<p>Would getting a JD be helpful at all in business? Such as in a JD/MBA type degree?
To be honest I’m not super set on being a lawyer. Are businesses a little less strict on name prestige of the law school than law firms are?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No. If you’re interested in business, do not get a JD. A JD is useless for business except in a few niche fields. If you’re interested in business, get a job in the field. Business experience -> MBA. It generally does not work the other direction.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Don’t go to law school.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>See above.</p>
<p>@DrewlSantaCruz: a JD can help you in Business, a dual JD-MBA would be another good chip as well. The issue is that it would be extremely expensive and so if you’re a go-getter then why not do it? Just realize the added expense of the dual degree and remember that the premium for the higher schools is often for the networking experiences amongst the alumni, not just the prestige of the name of the school.</p>
<p>But yeah, I would just to an MBA.</p>
<p>Friends daughter graduated from St. Johns (NY) Law. Not highly ranked. Got a job pretty quickly in NYC. Then moved to another NYC firm. Doing quite well.</p>
<p>Not everyone looks at where you went to school. I’m sure there were many other applicants form NYU, Columbia, Fordham, etc. applying. </p>
<p>Takes many apps, but only one offer!!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Everything LazyKid said about law also applies to business. If law is the most concerned about degree pedigree, business is #2. A JD/MBA from Miami will not get you into the big firms (of the six figure variety). A JD/MBA (or just an MBA) from Harvard will.</p>
<p>“Not everyone looks at where you went to school.”</p>
<p>Of course they do. There are firms that hire individuals from a variety of local law schools, but I don’t know of any legal employer that actually doesn’t care where an entry-level grad went to law school. She would be very unlikely to get the same results in NYC with a degree from some California law school that’s a peer to St. John’s according to the rankings.</p>
<p>Hanna’ You are too literal!!
I did not mean the employer does not read the “education” line on a resume to determine where someone graduated from. I meant not everyone looks at it as a be all end all to hiring. There are other factors!</p>
<p>I was traveling on business this week, and met another lawyer in the airport. I was mentioning that DS (mid-range student in a top regional law school like U-Miami) was going to be graduating but the job market was terrible. (DS would be thrilled to find an entry level legal job at $50K-$60K.) She then told me that her D had graduated from Harvard Law last year. Her D was employed with a financial firm, but said that some of her classmates had not yet found jobs! Either they were not offered jobs, or their offers were rescinded due to the economy. Her D told her that the classmates were pursuing further graduate degrees since they didn’t get job offers.</p>
<p>Please, believe the posters about the job market. Legal jobs are very hard to find. Good legal jobs are even scarcer.</p>
<p>If you can’t find a job out of Harvard Law, that’s just sad. Such a waste of an opportunity.</p>
<p>That’s very true. I mean you go to Harvard Law you become President.</p>
<p>no, going to Harvard Law won’t give you fame and power, but it is damn close to guaranteeing you a BigLaw job paying six figures. If you fail to get a lawyer job out of Harvard Law, that speaks to your individual problems and lack of preparation, more than anything else.</p>
<p>Lazykid, that was right in 2006, but it is not right today. Since 2009, there have been folks who kept their noses clean and fell through the cracks. Not tons of them, but they are definitely out there. It’s a whole new world.</p>
<p>That’s true. However, Harvard Law students still have better career outlooks and opportunities compared to most other law students. </p>
<p>It is an incredible opportunity to attend Harvard Law. If you try hard, get decent grades 1L, network, and bid smart at OCI, you most likely won’t have much problem.</p>
<p>Most of times, people I know who struck out at OCI coming out of HLS, Columbia, or NYU are the kids who didn’t bid smart: they went for DC, Chicago, or San Francisco Biglaw, while those cities were going through $hit show in legal market. Nowadays, if you don’t bid on large NYC Biglaw firms at OCI, you are asking for trouble no matter what law school you attend.</p>
<p>"Starting Salaries of Graduates Employed Full-time (Class of 2009)</p>
<p>25th percentile private sector starting salary $85,000
Median private sector starting salary $112,000
75th percentile private sector starting salary $140,000
Percent in the private sector who reported salary information 32%
This kind of chart is misleading. Honestly, you are over-analyzing this stuff, too far."</p>
<p>“Look at it objectively. Like I said, in law, salaries are 'bimodal salary distribution”. Those who get BigLaw ticket make 160k starting out, and most of other lawyers who didn’t make a cut at BigLaw will make like 35-50k a year starting out, if they are lucky to get jobs at all."</p>
<p>Not to be too picky, but this analysis isn’t right. The 85k isn’t a mean, it’s a quartile. That means that 25% of respondents made under $85k (maybe way under?) but 75% made over $85k. And half made between $85k and $140k, which is not bad, really.
So that part is not that worrisome. However, the part that is alarming is that they only got about a 30% response. We have no way of knowing what the non respondents are like. They might all be unemployed… so the low response rate is what makes these figures specious.</p>
<p>Those numbers come from a very different economy, and from a time when schools have been caught fudging employment stats. As you point out too, they are statistically unreliable. It is more likely that students who are employed well are going to respond to a survey of this kind. This includes students who get employment with family firms. Does the survey include students who are employed in nonlegal jobs? Numbers alone just don’t tell the whole story.</p>
<p>All anyone has to do is go to visit a law school (any law school under the T14…or to be generous, the T25), and ask the 2L and 3L students what their employment prospects look like. Ask them if they knew anyone in the graduating class, and how they’re employed. (Their 1L students may still be vested in fantasies.) </p>
<p>Before sending in a deposit check, definitely go to the school that you’re considering and interview the students. Ask one of them to show you their “job board” if their placement office has a web site for job postings. It will be an eye-opener.</p>