<p>I would like to open by making it known that my pleasures in life have always been reading, writing, philosophy, and the prospect of law school. Like many of you here, I am committed to earning a spot as a top J.D. graduate. </p>
<p>Despite this, I have pretty much come to terms with the fact that I want to lead a healthy and normal life, and work no more than 50 hours per week. Of course, this means that I do not wish to practice law in the traditional sense.</p>
<p>I want to pursue a law degree as an educational supplement. I wish to exploit my organizational skills in whatever career I choose. At the moment, I'm looking at the qualifications for becoming a Project Mgr., a Public-Private Sectors Consultant, or the director of a non-profit organization. Given the jist of my current job desires, I ask the wise sages of this board: is law school a sensible choice for me?</p>
<p>no, not a wise choice. it won’t help you get the jobs you say you want and the debt load will limit your future options (any school that gives you a scholarship probably won’t be intellectually stimulating for you). Better to get a business degree, if the jobs you want need one, and cross-register for law classes if possible, or just audit some law classes (many public schools and some private ones allow community members to sit in on classes–not to participate or get credit–for free or at a low cost).</p>
<p>it should be said that there are many legal jobs that allow a decent work-life balance, for example some kinds of government work. The jobs can be competitive, they don’t pay as much as jobs that require more hours, and you can’t guarantee that they’ll be 50 hr weeks every single week, but they’re out there. But if you don’t want them, and don’t want to work longer hours, I don’t think going to law school is wise.</p>
<p>I think a top JD will open some doors for you. Maybe not as much as a business degree, but name recognition can go a long way. Plus, consulting firms pay a good price for strong analytical reasoning skills developed in school (and particularly from that of top schools).</p>
<p>My reasoning is that a JD will help me in mastering the policy and process knowledge necessary for one day assuming an upper-management position. I also feel that a top JD can help boost my salary plateau significantly. I just feel that it would interest me a lot more than an MBA/MPA.</p>
<p>You’re paid based on the job you do, so it only elevates your salary plateau if it helps you get a higher-paying job. It does that mostly in legal fields. If you can get a degree from Yale, Harvard, or Stanford it’ll help you in other fields too; other than that you should plan on being a lawyer.</p>
<p>The exception is if you have the money to play around with law school, in which case one of the major negatives (how expensive it is) is no longer true.</p>
<p>“You’re paid based on the job you do, so it only elevates your salary plateau if it helps you get a higher-paying job. It does that mostly in legal fields. If you can get a degree from Yale, Harvard, or Stanford it’ll help you in other fields too; other than that you should plan on being a lawyer.”</p>
<p>I would think that any school in the T6 has that sort of advantage, no? I mean a CCN degree will no doubt look impressive on a resume if he’s trying to lateral to consulting or some other sub-field of business (so long as he goes on to obtain an MBA as well, so he can show that he does have the business knowledge).</p>
<p>Columbia, it’s probably true. I don’t speak from expertise, but my gut sense is that Chicago and NYU at this point don’t have the same pull. Remember, you’re dealing with non-lawyers now, so the old law school rankings aren’t necessarily the way to go.</p>
<p>Law school rankings go Y-HS–CCN. But I think for this purpose, it would probably be H—Y–S–C. But this is just my impression.</p>
<p>^^ I think bluedevilmike hit it straight on in his last post.</p>
<p>Don’t know if this is beside the point, but I know of a lot of people who have JD’s who did things outside of law.</p>
<p>My brother works in management for a Fortune 500, and his regional manager (probably pulling in around 500k/year) has only a JD and no MBA (or undergrad degree in business).</p>
<p>My cousin’s roommate went to law school, started working for a firm in New York, went in house to one of the firm’s partners in less than two years, and now works in VC on wall street (granted though, his undergraduate major was Economics).</p>
<p>^ of course I don’t know how many hours it will take where I want to be, and I am not limiting myself at this point. It’s just that the insane hours billed at BIGLAW firms have deterred me.</p>
<p>Also, I figured that pursuing a career outside of law with a JD degree would be feasible given all of the upper-management biographies I’ve read in which the person only holds a JD. I can cite my sources if anyone needs.</p>
<p>1.) Pay attention to the specific school at which that JD was obtained. It matters.
2.) Many of them came through that pathway by being lawyers first, and BIGLAW lawyers at that. If that’s not an acceptable pathway for you, then this discussion is pretty moot.
3.) Sure, some of them have JD’s, but then a lot of them have MBAs or no graduate degree at all. In fact, a lot more of them. So why focus on this particular route when the others are cheaper and faster?</p>
<p>Does undergrad major matter when applying for Wall Street/top consulting gigs? Not that it matters right now, seeing as Wall Street is in the crapper, but just curious anyways.</p>
<p>Oh and in regards to the JD-> consulting question, I know that McKinsey and Boston make a concerted effort to recruit advanced degree holders from all fields (not just MBA’s, but JD/Ph.D/MS/MD/etc.) Not too sure about other companies in the industry, however.</p>
<p>If you don’t attend a top LS or b-school, would you pretty much need top 5%/near perfect grades from your JD or MBA program if you wanted to land a gig at McKinsey? Or do those top consulting firms only hire exclusively from top schools?</p>