UE confers Juris Doctor degree to SC justices

The University of the East (UE) has conferred the Juris Doctor (JD) degree to Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Japar Dimaampao and retired Associate Justice Dante Tinga in ceremonies held at the Grand Ballroom of the Rizal Park Hotel in Manila on April 25.

Dimaampao and Tinga earned their respective Bachelor of Laws diplomas from UE in 1987 and 1960. Both served as faculty members of the UE College of Law, while Tinga became dean for two terms from 1988 to 1992 and from 2014 to 2018.

The SC justices also earned their undergraduate degrees from UE, namely Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and Associate in Arts major in English and History in 1982 and 1956, respectively.

Dimaampao, only the second Muslim to be appointed to the High Court in SC history, and Tinga led the 505 Juris Doctor conferees from 1960 to 2016 batches of UE Bachelor of Laws graduates.

The JD conferment program was attended by UE President Zosimo Battad and other high-ranking university officials.

“We congratulate the newly conferred Juris Doctor graduates of the UE College of Law. This conferment ceremony recognizes JD as equivalent to a doctoral degree in non-law disciplines for purposes of appointment or employment, ranking, and compensation," Battad said.

The longtime Bachelor of Laws degree of the UE College of Law was upgraded to JD starting with the 2017 batch of UE College of Law graduates.

In 2020, UE College of Law produced its latest Bar topnotcher and first JD graduate to do so: 2019 UE valedictorian Princess Fatima Parahiman, who placed second in the said exams. In the 2022 Bar exams, UE produced 242 new lawyers from among its JD graduates.

Applications are now open for the UE College of Law’s JD program for the first semester of school year 2024-2025. Interested parties may find out more about the program here: https://www.ue.edu.ph/mla/college-of-law-curricular-offerings/