Calling lawyers “Dr” is still non-standard practice in the US, regardless of race or ethnicity. Esquire, or Esq., gets the job done by saying you are a lawyer.
African Americans value the title “doctor” and “Dr.” earned through completing terminal research degrees. We use it and “professor” more frequently professionally and academically due to having our achievements, educational or otherwise, ignored, belittled, and attacked for centuries. Due to this past, we often find some Whites’ leveling and familiar tendencies offensive This means there is a cultural difference regarding the importance of earned titles.
However, as someone who has taught at the top HBCU in the country and is getting his Ph.D. from there in the fall, it is highly unusual in the Black community for a lawyer who only holds a Juris Doctor (J.D.), aka the Doctor of Jurisprudence, to be called doctor or to insist on it. Even if they are professors without other degrees, like a Ph.D. in another field, they are much more likely to be called “professors” unless their university has a special rule, which would be odd. Still, an institution could, of course, do an odd thing.
Now, here’s the thing the J.D. in America used to be called the Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.). As late as the 1960s, US law schools still used LL.B. The J.D. is considered a professional degree. It is a common understanding that a doctor refers to someone who has conducted significant accredited and supervised research in their field or practices medicine. That is someone who has earned an advanced research degree or a postgraduate medical degree.
For a long time, physicians and practitioners of medicine did not use the term because “doctor” referred to professors as it came from the Latin “doceo,” meaning “I teach.” The continued influence of “doceo” can be seen in the modern word “docent”. The ambiguity in using the term for medical practitioners varies between countries. For example, in the UK, surgeons are not called doctors but use the common Mr/Ms/Mrs instead. In contrast, UK physicians are now called “doctors.” In the UK, a law degree is still called a Bachelor of Laws, not a Juris Doctor, but J.Ds. from the US and LL.Bs. from the UK are treated as equivalents in both countries.
While the American Bar Association dropped its objections to using the title doctor and started promoting it to an extent, society has not played along in part because people, including many lawyers, are wary of confusion and of the modern ABA’s tendency was self-aggrandizement and overreach. For example, the Wall Street Journal Style Guide explicitly says not to use “doctor” for lawyers. The Economist also takes a stand against it for US/UK lawyers. Some American lawyers are jealous of lawyers in some European countries who are called doctors. However, this also is an issue in Europe as the Bologna Process – named after the University of Bologna, where the first medieval “doctorates” were conferred – is creating frameworks for degree compatibility across Europe, meaning a bachelor’s in one country is similar in standards to one in another.
Nevertheless, anyone with a three-year bachelor’s degree in Italy is called a “dottore/dottoressa” or doctor. Yes, you read that right. This, of course, is a problem if you want clarity about someone’s academic credential based on their title, so Italy introduced… “Masterly Doctor” (dottore/dottoressa magistrale) for someone with a master’s degree, and those with a Ph.D. equivalent are (“dottore/dottoressa di ricerca”) or simply “research-doctor.” In Malta, lawyers don’t use the title doctor when abroad; even domestically, they are going in the opposite direction of the American Bar Association.
Now back to law degrees in America. Law is different in that the J.D. is the lesser degree. In the United States, the law master’s degree, the Master of Laws (LL.M.), aka the Legum Magister, is ranked hirer than the J.D. Often, a full law professor needs an LL.M., but not always. But an LL.M. proves you are a trained specialist in a particular legal field, not simply the general practice of law.
Additionally, there is an even higher degree, the Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.), which involves the research and mastery associated with a Ph.D., and a lawyer with an S.J.D. is called a doctor without reservation because they have a recognized Ph.D. equivalent. I asked my father, an older Black lawyer, if he would call a lawyer with only a J.D. a doctor, and he said, “No, that is strange.” He doesn’t care what the ABA says. Is that his opinion, sure, but he is in the clear majority and is following standard practice, not insisting on a confusing innovation.
Racism is terrible; not everything involving Black people or individuals is about race. You don’t have to call a J.D.-only lawyer “Dr. John Smith” to be kind.
Either way, kindness should not lead to dishonesty, and calling a lawyer “doctor” remains a rare, unusual, and non-standard practice. Solidarity doesn’t require any pretense that it is otherwise.
Receipts
A post against using doctor for lawyers, from a lawyer https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-those-juris-doctor-degrees-called-alexander-whitaker/
A post in favor of using doctor for lawyers, from a lawyer https://www.abajournal.com/voice/article/the-curious-case-of-why-lawyers-are-not-called-dr
A post against all except medical doctors https://abovethelaw.com/2011/11/any-lawyer-who-calls-himself-doctor-like-a-ph-d-should-get-punched-in-the-mouth/
The Economist “Trust Me, I’m a doctor of law” https://www.economist.com/johnson/2013/03/01/trust-me-im-a-doctor-of-law
New York Times article on Italy’s undergraduate doctors https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/19/world/europe/how-noble-is-it-to-be-a-dottore.html
Times of Malta “I am not a doctor why call myself one?” https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140111/local/-I-am-not-a-doctor-so-why-call-myself-one-.502162