> One difference, though, is that
> doctorate requires the preparation and defense of a dissertation.  Given
> the quality (or the lack thereof) of some dissertation presentations I have
> seen, this may be a distinction without merit.  However, it is difference
> that will be raised and would need to be addressed by those with JDs.
>
The only defense I have ever heard is that most good law schools
require senior seminars and original research papers. In my last year
of law school I wrote 3 seminar papers that totalled more than 200
pages (before word processing) (long-winded).  I don't think that is
unusual.  And a three part essay is not unusual as a dissertation format,
at least in our economics department. Another major difference is
that PhD education is heavily personal and tutorial, an apprenticeship where one
acquires life-long ties, and sometimes dependencies, in a school of
thought. Legal education tends to be more impersonal, more sink or
swim, more designed to foster independence of thought and action.
Emotions play an important part in both types of education, but they
are used differently. That's neither here nor there with respect to status, but
as I watch
our PhD students develop, I see it different from the way lawyers and
physicians develop. I see merit in both -- they produce somewhat
different products.
 
Ginny