The Juris Doctor (or Juris Doctorate) is a law degree that originally surfaced in the United States during the 1960s. This "new" law degree was designed as a replacement or alternative to its academic equivalent, the LLB or Bachelor of Laws degree. The degree quickly gained popularity as it afforded the holder the professional recognition of a doctoral degree in law.  

As a practical matter it should be noted that most lawyers in the United States accrue about the same number of years of education as do medical doctors and, considerably more than PhDs. As such, the degree is rightly viewed as being a true terminal professional degree . This is generally not the case in other common law countries such as the United Kingdom . As such, the renaming of the U.S. law degree is not based on inflated egos, as has been charged on occasion, but rather due to changes in the academic process and course of study.

Some credit the beginnings of the use of the Juris Doctor (JD) degree in the United States to Christopher Langdell, a Harvard Law School dean in the late 1800s who first developed the concept of the American law degree (LLB) as a post graduate degree.

Odd as it may seem, the Juris Doctor is not, however, a terminal degree in terms of academic research degrees, and rarely, are its holders acknowledged with the title of "doctor" (though there is absolutely no prohibition against this whatsoever). While most U.S. law schools now only offer the Juris Doctor as a first professional law degree, some continue to offer the LLB as well. Some law school graduates actually prefer to be conferred with the LLB over the JD. Louisiana State University confers both the Juris Doctor and the Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) upon its law school graduates owing to the state's unique civil system of law.

From an academic perspective, above the Juris Doctor (JD) is the LLM degree (Master of Laws) and then the SJD, JSD, LLD, etc., the true research based doctor of Laws terminal degrees. Still, it should be noted that in a few counties the JD is actually starting to displace the LLB degree, for example Canada , Hong Kong, and to an extent Australia .

Notwithstanding, the official word, according to Merriam Webster's Dictionary, the Juris Doctor is “a degree equivalent to bachelor of laws”.

Earning a JD in the United States

OK, enough with the brief history lesson, let's turn our attention for a moment to learn how to earn the Juris Doctor degree in the United States. All American Bar Association approved law schools require that students have a bachelor degree prior to being admitted—that and a very respectable LSAT score. But not all U.S. law schools are ABA approved law schools. There are other so called non ABA law schools as well and these schools, as often as not, do not require a bachelor degree prior to enrollment. Some states such as California have several tiers of law schools offering the JD degree and, along with it, the opportunity to take the bar exam. Concord Law School is just one such example of a non ABA law school. Other states such as Massachusetts , Alabama , Georgia and Tennessee offer similar opportunities for their JD graduates.

Canada, our common-law cousins to the North, as noted above, have taken some strides toward making the Juris Doctor the premier “professional” law degree but still have not yet fully adopted the degree nor the policy of an absolute requirement of a bachelor degree prior to one's admission to law school.

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