Editing Juris Doctor (section)

===History of legal training in England===
[[File:London-Inns-of-Court.JPG|right|thumb|The [[Inns of Court]] of London served as a professional school for lawyers in England]]

The nature of the JD can be better understood by a review of the context of the history of legal education in England. The teaching of law at Cambridge and Oxford Universities was mainly for philosophical or scholarly purposes and not meant to prepare one to practice law.<ref name="Stein-1981" />{{rp|pages=434, 435}} The universities only taught civil and canon law (used in a very few jurisdictions, such as the courts of admiralty and church courts) but not the [[common law]] that applied in most jurisdictions. Professional training for practicing common law in England was undertaken at the [[Inns of Court]], but over time the training functions of the Inns lessened considerably and apprenticeships with individual practitioners arose as the prominent medium of preparation.<ref name="Stein-1981" />{{rp|pages=434, 436}} However, because of the lack of standardization of study, and of objective standards for appraisal of these apprenticeships, the role of universities became subsequently important for the education of lawyers in the English-speaking world.<ref name="Stein-1981" />{{rp|page=436}}

In England in 1292 when [[Edward I]] first requested that lawyers be trained, students merely sat in the courts and observed, but over time the students would hire professionals to lecture them in their residences, which led to the institution of the [[Inns of Court]] system.<ref name="Stein-1981" />{{rp|page=430}} The original method of education at the Inns of Court was a mix of [[moot court]]-like practice and lecture, as well as court proceedings observation.<ref name="Stein-1981" />{{rp|page=431}} By the fifteenth century, the Inns functioned like a university, akin to the [[University of Oxford]] and the [[University of Cambridge]], though very specialized in purpose.<ref name="Stein-1981" />{{rp|page=432}} With the frequent absence of parties to suits during the [[Crusades]], the importance of the lawyer role grew tremendously, and the demand for lawyers grew.<ref name="Stein-1981" />{{rp|page=433}}

Traditionally [[Oxford and Cambridge]] did not see [[common law]] as worthy of academic study, and included coursework in law only in the context of [[canon law|canon]] and [[civil law (legal system)|civil law]] (the two "laws" in the original Bachelor of Laws, which thus became the [[Bachelor of Civil Law]] when the study of canon law was barred after the Reformation) and for the purpose of the study of philosophy or history only. As a consequence of the need for [[practical education]] in law, the apprenticeship program for [[solicitor]]s emerged, structured and governed by the same rules as the apprenticeship programs for the trades.<ref name="Stein-1981" />{{rp|page=434}} The training of  solicitors by a five-year apprenticeship was formally established by the Attorneys and Solicitors Act 1728.<ref name="Stein-1981" />{{rp|page=435}} [[William Blackstone]] became the first lecturer in [[English common law]] at the University of Oxford in 1753, but the university did not establish the program for the purpose of professional study, and the lectures were very philosophical and theoretical in nature.<ref name="Stein-1981" />{{rp|page=435}} Blackstone insisted that the study of law should be university based, where concentration on foundational principles can be had, instead of concentration on detail and procedure provided by apprenticeship and the [[Inns of Court]].<ref name="Moline-2003">{{cite journal
 |last=Moline
 |first=Brian J.
 |year=2003
 |title=Early American legal education
 |journal=Washburn Law Journal
 |volume=42
 |url=http://www.washburnlaw.edu/wlj/42-4/articles/moline-brian.pdf
 |access-date=10 January 2009
 |archive-date=9 May 2009
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090509032640/http://www.washburnlaw.edu/wlj/42-4/articles/moline-brian.pdf
 |url-status=dead
 }}</ref>{{rp|pages=775, 793}}

The 1728 act was amended in 1821 to reduce the period of the required apprenticeship  to three years for graduates in either law or arts from Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, as "the admission of such graduates should be facilitated, in consideration of the learning and abilities requisite for taking such degree".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=avNMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA74|title= 1 & 2 George IV. c. 48 |date=8 June 1821}}</ref> This was extended in 1837 to cover the newly established universities of Durham and London,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FfVQAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1153|title=1 Vict. c. 56|date=15 July 1837|last1=Chitty|first1=Joseph}}</ref> and again in 1851 to include the new [[Queen's University of Ireland]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i6RKAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA640|title=14 & 15 Vict. c. LXXXVIII.| date= 7 August 1851|last1=Britain|first1=Great}}</ref>

The Inns of Court continued but became less effective, and admission to the bar still did not require any significant educational activity or examination. In 1846, Parliament examined the education and training of prospective [[barristers]] and found the system to be inferior to that of Europe and the United States, as Britain did not regulate the admission of barristers.<ref name="Stein-1981" />{{rp|page=436}} Therefore, formal schools of law were called for but were not finally established until later in the century, and even then the bar did not consider a university degree in admission decisions.<ref name="Stein-1981" />{{rp|page=436}}

Until the mid nineteenth century, most law degrees in England (the BCL at Oxford and Durham, and the LLB at London)<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l8UUAAAAQAAJ|title=Oxford University Calendar|date=1833|last1=Baxter|first1=W.|access-date=2 September 2017|archive-date=9 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230409145105/https://books.google.com/books?id=l8UUAAAAQAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kt8NAAAAQAAJ|title=Durham University Calendar|date=1844|access-date=2 September 2017|archive-date=9 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230409145106/https://books.google.com/books?id=kt8NAAAAQAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3uENAAAAQAAJ|title=London University Calendar|date=1845|last1=Univ|first1=London|access-date=2 September 2017|archive-date=9 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230409145111/https://books.google.com/books?id=3uENAAAAQAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> were postgraduate degrees, taken after an initial degree in arts. The Cambridge degree, variously referred to as a BCL, BL or LLB, was an exception: it took six years from matriculation to complete, but only three of these had to be in residence, and the BA was not required (although those not holding a BA had to produce a certificate to prove they had not only been in residence but had actually attended lectures for at least three terms).<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ad4NAAAAQAAJ|title=Cambridge University Calendar|date=1833|access-date=2 September 2017|archive-date=9 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230409145111/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ad4NAAAAQAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VoMPRz8nYQEC&pg=187|title=A History of the University of Cambridge:, Volume 3; Volumes 1750–1870|pages=187–190|author=Peter Searby|year=1988|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-35060-0}}</ref> These degrees specialized in Roman civil law rather than in English common law, the latter being the domain of the Inns of Court, and thus they were more theoretical than practically useful.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Ol0qAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA533|title=The Solicitors' Journal|date=29 April 1865}}</ref> Cambridge reestablished its LLB degree in 1858 as an undergraduate course alongside the BA,<ref name="LL Cantab">{{cite web|url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001669/18581020/082/0003|title=Cambridge|date=20 October 1858|via=[[British Newspaper Archive]]|work=Norwich Mercury|url-access=subscription}}</ref> and the London LLB, which had previously required a minimum of one year after the BA, become an undergraduate degree in 1866.<ref name="LLB Lond">{{cite book|title=University of London Calendar|date=1866|page=95|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IeQNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA95|last1=Univ|first1=London}}</ref> The older nomenclature continues to be used for the BCL at Oxford today, which is a master's level program, while Cambridge moved its LLB back to being a postgraduate degree in 1922 but only renamed it as the LLM in 1982.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.law.cam.ac.uk/courses/llm/the_history_of_the_llm.php|title=LLM|publisher=Cambridge University Faculty of Law|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071102202003/http://www.law.cam.ac.uk/courses/llm/the_history_of_the_llm.php|archive-date=2 November 2007}}</ref>

Between the 1960s and the 1990s, law schools in England took on a more central role in the preparation of lawyers and consequently improved their coverage of advanced legal topics to become more professionally relevant. Over the same period, American law schools became more scholarly and less professionally oriented, so that in 1996 Langbein could write: "That contrast between English law schools as temples of scholarship and American law schools as training centers for the profession no longer bears the remotest relation to reality".<ref name="Langbein1996" />