Kagan noted that one of the founders of the discipline, Judge Richard A. Posner of the 7th federal circuit, does not have an economics degree, although among the movement’s leaders, “that’s rare.”
“When you’re at the intersection of fields like that, it helps to have training in both,” Kagan said.
Joseph P. Newhouse ‘63, who is chairman of the Committee on Higher Degrees in Health Policy, wrote in an e-mail last week that he knows of no other school that has established a joint program between law and health policy, “although I wouldn’t want to stake my life on the issue that we are the first.” So far, one student has applied to the joint program, Newhouse wrote.
While the new program will allow students one less semester of law school work, it might not put students on an accelerated track toward a Ph.D. “Credit decisions will be made by the individual program,” Shepsle wrote in an e-mail.
Meanwhile, joint degree students—although they will spend five semesters in residence at the Law School instead of six—“will graduate having met all the same J.D. requirements as our other students,” HLS Assistant Academic Dean Catherine Claypoole said in an interview last month.
And joint degree students whose doctoral dissertations cover subjects related to legal scholarship can use part of their Ph.D writing to satisfy the Law School’s writing requirement, Claypoole said.
FAS becomes the fourth Harvard school to establish a joint degree arrangement with HLS—and the Design School could become the fifth. Since the early 1970s, students have been able to earn joint degrees in law and business within four years—as opposed to the five that would be required to satisfy HLS and Business School requirements separately. Law students can add a masters of public policy or masters of public administration/international development degree from the Kennedy School in four years instead of the standard five. And with just one extra summer of coursework, law students can earn a masters degree from the School of Public Health.
—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.