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