Reply #21: "Doctorate" sounds ... so rarefied.

[Igel]

He has a J.D.

It's the typical terminal three-year professional degree that law students in the US get. Pretty much every lawyer is a "doctor" and has a "doctorate"; originally it authorized you to join a guild, and to teach. Hence "doctor", meaning "teacher". It qualifies you to ... teach in a J.D. program. In some states, I think, you need a J.D. to sit for the bar. Not in all. It's supposed to train you to be a good lawyer. FDR was a lawyer without a J.D., for example. Lots of J.D. graduates flunk the bar every year, to boot.

A J.D. not the equivalent of a Ph.D. And, yes, there are law programs with Ph.D.s, focusing not on the nuts and bolts of practicing law, but on research (a J.D. is a hybrid, much like an M.D. program). Those doctoral students will spend as much time working in just their specializations as Obama spent in his entire law-school career.

Most people are careful to distinguish between professional doctorates and research doctorates, and not to use the ambiguity to mislead.