Academic

Joint degree and certificate programs at law schools

By Matt Lister

Many law schools these days offer a variety of joint degree and/or certificate programs.  At Penn , for example, there are 19 formal joint degree programs , many of which can be finished in three years (including, I think, some summer study), and ?certificate ? programs in business, social work and policy, environmental studies, Middle-Eastern and Islamic studies, and other areas.  As a graduate of a joint-degree program , and as someone devoted to the interdisciplinary study of law, I find a lot to admire in these programs.  While perhaps more common at ?top? law schools, joint-degree programs and ?certificates? are found at many other schools, too, including the law and psychology program at Drexel and a joint JD/MBA at Villanova , in my own neighborhood.  What I wonder, however, is if schools have a very good idea of what they hope to accomplish with some of these programs, beyond the intrinsic enrichment that might come from them. 

JD/PhD programs are usually aimed at would-be academics, but my impression and expectation is that this is not the case for certificate programs or for most three-year joint degree programs.  Do these certificates and joint-degrees make the graduates more marketable?  And is this so at all levels, or only at the top?  Or might such programs provide a boost to students outside of the top law schools, while not really changing the equation for those at the top?  I would find this information very interesting, but have not seen it anywhere.  (If people know of it, please point it out.)  One person I spoke with recently who teaches at the Wharton School at Penn said that there was some doubt that the joint degree really made the graduates more marketable- the JD didn?t help much on the MBA side, and vice-versa.  With three-year programs that require summer study, there is also the question of whether any gain one might get from the joint degree makes up for the loss of experience and connections gained via summer employment.  Programs that entail extra time or cost surely have an even higher burden of justification to meet.  None of this is to question the value of interdisciplinary study and instruction.  As noted, I?m not only a fan of such study, but a product and producer of it as well.  But if such programs have expenses for students, it seems important to be clear about what value they may have, beyond the intrinsic intellectual interest.  As far as I can tell, that value is not always completely clear.  Schools could do something about this by showing where graduates of the programs have gone, and what sorts of jobs they have taken.  More systematic data collection would also be useful.  In the mean time, we should hope schools will be transparent with students about the value added by various programs. 

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on July 19, 2010 (boomark / email).