New Master of Laws Degree

[freeloader]

A lot of law schools have started these programs in recent years. I understand it from the schools’ perspectives, they are offering the same classes (or virtually the same) to a wider pool of students, so it probably is pretty easy money.

I don’t really understand who really benefits from these degrees. I know 2 people personally who have earned this type of degree. One was a historian who studied legal history. He wanted to get a different, more practical understanding of law than what he had gotten during his PhD studies. For academics who deal with law (some historians, political scientists, and economists, for instance), I can see the value. This is particularly true if they don’t want to spend the time or money to actually get a JD and don’t want to teach in a law school. This friend of mine got a sabbatical year for the master’s but could not have gotten 3 years off from his academic job for a JD. One of my wife’s co-workers was a federal agent (FBI, Secret Service kind of job) who left the government for a while. He got one of these masters because he wanted to get back into the federal agent job and thought this type of degree would help him and make it more likely that he would be able to move into management.  He did get picked back up as an agent, so perhaps it helped. I feel like these are both really specific, niche kind of situations that surely cannot warrant dozens of programs operating around the country.

So, who else would pursue one of these degrees?  Paralegals who think it will separate them from their peers?  People who are doing it PURELY for vanity—being able to say, “oh yes, when I was in law school at XYZ University…”?  

I looked into these degrees a few years ago. At the time, and I suspect still today, the ABA had a rule that you can only count classes toward an ABA-accredited law degree that are earned while pursuing a JD. So, no way to do one of these degrees for a year and then transfer into a JD and finish in 2 years. Perhaps you could transfer credits to an non-ABA school, but I wasn’t looking to do that.