Good majors for Corporate Law? Forum

[Theserjo]

I'm majoring in Political Science right now, but I was wondering how to gear myself towards a career in corporate law? I was thinking about minoring in Economics as well. Any information would greatly help.

[St.Remy]

I'm majoring in Political Science right now, but I was wondering how to gear myself towards a career in corporate law? I was thinking about minoring in Economics as well. Any information would greatly help.

Your chances at getting a good corporate law gig are pretty directly tied to the quality of the law school you attend, so just major in whatever you do well at. High GPS -> Good law school -> Corporate law job. If you see yourself transitioning from being a corporate lawyer to being a more general corporate official at some point in the future I would guess that Business would be the most helpful major, though I'm sure Econ would be fine too.

[Knock]

I'm majoring in Political Science right now, but I was wondering how to gear myself towards a career in corporate law? I was thinking about minoring in Economics as well. Any information would greatly help.

TCR is whatever major you can get the highest GPA in, period.

/thread

[skoobily doobily]

A background in finance never hurt anybody. But work experience in the field would be much more valuable.

[kazu]

But don't do finance if you suck at it. A bad GPA does hurt people in law school admissions.

[2ofspades]

I was wondering how to gear myself towards a career in corporate law?

2+ years WE in business

[Informative]

If you have the chance now, change your major to a hard science degree. Try Computer Science, or engineering. If you want biglaw, the big firms will go deeper into the class for students with these degrees. Trust me, even the corporate groups. I've seen it time and time again.

[St.Remy]

If you have the chance now, change your major to a hard science degree. Try Computer Science, or engineering. If you want biglaw, the big firms will go deeper into the class for students with these degrees. Trust me, even the corporate groups. I've seen it time and time again.

In most cases this is horrible advice. GPA is worlds more important for getting into law school than major, so to reiterate and reinforce what I and other posters said earlier major in whatever you will do well in and maintain a high GPA in. The only reason to major in a hard science, computer science, or engineering is if you will get a higher GPA majoring in one of those things than you would majoring in anything else. Since majoring in a hard science almost always means a lower GPA this is almost always a bad idea for law school purposes. If you are one of the few people who could get a higher GPA majoring in chemistry or computer science than in any other major, consider making that your career and actually do something useful instead of going to law school.

[kurla88]

A background in finance never hurt anybody. But work experience in the field would be much more valuable.

+1

I feel like a Finance background would have been great for a lot of the firms I'm applying at.

[BeautifulSW]

How about accounting?

[concurrent fork]

How about accounting?

Like econ or finance, can be helpful in terms of background familiarity. However, unless you end up working in the field before going to LS, employers care very little about your undergrad major (exception: hard sciences). Tons of biglaw corporate associates were poli sci majors.

[shmantieantie]

A finance/accounting degree doesn't hurt, unless you end up getting lower grades. GPA is key.

Law school corporate law classes will generally teach you all that you need to know about corporate law, though.

[Lagunitan]

.

[St.Remy]

Lots of short-sighted advice in this thread.

What grade are you in? And how sure are you that you want to pursue "corporate law" (which can mean a lot of things) as a career?

If I were in your shoes (choosing what to major in), I would be thinking much more broadly than, "All else being equal, what major will maximize my chances of getting into the highest-ranked law school possible?" Are you sure you would rather pursue corporate law than getting involved with actually starting/managing a company? If you think you might be interested in entrepreneurship, majoring in something in the hard sciences or engineering might be a very smart move. If you think you might be interested in banking/finance, majoring in Economics, Mathematics, or something related might be a very smart move. Is it going to be as easy to get a high GPA in these majors? Nope. Will they open other doors to you besides law school/corporate law that you might find yourself wanting to pursue? Yep.

...

Maybe none of this advice is helpful, but I know that when I was in your position (choosing majors) I didn't have a good sense of everything that was out there (academically and career-wise), and while I feel like I got lucky by stumbling upon some great professors, I definitely would do things differently if I had another shot. (I would probably have given much more consideration to a hard sciences major that would have given me more options outside law school, for instance).

I don't think that anyone voiced any disagreement with any of the things you said in this post. The OP wasn't asking about entrepreneurship, banking, or finance though, and if he were then Top Law Schools isn't really the place to get advice about that. What the OP asked specifically was what would be a good major for getting into corporate law, and the correct response to that query is "whatever major gives you the best GPA." That is the main thing that law schools care about. Was anyone saying that this is the major that would lead him to have the most satisfying life possible, or even suggesting that law was a good idea for him? No. Because he didn't ask, and we can't possibly know.

[20160810]

Undergraduate major is completely irrelevant to your legal career unless you have a tech background and get into IP.

[solidsnake]

Undergraduate major is completely irrelevant to your legal career unless you have a tech background and get into IP.

It's not completely irrelevant. If your UG major leads to sick work exp, then that can make you more competitive; e.g., graduate summa in finance, work at a bulge bracket bank for 3 yrs as a analyst, then go to hysccn, assuming you're top 10% this will make you much more competitive at WLRK within that band of other reasonably eligible applicants.

[20160810]

Undergraduate major is completely irrelevant to your legal career unless you have a tech background and get into IP.

It's not completely irrelevant. If your UG major leads to sick work exp, then that can make you more competitive; e.g., graduate summa in finance, work at a bulge bracket bank for 3 yrs as a analyst, then go to hysccn, assuming you're top 10% this will make you much more competitive at WLRK within that band of other reasonably eligible applicants.

This is stretching. I also doubt that that person had WLRK in mind when choosing to major in finance at age 19.

[solidsnake]

Undergraduate major is completely irrelevant to your legal career unless you have a tech background and get into IP.

It's not completely irrelevant. If your UG major leads to sick work exp, then that can make you more competitive; e.g., graduate summa in finance, work at a bulge bracket bank for 3 yrs as a analyst, then go to hysccn, assuming you're top 10% this will make you much more competitive at WLRK within that band of other reasonably eligible applicants.

This is stretching. I also doubt that that person had WLRK in mind when choosing to major in finance at age 19.

The point is, though, that choice of ug major can impact quality of work exp attained afterwards, which is definitely relevant to your legal career insofar as it helps you get hired at the best firms which can provide you with even more opportunities. So it's not "completely irrelevant." My OCI was a success at least in part because my resume was very consistent, and I could impart a very strong narrative. UG major definitely fit into that.

[rayiner]

Engineering, accounting, economics.

+1 to the guy who said engineering is good, even for corporate work. I've been successful pitching for M&A type work by arguing that as an engineer I'm trained to break down situations into their component parts and see how they fit together, etc.

That being said, the downside to engineering is that your GPA will suck and impact your ability to get into a top school...

[BeautifulSW]

Another useful thing about engineering, accounting, nursing, etc. is for when you fail to find a job out of law school, you will have another way to make a living and pay Sallie Mae.

Sigh.