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The Ph.D. Rises In American Law Schools, 1960-2011: What Does It Mean For Legal Education?, Justin Mccrary, Joy Milligan, James Cleith Phillips
The Ph.D. Rises In American Law Schools, 1960-2011: What Does It Mean For Legal Education?, Justin Mccrary, Joy Milligan, James Cleith Phillips
Faculty Scholarship
At a time when some perceive law schools to be in crisis and the future of legal education is being debated, the structural shift toward law professors with Ph.Ds is an important, under-examined trend. In this article, we use an original dataset to analyze law school Ph.D hiring trends and consider their potential consequences. Over the last fifty years the proportion of law professors with Ph.Ds has risen dramatically. Over a third of new professors hired at elite law schools in recent years come with doctoral degrees in fields outside the law. We use our data to consider the scope, …