I had a 25 year career in business transactional law (a lot of M&A) before taking early retirement. Here’s my 2 cents (basically I fully agree with @juillet ).
A full time MBA is typically 2 years. A full time law degree is typically 3 years. A full time joint degree is typically 4 years. Therefore, if you’re primarily interested in the law degree and are thinking about adding on an MBA, well that’s just one additional year. If you’re primarily interested in the MBA but are considering adding a law degree, well that’s two additional years. To me, this question is key – what is your primary area of interest?
If you are primarily interested in practicing at a law firm doing M&A work, then having an MBA will be both helpful and attractive to law firms … but not necessary. If you get great grades in law school, focus on business / transactional classes, and try to get some additional law clerk / internship experience, you should be very well placed for a good M&A legal job, especially in light of your current job experience. An MBA is indeed helpful for M&A lawyers to do a better job and add greater value, but you will not need it. In my opinion, if you’ve got a passion for this, then the short term financial hit will be worth it. If you’re thinking about doing it solely for the financial pay-out, not because you are passionately intrigued by the MBA subject matter, then I think it’s not worth it. Depending on where you work afterwards, you may have the opportunity to get an MBA through evening and weekend classes, so you can always go for the MBA later. On the other hand, life usually takes over, and it’s often harder to do this as time goes on. There’s something to be said for sucking it up while you’re young and taking an extra year for the MBA – IF you are deeply and genuinely interested in it.
Now, if your primary interest is in the MBA and you’re thinking about getting a joint law degree on the side / while you’re at it, I’d say don’t do it. Law school is too challenging for someone who’s not really into it. It would double the time required to get your degree. And I’m not sure that banks and companies looking for an MBA will be more excited or pay more for someone with a JD – especially since lawyers don’t really learn much at all about legal M&A while at law school. Most of your legal M&A expertise will need to be gained “hands on” while at a law firm. There’s really not much value in someone with a JD degree who doesn’t have experience practicing law. A company would never expect or hope that their business person with the JD degree would be giving legal advice. They are still going to need to hire experienced M&A lawyers.
Having a law degree or having an MBA will open up a wide variety of career opportunities for you and they will likely pay off financially in the long run. The value of getting both is questionable.
Now this advice is in a vacuum. I don’t know what “AVP” really means. I don’t know what your current salary is. I don’t know your career track at your company. I suggest you think about those things. Do some inquiries as to starting salaries (both law and banking / business) for your desired job. To me, you have to look at the financials AND you have to look at the intangibles. If you really think you’ll enjoy doing M&A work more than you “enjoy” your current job track, then that’s something, and even if the degree(s) set you back a bit financially, you’ve got a lifetime of a career ahead of you and it’s better to spend that time on something that inspires you.
Finally – are you sure you really want to get involved in this M&A stuff? It’s exciting and there’s a certain “high” you can get doing the deals, but it is extremely intense, hard work. In my experience it meant a lot of late nights and weekends and numerous through-the-nights, and a lot of it was boring grunt work that nevertheless required a lot of attention to detail. There’s a lot to learn and it continues to be daunting and challenging for years – if not forever. Doing M&A, it’s best if you’re the type that thrives in stressful environments. Are you? Make sure you talk to lawyers, bankers and business people who do M&A to get the best understanding possible as to what is involved.
Good luck!