<p>Are there any lawyers who hold executive positions in corporations (such as a typical software company or in banking or in tech companies)? I would think that lawyers, like in corporate law, for example, should be just as qualified to hold high positions in the business setting, as much as people with MBAs. </p>
<p>Does this exist? </p>
<p>Business is a hard field to rise up into executive type ranks. But if you like both law and business... could you work your way up? Or can you only do this in a "law firm" scene?</p>
<p>I know an attorney who became CFO of a large software company. </p>
<p>The General Counsel of a corporation (always a lawyer) can be said to hold a high position in a corporation. Sometimes the head of HR, or the head of of procurement has a legal background.</p>
<p>Two of my law school classmates have become CEO's of small companies.</p>
<p>These are fairly exceptional cases, though. MBA's are far more common than lawyers in the executive suite.</p>
<p>There was an article in The New Yorker a few years ago about how many lawyers were "defecting" to investment banking jobs after working on deals for them. They liked the bigger money. However, most people going into the thing from the front end (rather than deciding later on that they had made a mistake doing law) would tend to realize that business school is shorter than law school and therefore cheaper, and also, by the reports I get, much less stressful.</p>
<p>Yeah, but on the other hand, it is extremely difficult to get into a top-flight B-school that the IB's will recruit at if you don't have any work experience. You will get the same level of IB job, the associate level, as a guy fresh out of MBA school, but you didn't have to spend years of your life amassing the work experience that you usually need to get into MBA school. Hence, going to law school with the goal of getting into IB can be seen as part of a 'brilliant' strategy of becoming an IB associate as quickly as possible. Why waste time working when you don't have to? </p>
<p>Note - I am not advocating that people go down this road. I still think that you will have a better chance of becoming a banker the 'normal way' - getting an analyst-level job right out of undergrad, working for a couple of years, then getting your MBA, then getting an IB associate job. However, if IB's are willing to hire people for an associate job right out of law school without requiring any work experience, then I can't fault people for going down that road.</p>
<p>The IBs are willing to do so. And you work for them for a few years and then you go to B-school. And then you come out and things are looking pretty good. Meanwhile, you haven't "wasted time working;" you have earned money, paid back some undergrad loans, maybe, learned something, and got some direction. </p>
<p>It is true that working for an I-bank is a nightmarish number of hours. I don't have the impression that working for a big law firm is much different.</p>
<p>I have met some lawyers who have become corporate officers in a non-legal capacity and heard of others (Vice President & General Counsel usually only indicates that the lawyer is operating as general counsel but has also been given a vice president's title). Some lawyers have moved out of the legal function and into a high-level business function within the same company. Sometimes this occurs via heading up a licensing function in which business sense is shown in working on licensing transactions, and the company wants to take advantage of that skill - and/or the lawyer wants to. I also have seen lawyers work into product or project management functions by showing management/coordination abilities.</p>
<p>However, anyone thinking of such a move ought to understand that in almost every case company management tends to pigeonhole lawyers into legal function roles, and forgets to consider their in-house lawyers when looking to promote soemone into a management slot. The management has to be made aware (sometimes with the equivalent of a 2-by-4) that the lawyer in question has other skills and other career objectives. Sometimes, however, in a small company, where the in-house lawyer may have to wear more than one hat, this happens more naturally.</p>
<p>Interning at a law firm, I see a lot of departure memos where the lawyer will move to an investment bank. But it seems to me that it's easier to get started in law; there's the structure in big law firms of 7 years of being an associate then you get considered for partner, etc. In investment banks, it's kind of a hit-or-miss.</p>