Dissertation-only JSD

[sanantone]

The St. Thomas University School of Law offers a JSD that has no courses. The way it works is that you earn their LLM in Intercultural Human Rights (two semesters and not online), and if you graduate with a 3.0 GPA, you can be admitted to their JSD program. Immediately, you will start on the 75,000 word thesis, but you must be in the program for at least two years. I find this to be kind of odd since this might lead to them artificially drawing out the program. They state that it will take two semesters to evaluate and approve the thesis after its completion.

What makes this program interesting is that you don't need to be on campus while working on your thesis. You also don't need a JD or LLB to gain admission to the LLM or JSD program.

If someone graduated from another law school's LLM program, an "outstanding scholar" might also gain admission. However, they must meet the residency requirement by attending classes on campus for two terms. They must also earn 12 of the credits in the LLM in Human Rights program.



https://www.stu.edu/law/human-rights/jsd...formation/