<p>I'm starting to think that I'm interested in doing a joint MBA/JD program (where you get both in 6 years instead of 7), and I'm just wondering if you think it's worth it. What does having both degrees give you a leg up in and how will it effect future income? Also does anyone know what I could do to make myself a more appealing applicant for a program like this? Thanks!</p>
<p>First of all, a JD/MBA program takes 4 years instead of the normal 5 for the two degrees earned separately. My best recommendation to you would be to do well in college, get a few years of solid work experience under your belt after college, and then send in your applications. </p>
<p>Did you have some more specific advice in mind? What is your background?</p>
<p>Sallyawp,
I'd be curious to know if people with this joint degree tend to work in business where legal knowledge is helpful, or do they tend to work in law where business know-how is a good thing? What kind of jobs do these folks aspire to?
Thanks!</p>
<ol>
<li>Corporate Lawyer</li>
<li>Management Consultant</li>
<li>Investment Banker</li>
<li>Chairperson of the SEC</li>
</ol>
<p>Just kidding on the #4.</p>
<p>Futurenyustudent, I would replace your #4 with the job of Governor of Massachusetts. I'm only half-kidding.</p>
<p>I'm currently a rising sophomore at Bucknell, majoring in Economics (which I passionately love, thus my interest in an MBA) with minors in art, philosophy and english. Right now I have a 3.9175 and my ultimate goal is stanford law. Corporate Law is ultimately what I would like to do for a living (as I want to make as much money as possible to feed my equestrian addiction and I don't want to put people in jail or keep them out), though the less money I have to put into my education the better so I guess I'm trying to decide what the financial benefit of a JD/MBA from Stanford is over just a JD. </p>
<p>As for the job experience, I suppose something financial would be best?</p>
<p><a href="as%20I%20want%20to%20make%20as%20much%20money%20as%20possible%20to%20feed%20my%20equestrian%20addiction%20and%20I%20don't%20want%20to%20put%20people%20in%20jail%20or%20keep%20them%20out">quote</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>A sound basis on which to decide one's life.</p>
<p>equine99, doing corporate law will indeed make you enough money to feed your equestrian addiction. It will also keep you so busy that the only time you see a horse's ass will be during a client meeting.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
A sound basis on which to decide one's life.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>I thoroughly believe so. I live for horses and want to live a comfortable life. What other occupations can one make $200+k/year and actually have a life? Nothing is set in stone, but as of now I don't know how else to support this passion. I plan on making as much as I can and retiring early, so I wouldn't work until I can no longer ride. As long as I can have one day a week to ride I'll be content. And it's not like I have zero interest in law and am only doing it for the money, I genuinely believe I will make an excellent lawyer as I love arguing and nit picking throuh documents and finding loop holes and such.</p>
<p>"What other occupations can one make $200+k/year and actually have a life?"</p>
<p>The unfortunate tradeoff for most jobs that pay over $200,000/year is that you have to make tremendous sacrifices in terms of your life, as other posters have correctly suggested.</p>
<p>Some thoughts on corporate law from a corporate lawyer:</p>
<p>Does the JD/MBA help? It certainly can, though it is not absolutely necessary. I've found that the things that I learned in B-school (I did not study finance or accounting undergrad) have been very helpful in my career, and the MBA has bought me a lot of credibility with clients. Overall, I would say that it has been worth the sacrifices for a dual degree, but don't forget that school will cost a minimum of $50k/year all in at top schools with few, if any, financial aid opportunities, and the opportunity costs of not working during that extra year it takes to get the dual degree can be large. Also, if you don't go to a top JD/MBA program, and what you really want is to be a lawyer, the extra year is probably not worth it. Ultimately, law firms care about how good a lawyer you are, not whether you have degrees other than the J.D.</p>
<p>What is like to be a corporate lawyer? Well, to make the kind of money that you want to make, you will most likely be working at a large law firm in a major city. In fact, arguably, outside of NYC, LA, SF and maybe Chicago, there is not much of the big corporate transactional work that lends itself to making big bucks down the road. Let's take NYC, since I know that legal market best. At current base salaries, you'll make $145,000 your first year out of law school. Significant bonuses are never a certainty for lawyers, and in light of recent base salary increases across the board, partners are warning that bonuses will be much smaller this year. Of course, you'll be paying lots of taxes (federal, state and NYC taxes), you'll be paying through the nose for an apartment and you will be working a minimum of 70-80 hours a week, though many weeks you'll log in hours significantly longer than that. The most difficult part of being a junior hassociate at a large law firm is the unpredictability. You can't simply take 80 hours/week and divide by six, assuming that you'll have one day off, to determine how hard you'll be working. First, you have to work significantly more than 80 hours to bill that much time (deducting for lunch, bathroom breaks, running down the hall to get a cup of coffee, etc.). Second, the dreaded 4:30 pm Friday phone call is an absolute reality, and your planned weekend trip can be destroyed with the ring of the phone. Law firms pay juinior associates a lot because they expect you to basically put everything else aside for your work. Pulling all nighters is not unusual. Planned a vacation? Make sure it is refundable. Have to attend a wedding where you're the best man? You might make it to the ceremony but not to the reception. Have child care responsibilities eventually? Better have a live in nanny. You get the picture. These are not just urban legends, they are real, and no one of your colleagues is going to sympathize with your plight much because it happens to everyone at times. Think you can get past that? </p>
<p>You'll work your way up through the ranks - second year, third year, fourth year, each year making several thousand more dollars. You'll lose friends and boyfriends/girlfriends along the way, as they tire of your relentless addiction to your blackberry and the last minute work that constantly interrupts you. As a midlevel associate, you'll see the numbers of colleagues in your class really start to dwindle. People leave for a variety of reasons, but the one you'll hear most often cited is to get a life. If "going in house" sounds like the right move at this point, remember that it usually comes with a hefty pay cut from NYC law firm salaries. As a midlevel, you will be expected to run deals while simultaneously doing some or all of the work of a junior associate. Your hours increase as you make the decision to really try to make it up the hill to partnership. Fifth year, sixth year, seventh year, eighth year, ninth year and often tenth year -- you keep working, keep billing those hours, trying now to drum up business and bring in new clients in addition to your workload, hoping and praying that the partners mean what they say in your reviews when you are told you're "on track". You do interesting and challenging work, your deals are on the cover of the Wall Street Journal, you get a mention in the NY Law Journal, and you just keep working. At times, you will have some more flexibility to make time for weekends or vacations as a senior associate because you know enough to see issues/problems/work coming or because you are in control of the work flow, but law is inherently a client service industry and if the client says jump, you simply ask how high. When clients are paying $450-500/hour for your services, they expect service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.</p>
<p>Finally, maybe, if the firm has had a good year financially when you're "up", you might make partner. A mentor of mine told me once that making partner is like winning a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie. Junior partners almost without exception work harder than senior associates. The partnership schemes at different firms vary widely, but as you move up in the partnership ranks, after paying off the huge loan you took from the partnership to buy into the partnership, you should really start to see the bucks rolling in if you are a "rainmaker". </p>
<p>So, perhaps this has been a bit of a jaded view, but that is the reality of corporate law in a law firm. I've been there as have many I know. I really do love being a corporate lawyer, but the demands are tremendous and they do take a toll on you. Go in with your eyes open. Money can give you the ability to do some wonderful things, but finding to do them isn't easy in law.</p>
<p>sallyawp,</p>
<p>You are awesome:)</p>
<p>sallyawp, that was a great post. How much do partners make if you are a "rainmaker"?</p>
<p>Excellent post, sallyawp!</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Again, this is all based on the large NYC law firm corporate practice hypothetical.</p>
<p>How much a partner makes as a rainmaker varies widely, depending on the profitability of the partner's particular law firm, the money brought in by the clients and the work done for the clients of that partner and different measurement functions set up by each partnership. The general profits per partner at what are called the "AmLaw 100" is published annually in a magazine called the American Lawyer. You can certainly google the information. These measures are not entirely accurate since most law firms don't provide information about their profits and costs to any kind of public reporting body, but the estimates seem to give good general ballpark information. Also, keep in mind that it's the profits per partner (PPP) measurement that people seem to notice most, because gross profits is affected so much by how many lawyers are employed by a firm.</p>
<p>Partner compensation is determined first by what law firm that partner works at. Different firms, even within the same city and that otherwise pay their associates similar salaries, can very greatly in their profitability. For more information, see the AmLaw 100 numbers. </p>
<p>Actual partner compensation can vary wildly from the average in any particular law firm, too. Partnerships tend to be very secretive about their compensation schemes, so take all of the following with a grain of salt. A few partnerships have lockstep compensation for their partners, so that more senior partners always make more money than junior partners. Some law firms have some variation of that structure, where both seniority and rainmaking ability/other factors are taken into account. Some law firms compensate partners focusing much more on how much they bring into the firm's coffers than any other factor. Therefore, it's difficult, if not impossible, to even give a ballpark estimate of any one future partner's potential compensation. In fact, most associates who make partner have no idea what the partnership compensation structure is either when they first make partner (that is, they don't know what they are walking into or what they have been working towards) or, in some cases, for years thereafter. Comp information can be very secretive even among the partners. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that almost all law firms force partners to retire at some specified age, theoretically to make room for younger attorneys to make partner. There is also a growing trend where partners are leaving their firms and joining other firms. This used to be quite rare. I'm not sure that you could pin it to any one factor, but I'm sure that all of the law firm merger activity has something to do with it. Unfortunately, it looks like being a law firm partner and getting paid well for it is becoming less and less of a sure thing even once you've made partner. Partners are getting "pushed out" more and more frequently now, for a variety of reasons including bad fit, too few clients (or a client merged itself into another entity and left you with no more business) and termination of practice area. I would hate to be the partner who tries to change firms without having a substantial book of business (that is, clients who will follow the partner to their new firm)! Yes, there are partners without a substantial book of business who are sometimes called "service partners". These partners make partner, they are generally very bright and hardworking, and they work hard servicing clients that "belong" to other partners (or for which another partner is the "billing" partner or "relationship" partner). I'm sure that the compensation of a service partner reflects their limited role in the health of the law firm (in other words, replaceable cogs in the wheel). </p>
<p>Can a partner make millions of dollars working in a law firm? Certainly. Those partners, who typically have several large clients for whom they are responsible, work very hard most of the time ... and when they are not working, they are out at dinner massaging the egos of their clients and drumming up new business. These partners may get to actually go away on their vacations (unlike the associates), but they will often spend at least a portion of their time away on the phone with clients, reading faxes, talking to their associates back in the office, checking their blackberries, talking conference calls and generally not really ever being able to get away. Oh, and don't worry, if someone ever goes away to a place like Africa on safari or sailing in the Galapagos, the firm will happily pay for you to have a sattelite phone so that you're never out of touch. </p>
<p>So how much do partners make? As little as senior associates and as much as investment bankers. The real question should be what does it take to get there, how small are my chances of being one of the really well compensated partners and what do I have to give up for the money?</p>
<p>That was an excellent post, and I am a girl btw. I lived in NYC until I was 12, and about 25 min south of SF since then, so I've never planned on living more than 1/2 hour away from a major city anyways. I don't mind hard work and long hours, as I think I will find the work interesting. I do know several lawyers who are uber sucessful and manage to have time for lives so I think it's not completely unrealistic to expect to have a little bit of time (maybe later in my career) to myself. I also love money and investing (real estate interests me a LOT) and saving and so I plan on investing really well and hopefuly retiring earlyish (goal is before I'm 45) and then doing horses full time. If I get married to someone in the same income bracket this time line will speed up a bit. Once I've got a large financial safety net under me I'd be completely willing to step down in salary and work at a slightly less pressured firm. I did mock trial in HS, and some of our coaches were lawyers in SF who had time to coach us 3 times a week and attend our "trials." I also worked with a man (not going to name names but he's very well known) who makes $1000+ per hour, has spoken before the supreme court, and manages to have a life. So I am fairly certain that I still want to be a lawyer.</p>
<p>It is still a decision about whether or not to do the joint degree. Not only is there the opportunity cost of the extra year of school, but also the difference in salaries between if I work 4 years straight out of undergrad to get experience, versus the salary I could've made in the first four years out of law school (if I go straight to law from undergrad), and then the tuition of the extra year, not to mention the extra strain (and maybe decreased grades during the one year overlap), so this is why I'm trying to weigh out if the cost or benefit is greater ahead of time. Thank you so much for your detailed response!</p>
<p>Much disabuse is needed for this one!</p>
<p>Edit: equine: Sally's detailed posts are useless if you do not read them.</p>
<p>um, I DID read them. Where do you see otherwise?</p>
<p>Just because I didn't say, "oh no! too much hard work and not enough security! I don't want to be a corporate lawyer anymore!" doesn't mean that I didn't read them. I know it will be a lot of work, and I appreciate Sally for putting so much time into the posts and descriptions, but I do know of other people who lead different lives and so I will not be deterred from persuing law. If I fail at it, it's not like "law school" is a bad thing to have on a resume, no matter what you are doing.</p>
<p>"...but they will often spend at least a portion of their time away on the phone with clients, reading faxes, talking to their associates back in the office, checking their blackberries, talking conference calls and generally not really ever being able to get away. Oh, and don't worry, if someone ever goes away to a place like Africa on safari or sailing in the Galapagos, the firm will happily pay for you to have a sattelite phone so that you're never out of touch."</p>
<p>Sounds like my father. He's not a lawyer but a top executive. Last year we were on a European cruise and suddenly one day he announces that he has to fly back for some meeting. Company paid for a tiny charter plane to pick him up on one of the tiny islands and then a last minute flight that night. Crazy. That type of life isn't limited to lawyers... any top executive has to live like that.</p>
<p>I agree and I understand, anovice. There are a lot of people out there who work very hard and who make incredible sacrifices for their work. I can only speak for the things that I know, which includes corporate law and Wall Street work. Thank you so much for adding to the discussion.</p>
<p>I too am interested in pursuing a JD/MBA program, but I am also questioning if it is worth doing.</p>