Thanks to the Prawfs gang for inviting me back. I’m the ex-Army guy that tends to post about professionalism and teaching but I hope to branch out a little more this month. Present post excluded, of course.
I hired my last two RAs from the FIU Psychology Department and both of them would routinely call me “Dr. Carpenter,” even after I explained that legal academics use “Professor” instead of “Doctor.” One of them asked me why and I gave her my best Jeff Spicoli, “I don’t know.”
Turns out that we don’t call ourselves doctors because of old (and some still existing) ethics opinions that say that using the title “doctor” or even referring to the degree of Juris Doctor in letterhead, business cards, or advertising would constitute self-laudation that “tends to lower the tone of the profession.” Those uses could also be misleading, particularly for those lawyers working in medical malpractice.
The history of the JD helps explain how we ended up this way. Continental lawyers received doctorate degrees as early as the twelfth century (two centuries before medical doctorates), but instead of doing that, our common law ancestor started granting bachelor’s degrees and we followed in that model. Much of the initial angst against the use of the term arose when American legal education became more standardized and, in the 1960s, schools started to uniformly award JDs.
A profession that grew up with lesser degrees was now, apparently to the members of that profession, over representing itself with these new degrees. The ABA initially prohibited the use of “doctor” because it tended “to emphasize the important of the lawyer’s position” but encouraged the use of “esquire.” (Look up the definition of “esquire” – it isn’t so flattering and doesn’t reflect professional status.) After much complaining (the ABA has “denied ‘the title to its original owner’”), the ABA changed its position. The trend is to allow the use of “doctor” but the general ethos in the profession remains: don’t use the term.
So I scratched that itch (“Aloha, Mr. Hand.”) but left wondering, would students take law school more seriously if they were aspiring to become “doctors” rather than “esquires”?
Adult learning theory has coalesced around the idea that intrinsic motivation is associated with deep approaches to learning while extrinsic motivation is associate with anxiety and superficial approaches to learning. Intrinsic motivation increases when people believe that the goal they are pursuing is important and has meaning. (See Raymond Wlodkowski, Enhancing Adult Motivation to Learn).
During student orientation, I expect that most law schools have a block that is devoted to the ideals of the profession, which is more or less an internal motivation session. But by telling students that they aren’t worthy of the title “doctor” (and are only worthy of a lower, non-professional status of “esquire”) are we undercutting the value of the profession and taking away an internal motivator?
I blogged earlier about the definition of a profession: a high-status occupation whose members apply abstract knowledge to solve problems in a particular field of endeavor. Using the term “doctor” is consistent with the first prong (high status, or the legitimacy given to the occupation because the occupation meets an important social need). And it is consistent with the second prong (abstract knowledge or expertise). The term “esquire” is not consistent with either prong.
Translating this for our students, acting professionally means mastering the material, and mastering it to the level that society expects of its most trusted professionals. They wouldn’t want to see a medical doctor that relaxed in the last two years of medical school. Their clients don’t want to see a lawyer that relaxed in the last two years of law school.
I ran this by students in a couple of my classes and my sense is that we are leaving some motivational money on the table.
Posted by Eric Carpenter on November 9, 2015 at 11:54 AM
Comments
From a formal-academic standpoint, a J.D. is neither fish nor fowl– it’s not a bachelors (clearly) and it’s not a true doctorate (shorter, no dissertation). It’s most closely akin to a master’s, albeit with a largely useless (albeit, to me, enjoyable) third year substituted for a graduate thesis.
Posted by: Paul Thomas | Nov 11, 2015 5:34:17 PM
Why stop at Doctor? Being called a Doctor is okay, as far as it goes, but think how much more it would inspire future lawyers if they knew they would be called “Your Excellency” or “Most Awesome Person in the Universe.” For that matter, why wait until law school? We could be using this technique starting in elementary education, so that everyone (not just lawyers) benefit from the extra motivational money.
Posted by: Orin Kerr | Nov 9, 2015 4:16:51 PM
“They wouldn’t want to see a medical doctor that relaxed in the last two years of medical school. Their clients don’t want to see a lawyer that relaxed in the last two years of law school.”
This may be too obvious to bother saying, but the reason people don’t want a doctor who relaxed for the last two years of med school is because that’s when you LEARN TO BE A DOCTOR (by going to clinics and treating patients). The last two years (more particularly the third year) of law school are not comparable in most programs.
Posted by: Griff | Nov 9, 2015 12:38:51 PM