Ph.D. Program Guidebook - The University of Chicago Booth School ...

Ph.D. Program Guidebook 2007-2008
CHAPTER 8 – JOINT PH.D. AND J.D. DEGREES
At the boundaries between law and various areas of business lie many important research
issues. What determines the nature of contracts between firms and various types of suppliers
(workers, suppliers of parts, shipping, power, etc.) What determines corporate governance
rules How may securities markets best be regulated What constitutes optimal tax policy
Addressing these questions and many others requires detailed knowledge of legal theory and
practice as well as a thorough understanding of economic, accounting, financial and other
business theories, data analysis and testing methods. The program described in this chapter,
leading to both a Ph.D. in business and a J.D., provides especially talented students with the
training to make major breakthroughs in these important interdisciplinary areas.
Applicants to the joint program must meet the entrance requirements and satisfy the basic
undergraduate degree prerequisites of both the Law School and the GSB. Admission
decisions are handled separately. An applicant who applied to both schools concurrently and
is admitted to both schools is automatically in the joint program. An applicant who is
admitted to only one of the schools may enroll in the degree program in that school and
reapply to the other school at a later date. An applicant who initially applies to only one of
the schools may still pursue admission to the joint program by applying at the appropriate
time during the first two years in the GSB or the first two years in the Law School.
CURRICULUM
To obtain the joint degree, a student must satisfy the normal degree requirements of the Law
School as well as those of the Graduate School of Business Ph.D. Program for the student’s
chosen dissertation and support areas. 1 The purpose of the Program is to allow some courses
to satisfy both Law School and GSB requirements. It is intended that Law School courses
will be used only to satisfy the Coordinated Sequence requirements of the Ph.D. Program. 2
In some rare cases, however, such courses may be used to satisfy Ph.D. Support or
Dissertation Area Examination requirements by approval of the Director of the Ph.D.
Program and the area coordinator for the examination in question. No Law School
workshops may be used to satisfy the Graduate School of Business workshop requirement.
Students in the Law School must complete 105 credits to obtain the J.D. degree. Students
may count four GSB courses toward the law degree with the approval of the Committee on
Academic Rules and Petitions. Students will receive credit for Law School courses taken
while in residence in either the Law School or the GSB. Joint degree students will have the
same distribution requirements in the Law School as other law students: the entire block of
required courses in the first year, including the elective course, and the Legal Profession
course and writing requirements, both of which are taken after the first year. All other law
school course work is elective. Students must complete the first year at the Law School
before taking any courses at the GSB that count toward the law degree. Nine quarters of fulltime
(nine or more course hours) residence in the Law School will be required. To satisfy the
residence requirement in any quarter, students may count all Law School courses taken
during the quarter and any of the four GSB courses used to meet the 105 credits course work
requirement. Once the degree requirements for the Law School are fulfilled, the student may
1 See the Announcements of the Law School, which is available online at
http://catalogs.uchicago.edu/law-folder/law.html.
2 Some suggested coordinated sequences of Law School courses are given in the Appendix to this
chapter.
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