Law Degrees and Their Meanings
Copyright © 2015 By Chinua Asuzu
The undergraduate degree in law is Bachelor of Laws (LLB). LLB is spelt LLB or LL.B., never L.L.B.
This strange abbreviation comes from Latin. The Latin word lex means ‘law.’ The plural of lexis legum. Creating an abbreviation for a plural, especially in Latin, is done by doubling the first letter of the noun. An example is cc for copies, and pp for pages; hence LL for laws.
‘LLB’ stands for Legum Baccalaureus, Latin for ‘Bachelor of Laws.’ Your degree is a Bachelor of Laws, not Bachelor in Law, not Bachelor of Law, and not Bachelor of Law and Letters or Bachelor of Law and Logic!
LLM (or more rarely LL.M., but never L.L.M.) stands for Legum Magister, Latin for Master of Laws. LLD (or more rarely LL.D., but never L.L.D.) stands for Legum Doctor, Latin for Doctor of Laws.
The discipline, law, is already expressed inside these titles. So you cannot have “LLB in Law,” or “LLM in Law,” or “LLD in Law”—just LLB, LLM, or LLD. Could it conceivably have been an LLB in Nuclear Physics? Please review your résumés.
JD (Juris Doctor) is the American equivalent of an LLB. An SJD (Doctor of Juridical Science, Doctor of the Science of Law, or Scientiae Juridicae Doctor) is a research doctorate in law. It originated from the US and is offered in that country as well as in Canada.
Just because your law degree is titled a ‘Bachelor of Laws,’ you didn’t “study laws”; you “studied law.”
By the way, folks, the plural of JSC (Justice of the Supreme Court) is JJSC (Justices of the Supreme Court), not JSCs. The plural of J (for Judge) is JJ (Judges); for JCA (Justice of the Court of Appeal), it’s JJCA (Justices of the Court of Appeal).
Chinua Asuzu is Africa’s leading legal-writing scholar. He’s the plain-language maven whose works include Brief-Writing Masterclass; Fair Hearing in Nigeria; Judicial Writing: A Benchmark for the Bench; and Learned Writing. Some of Chinua’s works are available on amazon.com/author/chinuaasuzu.
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A jurisprudent, Chinua teaches legal writing at law firms and law schools, and at private and public forums. Chinua’s expertise spans the gamut of legal writing: academic legal writing, brief-writing, business writing, contract drafting, judicial writing, legislative drafting, and litigation drafting.
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