One of my college roommates earned a JD, and later got a Ph.D.; he now teaches at a law school.
(And, to the poster who noted that you generally need a bachelor’s in something, but not necessarily something specific, to get into law school in the US, his bachelor’s degree was in Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies.)
FWIW, in Quebec a lawyer is properly addressed as Maître, which I guess means master. Sounds about right to me.
In Germany it is illegal to call yourself doctor unless you have a German PhD or one recognized by Germany. American PhDs are so recognized but Canadian ones, although earned in exactly the same way, are not. I am not sure about physicians.
My DIL has an MD and then an MPH (public health) as a higher degree. Go figure.
I know two mathematicians with PhDs who then went on to get law degrees and get admitted to the bar. They both besically practice mathematics although one of the two actually practices public interest law on the side. The other one just got interested in the law, but never practiced. He explained to me once that law is the glue that holds society together and he was interested. He is, incidentally, the professor who drew me into math.
Calling someone “Dr.” because they have a J.D. degree is technically correct but no one ever does this in the United States. I often append “esq.” to the names of other lawyers in written professional correspondence but I would never append it to my own name. To do so would be pretentious and rude.
We don’t use it at all in Canada. I’ve seen it in some old court decisions (50 years or more), but it’s not used.
I wasn’t asking about the legal issues. I was asking about the custom. Does putting an Esq. after your name imply you have a law degree or does it imply you have passed the bar?
My father, who had never gone to college at all (depression-era poverty) qualified for a local night law school, Willamette School of Law, and got an LLB after 3 years of night school courses, in the very early 60’s I think. This was in Portland, Oregon. His degree was later upgraded to a JD if I remember correctly without him needing to do anything. That law school was later absorbed by Lewis & Clark College (or University by then?). He passed the bar on his first try. He did all this while working full time and supporting his family of four (my mother also worked). I am very proud of both my parents.
I know someone who completed medical school, but didn’t do an intern year, and who never took the medical boards, and all along, wanted to practice medical malpractice law. Part of what is hard about malpractice law is getting the required number of MDs to sign off on the case-- you have to get actual MDs, and it helps if you have people in the specialty, to say that yes, the doctor in question made a gross error no one with training should have made in that particular case (nothing unusual, etc., etc.) It’s worlds easier to see if there is a case, and then to go to the right doctors, and address them at their own level, if you have done three years of med school.
This guy was really far-thinking. He majored in English (law schools love English majors, because they do more reading and writing than pre-law students), minored in biology, took the hardest math available, and took six semesters of college Latin after taking two in high school, and then testing out of two in college. How many people take a year of a language in high school, and then test out of a year in college? He did, because he spent the summer between his senior year of high school, and his first year of college taking Latin 102 (second semester intensive) at summer school.
It must have been boring as watching tomatoes grow, but it was smart, and he proved that he was the type of student who could plow through whatever he needed to for his future plans. When he asked for an English major and a biology minor (kind of unusual combination, and would mean some heavy semesters and some summers, and having more than the required number of credits to graduate), he could point to the summer he made an A in intensive Latin when he was barely 18.
My cousin the orthopod introduced me to him (I think she was hoping we’d hit it off. We’re Facebook friends, anyway). She says he keeps good doctors honest, and makes bad ones lie until they get caught. She likes him. She DOESN’T like the doctor-culture (“the thin white line”) pressure to keep other doctors out of tight spots-- not that anyone would ever lie about gross malpractice (the doctor at fault), but someone might be expected to say they saw someone come in on time when they were, in fact, late. The fact that there are lawyers like him out there, who know the culture of doctors, affect it, and help keep it honest. That’s what my cousin likes. I’m willing to bet the best doctors all do. And my cousin has Good-Doctor awards.
Not all malpractice lawyers are ambulance chasers. There are malpractice lawyers another doctor might suggest you visit, and that’s the kind he is. He is “in” with the doctors, because he speaks their language, and knows what they went through to get where they are, and understands that most of them want to help people, not earn huge salaries. The huge salaries just help with the fact that they will be paying student loans until their kids are in high school.
He also understands how malpractice insurance works, and tries to negotiate settlements that don’t end up in good doctors with one screw up in an unusual case (they probably shouldn’t have taken, but let’s hope they learned) from losing their insurance. He has no patience with bad doctors, though, which includes incompetent doctors; over-arrogant doctors who don’t think patients have rights; and burned out doctors, who might once have been good, but need to move on.
Or so my cousin says. And I trust my cousin like a sister.
But FWIW, this non-ambulance chaser does NOT call himself “Dr.”
This fairly well-known attorney, now deceased, also went to law school without having obtained a bachelor’s degree first. In her case, she went to night school and often brought a nursing infant with her.
I know that in Germany there have always been formal rules about being able to advertise professions+qualifications like “Arzt”, “Doktor”, “Ingenieur”, “Professor”, and so forth on those little plaques outside your office, as well as against making up non-existent degrees. But I am curious how this PhD stuff is enforced in practice. And do they let you off with a warning if you pass a quick oral examination, or do you owe them a 100-200 page dissertation?
As I explained in the other thread, “doctor” is merely an element of the names of these various degrees. Of itself it does not mean some degree is higher or lower or whatever. Someone at some point is just formalizing various names or titles (eg even in Germany I’m not sure a medical “archiatrus” is necessarily as qualified as a medical “doctor”, despite the suggestive name!)
Latin 101: (some relevant words)
doctor = someone who teaches [presumably qualified to teach a subject]
magister = master
medicus = pertaining to medicine
scientia (as in SJD, ScD) : knowledge
To me, it implies that you passed the bar and hold an active license to practice law in, at least, some jurisdiction. The proper post-nomial for a law degree would be the degree. i.e., Falchion, JD.
I’m not sure there is a clear rule, although there is an old article in the ABA Journal about at least one state bar disciplining unlicensed JDs for using “Esquire”.
I also think that Esquire is only appropriate when used in connection with your actual legal practice. I see it used on official correspondence (and fundraising appeals from my law school). I don’t think “social” or routine personal correspondence would use Esquire (unlike “Dr.” as a prefix or “M.D” or “Ph.D.” as a post-nomial). But that may just be my personal impression.
Why unlike Dr/MD/PhD? If I am jotting off some personal correspondence, I do not see the need for anything more formal than “Dear Carol” (this was covered in the other thread) or even without the term of endearment. Not Dear Dr. Carol, M.D. Same for friends who are licensed to practice law; last one I communicated with was on the phone, and the first words were more or less “Hi, good morning; how are you?”
Granted this might work differently with strangers, but then that would not be “social” correspondence.
A few states still allow someone to take the bar exam and become a lawyer by “reading the law”— basicallly an extended apprenticeship under the mentoring of an experienced lawyer—without even attending law school.
The first Christmas after I graduated, all of the Christmas cards I got from classmates were addressed to Near Wild Heaven, R.Ph.
This was in 1994, when people still sent them.
Yeah, I don’t know what word I was looking for. My point was that it would be entirely proper to address a letter to Dr. Jane Smith or Mr. & Dr. Smith. Indeed, it would be the norm.
And it would seem a bit pretentious, but not inappropriate, to address it to Jane Smith, M.D. (But NEVER Dr. Carol, M.D., because you don’t use both the prefix and the post-nomial!). But I can’t imagine that you would ever get a Christmas card to John Doe, Esq.
Definitely agree. I’ve seen some lawyers put it after their names on their own business cards, and have to roll my eyes a bit.
The latter, in my experience.
The law degrees in the U.S are J.D. (LL.B.), LL.M., and S.J.D. (LL.D.).
The American Bar Association has ruled that lawyers who hold a J.D. may use “Doctor” as a term of address so long as they are not trying to mislead anyone regarding their qualifications, such as by implying medical expertise (like Doctor Phil does).
“Esq.” is not regulated by the legal profession. Anyone and everyone may use it. The justice system may intervene if you are using it to imply that you are a licensed lawyer when you are not.
DPhil does not imply medical expertise --I assume that’s what you meant— unlike Dr. med. aka M.D. But, again, even being a medical “doctor” does not automatically mean one is licensed, registered, and board certified, which are the non-misleading qualifications in this case.
I didn’t say “D.Phil.” I said “Doctor Phil.” The professional name of public huckster Phillip Calvin McGraw. This guy: Phil McGraw - Wikipedia
No, I mean qualified to give medical advice, which usually means licensed to practice medicine, at minimum.
(See, this is one reason why I find it useful to distinguish abbreviations from non-abbreviations with a “.”)
I addressed this topic 3½ years ago.
Yeah, we’ve definitely discussed “Esq.” before. It certainly isn’t universally used in the legal profession.
And the profession—meaning the standards and ethics bodies of the profession—don’t care how it’s used outside of the profession. Non-lawyers are free to call themselves “Esq.” so long as they aren’t practicing unlicensed law.
In my direct experience, women lawyers are more likely to write “Esq.” after their own names (as opposed to someone else addressing them). That’s because of societal gender bias. Many women found they needed some way to indicate that they were the lawyers in the room. Otherwise, people would look to men in the room as the people in charge.