<p>My undergrad school hosted a law school event for students on our campus who hope to go to law school. They had people in the admissions department from NYU law, Seton Hall Law, Quinnipiac Law and two other schools (one in Massachusetts & one in Rhode Island- forgot the names, wasn’t really that interested in them lol). Anyway, a student asked this question. A lot of the people there (on admissions) actually agreed that they do NOT like for students to go to grad school before law school because then it makes you look like a degree collector which turns them off. I don’t really know much about grad school before law school but I just thought this might help. 
Good luck :).</p>
<p>A lawyer with foreign language skills, at least at the firm where I worked at were usually assigned the “cooler” cases and they got to travel the most. My firm was one of the many firms in the Vivendi case and the French-speaking lawyers and paralegals were the ones traveling to Paris for depositions and thus got a whole chunk of billable hours that the other lawyers were struggling to get. So, unless lskinner has worked at a prestigious law firm himself or been a hiring partner, he can’t say that “none of them were able to use their language skills to improve their career options.” This claim is bogus.</p>
<p>That is what I have been trying to say all along, and I would add that it also makes sense to me that a person with a grounding in the culture of another country will also be more effective. Thank you for the concrete examples, wahoomb.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I worked at two different BIGLAW firms during my first 5 years out of law school and most of my law school classmates worked at BIGLAW. I’m not sure how you define “prestigious,” but I’m talking about the kind of firms where associates now start at $150k or more. My statement was based on my own experience. I concede the possibility that someone else’s experience may be different.</p>
<p>Let me ask you this: Do you know of any attorneys who were specifically hired because of their ability to speak French?</p>
<p>I have talked to two more schools since my other posting, and not just the law department but also their graduate schools in Russian Studies. They all are able to give quite specific examples and tell remarkably similar stories. Well, not so remarkable I suppose since they are telling me about the same students independently. The grad school has no reason to embellish, their interest would be better served having my S come for a PhD rather than focus on law school. But instead they were enthusiastic about the enhanced opportunities having the law degree gives their Russian Studies graduates. In addition, I have talked with two people here on CC that are lawyers (the original contact was because their kids are interested in Tulane and it came up in PM’s back and forth) that also knew of cases like the one mentioned above, except one was specifically for Russian. Worked for a NYC law firm in their Moscow office for some time and then was moved back to NYC.</p>
<p>At this point I am quite satisfied that it is as good a career path, if not better, than other options. BTW, almost all of these Russian programs have generous fellowships that cover full tuition and usually have a $15,000 or so stipend on top of that. Now to be clear, that wouldn’t be for all 3 years of law school, but it would cover somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 in most cases. They don’t charge double tuition either. Once you are in any program at the school, you are charged whichever tuition is higher (of course), but can then apply these fellowships against it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why would anyone other than maybe the US government care if the Russian speaker was born in America?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, what you initially said was that “law school can be excellent preparation for a lot of careers” and that there were “real needs in the marketplace” for people with dual degrees, substantiated by statements from people whose job it is to sell people on such degrees and the transparently fallacious reasoning that if someone with a JD/MA gets a job, it must be because of the joint degree. Neither of those statements is supported by a story demonstrating that fluency in a foreign language (not necessarily another degree; how many of those lawyers had degrees in francophone studies?) can occasionally be an advantage for lawyers (though not always; like lskinner, I know plenty of lawyers who are fluent in foreign languages but never had it matter).</p>
<p>Prestigious law firm as defined by Vault, defined by our clients, defined by what our first associates made their first year out of law school (160k + bonus), located on Penn Avenue, D.C…can’t really get any more specific than this.</p>
<p>“Let me ask you this: Do you know of any attorneys who were specifically hired because of their ability to speak French?”</p>
<p>No, I knew of an attorney who kept his job in part because he spoke French and two who got very nice bonuses for speaking Spanish (they were working on an oil case in Ecuador) and working over 2000+ hours for all the billable work related to this matter. Additionally, in hiring summers, we were looking for a Portuguese-speaking summer. We consequently hired her, not only b/c of this, obviously, but because she was a hard-working summer on top of it. </p>
<p>Everyone’s experience will be different so you shouldn’t just assume that because in your firm, language skills were not important, that this holds true across all firms of the same caliber.</p>
<p>They care if the speaker is born in America for any number of reasons. Citizenship for one thing. Another is cultural values. Just depends on the position and what they expect.</p>
<p>I never said that people got the jobs because of the dual degrees, you are misinterpreting me. I am saying that as far as I can tell, people that have gone this route are highly employable and employed. Two different things, the latter being more valuable. Also, as I have said, the specificity in these conversations I have had, and now the independent departments telling me the exact same things tells me it is accurate. Be a cynic, I really don’t care. I have a fair amount of data now, and you have nothing other than bricks to throw. Hope you enjoy that. Funny that you fall prey to your own fallacious reasoning at the end. Just because you know fluent lawyers that never had it matter doesn’t mean it couldn’t have mattered. Maybe they didn’t pursue positions that took advantage of it. Also, it isn’t just a matter of speaking the language, although that is crucial. It is also important to understand their customs and culture in many cases. Asian cultures and Russians fall very much into this category.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Fine, and I worked for two prestigious firms.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s not just my firm, but also other classmates from law school. But I agree with you to an extent: One should not necessarily assume that one’s experiences are universal. So you should not assume that language skills are significantly helpful based on your experiences.</p>
<p>In any event, my experiences are consistent with common sense.</p>
<p>First, for high stakes litigation and transactions, it costs very little to hire interpreters compared to the overall legal budget. </p>
<p>Also, it’s goes against everything I know about how the market works. If you really could turn wheat into gold by starting with a typical law degree and adding foreign language skills, pretty quickly the market would be flooded with JDs who speak Russian or Chinese or whatever.</p>
<p>I can see temporary shortages developing, but over a longer term, a situation is unlikely to develop where a JD can dramatically improve his job prospects by learning a new language.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again, outside of the government, I don’t think most employers would care. If Russian fluency were really crucial to the job, being from America could be a disadvantage, if anything. I would probably rather have somebody with a law degree from Moscow State than an American who wrote a thesis on Dostoyevsky. And there are probably enough of the former to satisfy what demand there is.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Which doesn’t mean there are “real needs in the marketplace” for the joint degree, just that some people who have the joint degree happen to have jobs. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And what everyone is saying is that you uncritically accept what they tell you because it’s what you want to hear. Having two “independent” salesmen sell you on the same product with the same lines doesn’t mean you’ve verified the accuracy of their claims. How do you know that they’re giving you an accurate picture of all the graduates and not just picking a couple successful examples? Is there any reason to think they couldn’t have gotten the jobs without the masters degree? Do you even know that these jobs are as great as they seem? Plenty of crappy schools could somewhat honestly tell you that their grads work on major cases and deals for leading international firms, neglecting to mention that they’re doing so as contract attorneys reviewing endless documents in a windowless basement. But I guess it’s better to be blissfully ignorant than “cynical”.</p>
<p>Well, since you didn’t have the conversations and don’t have a clue what you are talking about, your opinion is frankly worthless in this case. There are only a handful of people that do this every year and they were able to run down the results of virtually every grad for the last few years with me. As far as their working conditions, you are just determined to believe the worst. No problem. But to say that the fact that every grad in this area that hasn’t pursued academics as a career (a few are working on their PhD’s because they want to teach) has found a good position “doesn’t mean there are “real needs in the marketplace” for the joint degree, just that some people who have the joint degree happen to have jobs” is absurd. When you have a nearly 100% match, I will take those odds over various alternatives.</p>
<p>Your two salesperson scenario is also flawed. I first call the law school, and their person gives me the specific information in a fair amount of detail. Where the person is working and what kind of job it was, when they know the latter. In some cases even what their starting salary was. I then call the Russian Studies department and a different person tells me virtually the same information. This is simple hard data, not playing up some features of a product. For two different people in different departments to be able to give me that kind of information is pretty convincing. You can keep believing in the grassy knoll if you prefer.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree. There are lots and lots of foreign attorneys who come to the US for LLM degrees and who then get admitted in US jurisdictions. Generally they have been studying English since elementary school and they speak it very well. And of course they speak their native language really well too.</p>
<p>If a (BIGLAW) law firm really needed to hire someone for language skills, there’s no reason not to hire one of these people. It’s not like the law firm is the State Department and all workers need to pass security checks. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with this too. You can’t rely on what the law schools themselves claim. I’m glad to know that fallenchemist has chatted with actual attorneys, even if they are just anonymous people on the internet. That’s a step in the right direction.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that the education trap is extremely seductive. It lets you defer entry into the brutal job market of the real world, promises greatly expanded employment opportunities, and lets you spend a few years doing challenging work feeling that you are bettering yourself. All for no money down.</p>
<p>Anyway, common sense says that with the possible exception of a place like Yale, a certain percentage of graduates of one of these programs will not find suitable employment. Either because they do poorly; or because they are not presentable; or some other reason. fallenchemist seems to think that percentage is zero. But how could he know it? If the schools themselves made that claim, they are almost surely lying. My guess is that these schools are playing up their success stories and not mentioning the failures. </p>
<p>That’s the key question for any professional program – what is the placement rate?</p>
<p>I will say it one more time. The number of people in these joint programs is very small. In any given year 3-6 is normal. They ran through virtually every person with me (not by name, obviously) and how they fared after graduating. For these four programs, at least,every person had a job after graduating except the couple that decided to stay for a PhD. If they are liars, they are very good at it and they coordinated it between departments. You really have to love conspiracy theories to believe that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think this is a good point too. Lots of 0Ls seem to be very interested in “international law,” but what exactly is international law? What specific tasks does an international lawyer actually do? </p>
<p>When I worked in BIGLAW, I was involved in a decent number of international litigations. For one thing, international business travel is not very glamorous when you actually do it. It’s not like a vacation where you have a lot of time to explore and experience the place you are visiting. Instead, you spend most of your time working. And eating expensive but unhealthy foods. And staying in an expensive hotel room which is nowhere near as comfortable as your own room at home.</p>
<p>You also do the same legal research as with domestic cases except that there are some international issues. When you get into it, researching the Hague Convention on Service of Process is not particularly more stimulating than any other legal research.</p>
<p>You have to deal with the same annoying bosses and co-workers. In short, the only real positive about “international law” is that you get to impress people a bit by mentioning in conversation that you just got back from London. Or Toronto. Or Dubai. </p>
<p>Even so, lots of young law students are very interested in doing “international law.” Which is another part of the reason I am very skeptical that you can enhance your career prospects by doing this sort of joint degree program. Usually job prospects are significantly worse in areas which are considered sexy. </p>
<p>Actually, when I hung my shingle a few years back, I looked at a lot of possible areas of practice one or two of which involved international organizations or tribunals. My plan was pretty simple: To start by doing pro bono work, use that as a way to get experience, and then use my experience to make money. What I quickly discovered was that it was difficult or impossible to break into these areas. I gather that there are just too many people who want to do “international law” competing for the work. And the people who do it jealously guard their turf.</p>
<p>“For one thing, international business travel is not very glamorous when you actually do it. It’s not like a vacation where you have a lot of time to explore and experience the place you are visiting. Instead, you spend most of your time working. And eating expensive but unhealthy foods. And staying in an expensive hotel room which is nowhere near as comfortable as your own room at home.”</p>
<p>This sounds about right. I remember the countless times I went to Paris and London for depositions, I couldn’t tell where I was, the hotels all looked the same inside.</p>
<p>I also do agree that undergraduates SHOULD take at least a year or two off before going to law school. It’s so obvious when a summer has never had a job before—they embarrass themselves sometimes, they can be 24, but act like teenagers around partners and not treat their secretaries with the utmost respect (a fatal mistake)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I doubt it takes a conspiracy. Just a piece of paper with the answers to frequently asked questions about the program. Anyway, what’s the alternative? For the most part, humanities degrees are not all that marketable. Nor are law degrees unless obtained from a top institution. It’s hard to believe that you can combine the two and turn lead into gold.</p>
<p>Besides, everyone knows that the job market is terrible now for recent graduates. It’s hard to believe that the recent graduates of any program anywhere are in that high demand. With a few narrow exceptions, of course.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It doesn’t take a very good liar to convince someone who already wants to be convinced.</p>
<p>It is a shame you are so cynical. You know nothing about me and what it takes to convince me. And two different departments giving me similar information like that? At 4 different schools? Not likely, especially since it wasn’t presented in the same order or using the same phrasing in the least. A script would have led to that. Your conjecture is only that, since you did none of the research.</p>
<p>Also, if you have never heard of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, that’s too bad.</p>
<p>Oh, and btw, two different departments getting together to write answers to FAQ’s (what I called a script), or agreeing to use the same answers, in order to deceive others is the very definition of a conspiracy. They would have to conspire in order for them to have given me such similar answers to my questions. Or do you have some other definition from some dictionary only you know about? Here are the ones I see:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>A combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or evil purpose: He joined the conspiracy to overthrow the government.</p></li>
<li><p>Law: An agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act.</p></li>
<li><p>Any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>That last one fits your scenario the best.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If by “cynical,” you mean “mistrustful of human nature,” then what’s the shame? Years of painful experience have taught me that when people make self-serving claims without any proof, those claims are usually exaggerated and frequently flat out lies.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>From your statement early on in the thread about the flexibility of law school, I surmise that you are misinformed or self-deceived. I also gather that you harbour significant subconscious doubts about the claims you have made. If you really believed down to your core that you had struck gold, I doubt you would be trumpeting it online. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’ve heard of it, but I highly doubt that it applies here.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In that case, every company which uses a script, or even an employee handbook, is engaged in a conspiracy. However, most people who hear the phrase “conspiracy theory” would not apply it to that sort of situation.</p>