Well said, Gaylord.  I hope your message puts an end to this discussion.
Thanks for all your good work throughout the years - without it some of us
might not be here today.
______________________
Gaylord A. Jentz wrote:

> I frankly don't care what you all call yourselves individually.  You can
> call yourself Mr., Ms., Professor, or whatever suits your situation, and
> one you are comfortable is fine.  If you guys in Canada want to call
> yourself Judge, be my guest.  I also don't care what the European criteria
> is.  Just don't mess with the Academy of Legal Studies in Business, which
> must state that anyone teaching business law or legal environment with a JD
> is entitled to be called Doctor.
>
> What many of you need to do is to go back to the reasons why Schools of Law
> changed from the LLB degree to the JD.  Two of those reasons were the
> United States government and academic institutions.  The classified system
> in government gave a higher rating to those with a Doctoral degree than
> those with a Bachelor's degree.  You could have five bachelor degrees, and
> you still only got the lower rating.  Second, academic institutions started
> requiring all tenure faculty except School of Law to have Doctoral degrees.
>  Thus for salary and prestige purposes, those with the title of Doctor were
> rewarded more than those without it.  In addition, Law Schools started
> requiring an undergraduate degree as an admission requirement to Law
> School.  Thus to continue to call a law degree a bachelor's degree was both
> misleading and nonproductive.  It therefore became an advanced degree.
>
> There is also a misconception of what is meant by "terminal" degree.  In
> academia we mean the highest degree required to teach a subject area. You
> do not know how many times I and others have appeared before Deans and the
> AACSB to argue that the JD degree is the appropirate (terminal) degree to
> teach business law and legal environment subjects.  To be sure law schools
> offer LLMs and some SJDs. I remember one time in response to a Dean's
> committee meeting in St. Louis pointing out that only three Harward Law
> School professors had SJD degrees, and less than 12 SJDs were awarded the
> previous year.  Thus LLMs and SJDs are not neccessary to teach our courses.
>  You should note that at this same time no longer was a CPA plus a BBA
> degree sufficient to be "terminally" qualfied to teach Accounting.  I also
> pointed out to the Deans that the JD was now a seven year degree, and that
> since many Graduate Schools of Business allowed a Ph.D candidate to skip
> the Master's degree, at least in time spent there could be little
> difference.  This was never an argument that the JD and Ph.D are equivalent
> any more than the MD and a Ph.D are equivalent.
>
> Finally the Dean's conceded us the JD as a terminal degree.  We are still
> fighting however to maintain this course and too often I see the
> requirements to be hired as a business law professor another degree such as
> a MBA or Ph.D.  This will be a requirement if you want only a Mr. or Mrs
> designation.
>
> Lastly, I believe it is important that we designate ourselves with the
> title Doctor.  I have served on many commmittees with colleagues outside
> the College of Business.  Many are from Liberal Arts or Natural Sciences.
> These people make a strong distinction between those called Doctor and
> those with Mr. or Mrs. (except for School of Law faculty).  We are mostly
> in Colleges of Business and I want these colleagues to feel I'm the
> equivalent of a Ph.D, say in Finance, in Stature.  The title Mr. or Mrs.
> indicates to them usually an Instructor category.  Thus how we are
> perceived also can be very important.
>
> Whether you all realize it or not, we are under constant attack in academia
> as a profession.  We won only a small battle in St. Louis when the Dean's
> passed our amendment that "legal" and regulatory environment be required
> for all BBA and MBA degrees.  If you want to align yourselve as a downtown
> attorney with a Mr. or Mrs. title, you will be treated that way in academia
> circles.
>
> On a personal note, my return address on my personal correspondence has
> "Mr. and Mrs." but at the University of Texas it is "Dr."  It has worked
> for me and I believe for our profession.
>
> For the Academy, how we are perceived is important.  It would be a mistake
> if the Academy ever does anything to lessen our stature as a profession in
> academia.  So call yourselves what you want, but don't even hint that the
> Academy schould treat the JD as anything but a doctoral entitlement.
>
> I promise never to email anything this long again.
>
> Dr. Jentz