The Study of Philosophy in Law Schools, and JD/PhD Programs in the U.S. (and Elsewhere)

Some terminology:  by “general jurisprudence,” I mean the core philosophical questions about the nature of law, the relationship between law and morality, and the nature of legal reasoning; by “normative [or “specific”] jurisprudence,” I mean the myriad philosophical attempts to make normative sense (or provide normative rationalizations) of different substantive areas of law, like torts, contracts, criminal law, property, anti-discrimination law, free speech, and so on.

1. The main reason to consider a JD/PhD program at the same university is that it almost always involves saving time on your coursework–that is one of their main advantages, along with a better chance of continuity of supervision and interaction with faculty mentors.
2. Many students, however, do the law degree at one place, and the PhD somewhere else.  This can make good sense, depending on a student’s interests and the strengths of differing schools.  (In the law school here at Chicago, we have had terrific students with PhDs (or DPhils) from Oxford, Princeton, NYU, Brown, Michigan, and CUNY, among other places; in addition, outstanding law graduates from here are now pursuing PhDs in philosophy at Princeton, Berkeley, Pittsburgh, and Cornell, among other places.)  (As an aside, a student with a common-law law degree and a suitable background in philosophy can do a 2-3 year JSD here in the law school at Chicago focusing on general jurisprudence.)
3. Legal academia is more pedigree-sensitive than academic philosophy (and I’m sure many of you think academic philosophy is way too pedigree-sensitive!).  Four law schools dominate the market for new law teachers:  Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale.  (With the exception of Stanford, these are also three of the top four faculties in scholarly influence, as well as the four schools that graduate the most Supreme Court clerks.)  On a per capita basis, Yale is ahead of the other three in placement in law teaching (a selection effect), and these four are ahead of everyone else (see, e.g., this from 2020, this from 2011 and this from 2007).  On a placement success rate basis (i.e., percentage of academic job seekers who actually get tenure-track jobs), Chicago and Yale generally dominate.  Stanford Law has no serious interest in legal philosophy, so is not worth considering.  Harvard Law has recently added some good younger faculty in normative jurisprudence (e.g., Ben Eidelson, Chris Lewis) (in addition to senior faculty with philosophical interests–like Richard Fallon and Cass Sunstein [constitutional theory], Scott Brewer [evidence], John Goldberg [tort theory], and Henry Smith [property theory]), so it is a better choice than previously (it still has no one in the core subject of general jurisprudence, however, although one constitutional theorist, Stephen Sachs, does try to cover the subject–kudos to him!).
4. If your goal is to enter law teaching, the JD school matters a lot.  Besides the four noted above (Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, Yale), other law schools that do well in law teaching placement are:  NYU (esp. Furman Fellows, less so others), Columbia, Berkeley, Michigan, Virginia, Penn, Northwestern and then, with a drop-off, also Duke, Cornell, Texas, Georgetown, and UCLA.  Not all these law schools have a strong investment in philosophy, but several do:  NYU [both general and normative jurisprudence, although its main strength is the latter], Berkeley [normative jurisprudence], Michigan [normative jurisprudence], Penn [esp. normative jurisprudence], Cornell [esp. general jurisprudence], Georgetown [esp. normative jurisprudence], and UCLA [both general and normative jurisprudence, with a particularly Kantian flavor].  Of these law schools, NYU and UCLA are probably the best, competitive with, e.g., Yale and Chicago.  Penn is an increasingly attractive choice, due to a strong group in both law and philosophy (Berman, Ferzan, Wodak are the main scholars).  Obviously, not all the law schools serious about philosophy are at universities with  strong philosophy PhD programs.
5. One can do a JD/PhD at most of the preceding schools (I’m a bit unsure about how it works at Berkeley, though one can do a PhD in their “Jurisprudence & Social Policy” program in the law school with a legal philosophy focus (one can do that concurrently with a JD, but the focus of the JSP program is really on social science, not jurisprudence), and at some the joint degree is very well-funded (e.g., Penn, but NYU, UCLA, Michigan, Berkeley and Yale all offers various kinds of funding packages–Harvard used to fully fund JD/PhDs, but no longer does).   (Funding at Chicago for a JD/PhD is ad hoc, and can include full funding of both degrees, but there is no formal program, though we do have students who have done both the JD and PhD here, as well as, currently, students doing the JD here and the PhD elsewhere.  Email me for more information.)
6. Outside the top law schools mentioned in 3 and 4, above, there are other U.S. law schools with serious interest in philosophy, including University of Minnesota at Minneapolis-St. Paul; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Fordham University; Cardozo Law School/Yeshiva University; Rutgers University; and Chicago-Kent College of Law, among others.
7. In Canada, the best choice is probably the JD/PhD at University of Toronto, though the jurisprudential group in the law school at Toronto is a bit idiosyncratic (due to the influence of Ernest Weinrib, about whom opinion is divided between utter devotees and utter skeptics [I’m in the latter camp]), but Arthur Ripstein is an important contributors to normative jurisprudence.  (Sophia Moreau’s move to NYU was a blow to Toronto, and boon for NYU.)  Osgoode Hall Law School, at York University in Toronto, is the second best law school in Canada with a solid jurisprudence group as well, including faculty in the philosophy department.
8. Oxford had dominated Anglophone legal philosophy from the 1950s, but that has now ended, with the loss of the key senior faculty. They were fortunate to recently recruit a very good philosopher, David Enoch, but he has limited interest in general jurisprudence, and to some extent reinforces the turn to “moral philosophy” on the law faculty in lieu of jurisprudence.  There remain a lot of good younger jurisprudential faculty at Oxford, but many are overworked tutors, who do less graduate supervision.   Other leading law faculties in the UK have strong senior faculty in jurisprudence (e.g., Matthew Kramer at Cambridge, Kevin Toh at University College London).  Other UK schools worth a look include King’s College, London (for normative jurisprudence); University of Warwick (for normative jurisprudence); University of Edinburgh; University of Surrey; and University of Durham.
9. In Australasia, the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne have strong clusters of faculty in general and normative jurisprudence, although the University of Auckland also deserves notice.  In Anglophone Asia, the National University of Singapore has built up a large, strong jurisprudential cohort (including James Penner in philosophy of property law, and A.P. Simester in philosophy of criminal law, among others), probably the best in the entire region, including Australasia, and competitive with the top Anglophone programs internationally.