Law School strictly for Consulting?

Graduate School Law School
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<p>Well, I think that goes without saying: I have always agreed that if you can get one of those jobs straight off the bat, then that’s probably better.</p>

<p>But it seems from what the OP is saying is, what if you can’t? Not all of them can. I agree that many of them from the top 10 schools will be able to, but certainly not all. For those people, a top law school may well be the best option available to them, given their constrained set of options. It sure as heck beats working at a mediocre job and then hoping to get into a top MBA program (which you may not get, and even if you do, you still may not get a consulting offer). </p>

<p>Look, the truth is, there’s a lot of randomness associated with getting these kinds of jobs. I can think of quite a few people who got shot down for every single consulting firm they interviewed with, including the small boutique firms, except for one: McKinsey, which happens to be the most prestigious and most selective of all of them. That’s like being rejected by every single Ivy League undergrad school except for Harvard. But it happens. And that also surely means that there are people who are probably eminently qualified for consulting, but get shot down by every consulting firm. </p>

<p>So, I agree that you could go to law school and not get a consulting offer. On the other hand, you could get work experience then get your MBA and also not get a consulting offer. Hence, either way, you run the risk of getting nothing. I agree that the risk in the former is probably higher. But on the other hand, you will get to know your answer sooner. So you’re basically trading risk for time, and that may well be a worthwhile trade depending on your risk profile. That’s why I’m ambivalent.</p>

<p>Besides, consider this. Even if you don’t get a consulting job, with a top law degree, you can still probably get a quite decent paying law job. Sure, you may not like the job. But hey, a lot of people with elite MBA’s also end up in jobs they don’t really like. The average grad from a top law school is getting paid more than the average grad from a top B-school (although, granted, the former’s debt load is higher). Nevertheless, I would contend that having a top law degree is still a pretty decent deal.</p>

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<p><em>claps</em> Wow! Those were some good insights, sakky! I was kind of wondering the same thing and this thread just solidified my hunch.</p>

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<p>It seems like an ever increasing trend that top-tier consulting firms are hiring from all types of graduate degrees. Accordingly, attending a top law school would most likely put you on the same playing field.</p>

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<p>sakky’s advice is certainly sound. I just want to reinterate that consulting jobs are very competitive and difficult to obtain. There is no guarantee, nor is there even a good likelihood, that you can or will obtain a consulting job straight out of undergrad, after business school, after law school or after any other graduate school or work experience.</p>

<p>I still believe that going to law school with the sole intent of finding a job outside of the law is a mistake. Go to law school to become a lawyer. If your career path takes you elsewhere, and if you want to take steps to find alternative employment, then fantastic for you. However, even after doing everything to increase your chances of obtaining one type of job or another, you may end up without that job. Make sure that you are quite comfortable with your “plan B” in case your plan A career doesn’t work out for you.</p>

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<p>Sallyawp, I think what you meant, but I think bears saying anyway, is that getting a job with an elite consulting firm is difficult. On the other hand, if you’re just satisfied with getting into a no-name consulting firm, that’s not very hard at all if you’re coming from a top 5 university, even if your degree is unrelated to business. Most of these consulting firms employ people who come from no-name schools and hence many times would be happy to hire you just to leverage the name brand of your school (i.e. I can think of one such firm that hired a guy from MIT and then shortly afterwards began to brag in their website about how they can provide clients with ‘MIT-educated consultants’)</p>

<p>Hence, although I know this is not what the OP asked, for he asked specifically about the top consulting firms, I am quite confident that if you get a law degree from a top 5 school, you can surely get a half-decent non-law job through just the general name brand of your school alone and the networking opportunities, as long as you are proactive about it. Sure, maybe it won’t be McKinsey or Goldman Sachs, but it’s going to be something decent as long as you are willing to put in a reasonable search effort. I say that because I know people who actually dropped out of grad programs at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc. yet got quite decent jobs. For example, one guy who just recently presented a paper at a seminar I was at had previously dropped out of the Harvard physics doctoral program and joined a small local consulting firm (of which there are tons in the Boston area), and then a few years later was admitted to another Harvard doctoral program, this time at HBS. </p>

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<p>I certainly agree with sallyawp here that you should be content if the ‘worst-case scenario’ - that is, just having to get a law job, is satisfactory for you. </p>

<p>Nevertheless, I would stress the importance of being entrepreneurial in your job-search approach. You can’t just lazily lie back and hope that your dream job comes to you: you have to seek it out for yourself. You should never rely solely on the resources of your law school, you should also be looking to harness the resources of the greater university, and all of the top five law schools are attached to universities that have vast career resources. </p>

<p>Now, where I agree the analysis breaks down are those universities where the law school may be highly regarded, but the greater university in general does not have relatively strong general career resources. For example, perhaps the Washington & Lee Law School might fit into this category (as they don’t have a business school and don’t have other graduate programs that tend to draw in the myriad of elite recruiters). Or maybe George Washington University law school (as while GWU does have numerous grad programs, GWU doesn’t have a strong general brand name). At those law schools, I can agree that you probably won’t have many strong non-law career opportunities. </p>

<p>But the OP and I aren’t talking about schools like that. We’re talking about law schools like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, etc. where the general university brand name is very strong and where elite firms (in consulting, banking, etc.) recruit in abundance.</p>

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<p>thanks a lot everyone (esp. Sakky) !</p>