Hamline University was the first college in the United States to create a joint JD/Master of Fine Arts degree program. The university says the goal of the program is to to produce lawyers who have the ability to examine social and political issues through fiction and creative nonfiction writing. Hamline School of Law Dean Don Lewis said that "to be successful, lawyers and other leaders must be able to think creatively and use disciplined imagination to solve problems."
Programs that offer a Master of Public Health, Master of Business Administration, Master of Fine Arts and a variety of Doctor of Philosophy programs have partnered with law schools to allow a student to pursue both interests. However, not all schools offer such degrees. According to BeattheGMAT.com, "Not all business schools work together with law schools to create joint programs, so you'll want to carefully evaluate the schools to which you're planning to apply. Usually, there's a specific liaison for the joint program working out of either the law school or the business school admissions office."
The average length of time needed to complete a joint JD program is four years. However, some schools allow students to graduate sooner. Stanford University, for example, offers joint degree programs in 20 subject areas. The school says that its students can graduate in 18 months to two years less than the time required in similar programs.
The cost of a joint JD degree program can be high. For example, at the University of Miami, students enrolled full-time in the School of Law (12 to 16 credits) were charged $18,709 per semester for the 2009-2010 academic year. Students enrolled in the School of Law for 11 or fewer credits were charged $1,633 per credit for law course credits.
Hamline University's joint JD/ MFA program cost $31,600 for full-time students per year in the 2009-2010 school year. The cost for a part-time student was $22,000. However, many students receive financial aid, such as scholarships or loan assistance.
Marlon Greenwood pursued the joint JD-MBA program at Florida International University and believes that a joint degree will benefit him in a variety of ways. "I hope to eventually run my own business and, in my opinion, a solid background in both business and the law will provide me with the educational foundation I need to succeed," he said. "A lawyer starting a practice needs to have a good business plan coupled with a good understanding of numbers in terms of how to finance and budget a firm's operations."
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale student Sameer S. Vohra pursued a JD/MD with the hopes of combining medicine and law. "Just the ability to immediately impact a person's life through their health, I don't believe, has any sort of equal measure in today's society," he said. "At the same time, there is more to medicine and more to health care than single-patient interaction, and there is a lot of good that can be done through policy and the law."