Background:
Last year I started getting involved in politics again as an engineering major and became obsessed. I ended up declaring a political science minor and becoming a TA for the political science department. This last summer I conducted policy research in Washington DC and was offered a position in a local congressional office when I returned home. I was granted a scholarship (they actually came to me - I never even applied since I was not a political science major) only given to the most prestigious of political science students and I have been very grateful for it. Now I am the president of two clubs, vice president of another club, and a board member of an honor’s society.
While I love science and engineering, it bores me - I love to design and lead big picture projects, but when it gets too technical I have trouble. I have always wanted to work in politics, but I also do still love innovation and don’t want to give one thing up for the other. Eventually I would like to own my own engineering/patent firm.
Now that I am a junior mechanical engineering student I am thinking to apply to some of the top JD programs (for IP law). Would an IP attorney get the same awesome satisfaction an engineer gets when innovating? What other programs should I consider? I am top of my class right now in engineering and practice scores reveal that I am going to score very well on the LSAT. I should be able to make it into a T5-20 school. Should I consider an MBA and jump into a large engineering corporation to gain experience or should I go for law?
So there are lots of things between being an on-the-ground engineer and being a lawyer.
If you are still potentially interested in working in science and tech (perhaps before law school), but don’t want an engineering job, there are lots of options. You could be a (technical) program manager, which requires an understanding of engineering/technology but isn’t an engineering job per se - you’d be driving the completion of engineering/tech projects and making sure work stays on track. If you like big picture project this sounds like an ideal position for you. There are lots of jobs in this area.
My company and many others also have jobs called ‘customer-facing technologist’, which are positions like technical account managers - they spend a lot of their times helping clients work through problems, and require an understanding of tech and science, but also aren’t traditional engineering positions. My company has tons of those and some of them deal specifically with the public sector and place those positions in DC. (Check out, for example, this [public sector Technical Account Manager position](google careers washington DC) with Google.)
Then, you can certainly work in politics with an engineering degree and without a law degree. Politics and law are not the same thing. There are many companies - both for-profit and nonprofit - that would hire an engineer to do some policy work without a law degree. Think of think tanks like The Advisory Board, or nonprofits like the American Association for the Advancement of the Sciences, or consulting firms with big government clients like Booz Allen Hamilton.
You should get a JD if you really want to be a lawyer, and/or if most of the positions in politics that you really want to do necessitate a law degree.