United States
Main article: Legal education in the United StatesThe education of lawyers in the United States is generally undertaken through a law school program.
The professional degree granted by U.S. law schools is the Juris Doctor or Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D.). Once a prospective lawyer has been awarded the J.D. (or other appropriate degree), he or she is usually required to pass a state bar examination in order to be licensed to practice as an Attorney at Law. Historically, as many as 32 states have recognized a diploma privilege method of bar admission which does not require sitting for a bar exam. As of mid-2007, Wisconsin and Vermont are the only states that continue to recognize this privilege.
The J.D. degree, like the Doctor of Medicine (M.D.), is a professional doctorate. The Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D.), and Doctor of Comparative Law (D.C.L.), are research and academic-based doctorate level degrees. In the U.S. the Legum Doctor (LL.D.) is only awarded as an honorary degree.
Academic degrees for non-lawyers are available at the baccalaureate and master's level. A common baccalaureate level degree is a Bachelor of Science in Legal Studies (B.S.). Academic master's degrees in legal studies are available, such as the Master of Studies (M.S.), and the Master of Professional Studies (M.P.S.). Such a degree is not required to enter a J.D. program.
Foreign lawyers seeking to practice in the U.S., who do not have a J.D., often seek to obtain a Master of Laws (LL.M.) (or other degrees similar to the LL.M., such as the Juris Master (J.M.), Master of Comparative Law (M.C.L.) and Master of Jurisprudence (M.J.)).
Legal education in the United States normally proceeds along the following route:
- Undergraduate education (usually 4 years)
- Law school (usually 3 years)
- Admission to the bar (usually by taking a state's bar exam)
- Legal practice
A number of law students apply for an optional judicial clerkship (less than 10% end up in such position), to be taken after law school and before legal practice. Some take the bar exam before a clerkship but this is not required, clerkships usually last one year with appellate courts, but trial level courts (including federal district court) are increasingly moving towards two-year clerkships.
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Famous quotes related to united states:
“The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder—in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“Europe and the U.K. are yesterday’s world. Tomorrow is in the United States.”
—R.W. ‘Tiny’ Rowland (b. 1917)
“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth. A Galileo could no more be elected President of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of soft illusion.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity—an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“In the United States all business not transacted over the telephone is accomplished in conjunction with alcohol or food, often under conditions of advanced intoxication. This is a fact of the utmost importance for the visitor of limited funds ... for it means that the most expensive restaurants are, with rare exceptions, the worst.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)