I should add that we're starting to see some reverse movement in the US legal profession on this stuff, glacially speaking. The 3-year requirement for American

I should add that we're starting to see some reverse movement in the US legal profession on this stuff, glacially speaking. The 3-year requirement for American Bar Association-accredited law schools has come increasingly into question during the past few years, partly a result of the current perceived crisis of historically high unemployment and lack of practical skills among (typically heavily-in-debt) law school graduates. A reduction from 3 to 2 years is foreseeable. In which case it may become marginally tougher to maintain that the degree should have the word 'Doctor' in it. Edit: Another thing we're starting to hear in conjunction with calls to reduce the 3-year program is to institutionalize something like the 'devilling' that you speak of, i.e. to replace the third academic year with an apprenticeship year.