2025 Best Legal Professions Doctor's Degree Schools in California

Legal Professions is of the hottest doctor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #2 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.

In 2025, College Factual analyzed 2 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Legal Professions Doctor's Degree Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 3,986 doctor's degrees in legal professions during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Average Earnings

To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their doctor's degree from the school. After all, your doctor's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.

Other Factors We Consider

In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:

• Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to legal professions students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of legal professions students who choose to seek a doctor's degree at the school.
• Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
• Student Debt - How easy is it for legal professions to pay back their student loans after receiving their doctor's degree.
• Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized legal professions related body.

Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for legal professions students working on their doctor's degree.

More Ways to Rank Legal Professions Schools

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Legal Professions Doctor's Degree Schools in California ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Legal Professions in California

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a doctor's degree in legal professions.

Top California Schools for a Doctorate in Legal Professions

1

University of California - Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

338 Annual Graduates

University of California - Berkeley is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a doctor's degree in legal professions. UC Berkeley is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Berkeley.More information about a doctorate in legal professions from University of California - Berkeley

2

University of La Verne
La Verne, CA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

48 Annual Graduates

University of La Verne is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a doctor's degree in legal professions. Located in the large suburb of La Verne, ULV is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.More information about a doctorate in legal professions from University of La Verne

Best Legal Professions Colleges in the Far Western US Region

Explore all the Best Legal Professions Schools in the Far Western US Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Washington	27	514
Oregon	27	408
Nevada	25	169
Hawaii	23	109

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Legal Professions Majors to Study

Major	Annual Graduates
Law	3,975
Legal Research	9
Legal Professions (Other)	2

Majors Similar to Legal Professions

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Homeland Security, Law Enforcement & Firefighting	10

Notes and References

• The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
• The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
• Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to The wub. More about our data sources and methodologies.