instigated at Harvard
for a more scientific study of law. The Juris Doctorate or J.D. was designed to
standardize law degrees in the same way the M.D. degrees, D.O. degrees, and
D.D.S degrees had in medicine.
The definition of Jurus Doctor is taken from the Latin. When translated, the
definition of Juris Doctor is revealed to be “Doctor of Laws.”
Christopher Columbus Langdell was the dean of the Harvard Law School from 1870
to 1895. Dean Langdell dedicated his life to reforming the education of legal
professional in the United States of America. Langdell’s goal was to bestow
university education on the legal profession. His larger goal was to
standardize the practice of law be establishing a three year post baccalaureate
Juris Doctorate degree.
The Juris Doctor program developed by Christopher Langdell sought an approach
to the legal education that would combine the case method and Socratic method
of education. The case method of education to earn a Juris Doctorate involves
studying legal precedents established in earlier cases, while the Socratic
Method of legal education involves seeking to develop an understanding in the
students about the reasoning behind the decision, in order to make sure that
the decision were not simply memorized, but instead were understood.
