J.D. stands for Juris Doctorate. It is the the law degree earned by students who have satisfactorily completed a course of education from an institution, usually accredited by the American Bar Association. The general curriculum of the J.D. is designed to give students the basic skills and knowledge to become lawyers. In the United States, lawyers are rarely addressed by the term "Doctor". Rather, practicing attorneys indicate their status by placing the abbreviation "Esq." after their name.

LL.M. is an abbreviation of the Latin Legum Magister, which means Master of Laws. The plural form of a word in Latin is abbreviated by repeating the letter "L", therefore "LL." is short for "laws." Legum is the possessive plural form of the Latin word lex, which means "specific laws", as opposed to the more general concept embodied in the word jus, from which the word juris and the modern English word "justice" are derived. As such, the designation of an LL.M. degree is usually accompanied by the particular field of law in whch the degree was obtained, e.g. LL.M. in Taxation.

The LL.M. (Master of Laws) degree is a postgraduate law, usually obtained by completing a one-year full-time program. The LL.M. is a higher academic degree than the J.D. degree. Students and professionals frequently pursue the LL.M. to gain expertise in a specialized field of law, for example in the area of tax law or international law. It indicates that a lawyer has acquired advanced, specialized legal training, and is qualified to work in a multinational legal environment. Lawyers are not required to hold an LL.M. degree, and many do not choose to obtain one. An LL.M. degree by itself generally does not qualify graduates to practice law; in most cases, LL.M. students must first obtain a professional degree in law, e.g the Juris Doctor (J.D.) in the United States, and pass a bar exam before they can practice law.