Best Joint MBA/JD Program?

Graduate School Law School
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<p>I’m not aware of a top 5 school that offers a BA in business administration. {Note - MIT offers a BS in business, not a BA.} </p>

<p>But to attempt to answer your question, consider the salary figures for the graduates of the highly ranked undergrad business programs. In 2008, MIT Sloan undergrads earned an average starting salary of $64k, and Wharton undergrads earned $61k. In 2007, Berkeley Haas undergrads earned $57k. {Unfortunately, 2008 Haas figures have yet to be published.} Keep in mind that these are only salary figures, and do not count year-end bonuses, which in certain fields - i.e. investment banking or other financial positions - can be substantial.</p>

<p><a href=“http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation08.pdf[/url]”>http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation08.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/wharton/surveys/Wharton2008Report.pdf[/url]”>http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/wharton/surveys/Wharton2008Report.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>[Career</a> Center - What Can I Do With a Major In…?](<a href=“http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/BusAd.stm]Career”>http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/BusAd.stm)</p>

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<p>Opinions differ about this. Sallyawp - who actually has a MBA/JD from Penn - has written numerous posts about this very topic, so you may wish to search for some of her old posts or contact her directly.</p>

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<p>I apologize if this post repeats anything that other posters have said already.</p>

<p>I did indeed do my JD/MBA program at Penn/Wharton, so my comments are based on that application process and those degrees.</p>

<p>You will indeed have to apply separately to each of the programs. Your admission to each program will have to stand on its own – in other words, the folks who review your application typically don’t even know that you have applied to the other program. So, if you want to go to a T14 law school, you should count on having to have the requisite LSAT score and GPA for that law school, as well as good recommendations, a solid personal statement and a good resume. If you want to go to a top business school, you will need to have a solid GMAT score that puts you in the typical range for admission to that business school, you will need to have had a decent GPA at your undergraduate school (though the more work experience you have and the more success you’ve had in your career, the less important GPA will typically be) and you will typically need to have at least 4-6 years of work experience post-college graduation, which shows increasing responsibility, promotions and other measures of success in your career. You will also need recommendations from you employers – the more glowing the better, of course.</p>

<p>Yes, there are typically a couple of people who get into MBA programs straight out of college, but I wouldn’t go through the process of applying straight out of college hoping to be one of these few people. Typically, these students have already done something extraordinary in their lives that warrant their admission, like starting an immensely successful business during their undergrad years. These students also typically have GMAT scores and GPAs that are well above the average for admission to the business school to which they have applied. In this economy, when many out-of-work investment bankers are likely choosing to apply to business school, I suspect that competition for admission to business schools will only get tougher in the next few years.</p>

<p>I have definitely found that though I have chosen to be a practicing attorney throughout my career to date, I have often found that my business colleagues and clients give me the benefit of the doubt right away simply due to having the MBA (though I would certainly lose that credibility quickly if I wasn’t doing my job well) and I have had many opportunities to move over the “business side” at different points in my career. That said, there are a good number of lawyers from top law firms (in my experience, I’m thinking of the Wachtells, Sullivan & Cromwells and Cravaths of the world) who do have opportunities to move over to the “business side”. My MBA allows me to speak the same language as my colleagues, since I have an excellent understanding of accounting, modeling deals, managing a P&L and pricing analysis – all skills I first learned while obtaining my MBA. Again, these are skills you could learn without the MBA, but in my experience, I’ve not met a tremendous number of attorneys who are as fluent in these areas as they might wish to be. </p>

<p>All in all, though, plenty of business people and lawyers are plenty successful without ever having obtained an MBA. </p>

<p>In any event, I’ve found that my JD/MBA has provided me with more flexibility and benefits in my career than I could even have dreamed possible when I first contemplated applying for a dual degree. If I had to make the choice to obtain a dual degree now, knowing what I know today, I would indeed do it all over again.</p>

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<p>Hmm ok. Do many lawyers who switch over to the “business side” begin by going in house? Is that useful/efficient when looking to switch to the business side?</p>

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<p>wow sallyawp thank you for reply you are truly an asset!</p>

<p>would you suggest JD/MBA help attain general council for fortune 500 companies?</p>

<p>also is it better to be a big fish in a small pond (i.e. smaller lesser known school) or middle the road student at a larger more well known institution like HLS/wharton/stanford etc</p>

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<p>Some attorneys do indeed move to the “business side” after practicing law in house, though that is certainly not always the case. As I mentioned earlier, attorneys at some top law firms may also have opportunities to move to the business side when clients try to woo them away from their work as law firm attorneys. Please keep in mind that an attorney would typically have to practice for at least 5-6 years in a law firm before opportunities to move in house present themselves. Even then, in house opportunities are often much coveted, and are almost always very competitive.</p>

<p>Though you will often find that a general counsel of a Fortune 500 corporation has a JD/MBA, you will just as likely find that he or she does not. While it can certainly help one’s prospects (as evidenced by the significant number of GCs with JD/MBAs when compared to the much smaller number of people actually graduating with JD/MBAs), having a JD/MBA is certainly not a prerequisite for becoming a GC.</p>

<p>When choosing law schools and business schools, I would almost always recommend that you attend a top program, if possible. While there an incredible number of successful attorneys out there who didn’t attend T14 law schools and/or top business schools, in my opinion, you certainly open a lot of doors for yourself throughout your career by getting a name brand professional degree. If you know you ultimately want to be the GC of a Fortune 500 company (and good luck to you!) then research the publicly available information about those companies and determine for yourself what degrees the GCs hold and where they obtained them.</p>

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<p>Sally </p>

<p>again thank you for your insight</p>

<p>what is the best site to find these T14 schools you refer to?</p>

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<p>I’m sure you can find the most recent list of T14 law schools on this site in this forum if you search for it.</p>

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<p>What type of jobs do lawyers tend to get on the business side of the company? Is it possible to work your way up the ladder…and in most cases would your salary take another drop when switching to the business side?</p>

<p>Sorry if these questions are specific to each company, but I’m just thinking about in general.</p>

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<p>It should also be noted that, in recent years, the single largest recruiter of fresh Harvard Law School graduates hasn’t been a law firm, nor has it been a government agency or NGO. It was McKinsey, the most prominent management consulting firm in the world. Nor were those graduates hired to work as attorneys - in fact, I don’t even think they were required to pass the Bar. They were hired into stints as strategy consulting associates, with which they could parley into numerous high-level corporate management gigs. To be fair, some of those Harvard Law graduates probably were joint MBA/JD grads. But many (probably most) were not. Similarly, many investment banks recruited graduates directly out of top law schools (or at least, they used to do that). </p>

<p>In fact, a brilliant, albeit admittedly a highly risky, career strategy may have evinced itself. Law schools don’t care about work experience, whereas business schools do. And, let’s face it, most jobs that are available right out of undergrad are rather mediocre: they don’t pay very well and they don’t offer strong opportunities for career development. Hence, one way to leapfrog the system is to get into a top law school right out of undergrad - which you can do with top grades and LSAT scores but no work experience - and use the law school as a vehicle to get a top consulting or Ibanking job.* Such a career strategy parallels that of Robert Rubin, who freely admitted in his autobiography that he knew he never wanted to be a lawyer but simply figured that having a law degree - in his case, from Yale - would be useful for whatever else he chose to do in his life, which eventually meant rising to Chairman and Senior Partner of Goldman Sachs and then Secretary of the Treasury. Granted, his later tenure with Citigroup didn’t fare well for the company, but I doubt that he cares, as he reportedly made a total of $115 million during his decade at the company and I doubt he’ll give any of it back. He got his, and that’s all that matters to him. </p>

<p>*Note, it has always utterly bemused me as to why consulting firms would hire people at the associate level who have never actually held a real job before in their entire lives - or, perhaps more poignantly, why would clients then pay millions upon millions for advice from consultancies who employ associates who have never actually held a real job before. But hey, what can I say? Somehow it works: a seeming triumph of style over substance.</p>

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<p>so would undergrad degree really matter if your getting your JD/MBA? im currently finance banking in hopes to get into M&A firm.</p>

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<p>Hypothesis: Maybe consultants aren’t actually hired to give advice, or at least the advice that they are expected to give is all really really obvious. Maybe a consultant’s primary purpose is to affirm what everybody already knows, thereby giving it some pretense of external credibility when tough decisions have to be made?</p>

<p>e.g. head of HR department already knows he has to fire 20% of the staff, but doesn’t want to seem like the bad guy, so brings in BCG to tell him that he actually has to brings 30%. “I fought tooth and nail with these consultants to get that estimate down, and the CEO’s agreed to keep layoffs to (surprise) 20%.” ?</p>

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<p>Hmm does only McKinsey do this or all major consulting firms?</p>

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<p>My experience has always been that when consulting and investment banking firms hire on campus at law schools, whether or not they are hiring JD/MBA candidates, they do typically much prefer the degree candidates who have pre-law school work experience.</p>

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<p>can i start law school then add the MBA for a Joint JD/MBA druing the first semester of law school?</p>

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<p>There are some schools where you can apply for the MBA during your first year of law school, but again, you will have to fill out an entire application and your application will be decided upon on its own merits. In other words, you will likely still need at least 4-6 years of pre-business school experience and your recommendations (typically from former employers), essays, GPA and GMAT score will all have the meet the business school’s criteria. </p>

<p>By doing so, you do set yourself up for a non-traditional program, since typically, in a 4-year JD/MBA program, you spend your entire first year doing your first year of business school (with the same cohort throughout the process), you spend your second year doing your first year of law school (while all of your business school friends from your cohort are finishing up and graduating), and then you spend your final two years doing mixed coursework. You typically do a business school internship after your first year of business school, a legal internship after your first year of law school, and then you choose what to do after your third year of mixed classes (though if you want to be a lawyer, at least for a little while, you would typically choose to be a summer associate at a law firm during that summer after your first year of mixed classes). </p>

<p>Many law firms actually give a year of class credit to JD/MBA graduates from traditional programs (in other words, you join your law firm with 2nd year class standing and pay – a very nice boost). I am uncertain how law firms will treat students from these new 3-year JD/MBA programs. I suspect that the law firms will no longer give advanced standing to students from these programs.</p>

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<p>Thank you sally,</p>

<p>Im currently working and going to school part time. I have moved up in ranks at my current position to supervisor over a team of inside salesmen for a security company after starting as a door to door salesman. Many of the people i oversee consider this thier career. does this time count as “Pre-Business School Experience”? i go to school in the mornings 15 credits and work 50+ hours a week.</p>

<p>thank you again for your insight</p>

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<p>hey guys i’ve also been wondering about this. i’m going to be a freshman next year at UCI but i’m considering doing a JD / MBA in the future, maybe right out of college. i have a few questions tho.</p>

<p>how useful is JD / MBA for a mechanical / aerospace engineering major? (is it considered poor in the field or are you looked at the same way a pre-law –> JD graduate is looked at?) </p>

<p>would it be better in terms of pay if i went on to get a PhD in aerospace engineering and worked for NASA or if i got a JD / MBA and went to work for Boeing or Lockheed? (or does Boeing even hire JD / MBA’s? haha)</p>

<p>is it possible to work (full time or close to it) and still finish in 4 years? and also, is UCLA considered a good school to do both in? i’ve looked at the rankings and UCLA isn’t in the top 10 but it seems pretty good…and it seems like a name most would recognize, in CA at least haha. do you figure people in other states / countries would also recognize UCLA?</p>

<p>XD some of the questions might seem silly but im pretty clueless haha i just recently learned about the JD / MBA programs when i was looking into college majors</p>

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<p>I’d assume that Lockheed and Boeing would pay more considering NASA is government-run and gets all their good technology from Lockheed and Boeing anyway.</p>

<p>I don’t know if they even hire JD/MBAs either, but if they do I really doubt it would be for an engineering job, so if you like engineering, it probably won’t help much.</p>

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<p>is it better to go to a better law school and then attend their MBA program or vice versa?</p>