dut99002 wrote:How familiar are you with the hiring practices of Bain/BCG/Mckinsey when it comes to legal positions? I know that on the business side they only hire MBA's from the top 10 (or perhaps less) programs and their new guys out of undergrad school usually are either very, very academically accomplished or are some of the better students from the more prestigious schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, etc.).
I have a number of friends here in Dallas who have been or are consultants at these three firms and all of them fit these descriptions. All of the MBA grads went to Harvard b-school, for example.
I'm making an assumption, but I'd wager that their hiring practices on the legal side of things are about the same as their business-side. I'd wager that their legal consultants are also from the t14 schools or better.
If you are accepted to a school that is prestigious enough to get the notice of these schools then you could in theory get hired (assuming you meet their grade cut off). I'd have a back up plan though assuming that they only hire so many new JD's between the three of them.
This may not be a good back up plan, but perhaps you could apply for a JD/MBA? If you are in at Northwestern, Chicago, Harvard, Penn or Stanford then you could aboslutely get noticed at one of the consultancies should you also have an MBA from one of these b-schools.
Anyways, if you already don't, I'd highly recommend finding out what their hiring practices are and then going from there. You probably won't find many (if any) who are very familiar with this career route here. You may want to check out the business school forums and see if there are any people on there who are in-the-know with your question.
Best of luck!
Thanks for advice, dut, --this is an incredibly helpful post.
McKinsey has a shortlist of 16 LSs on their website, mine is among them. You're right that competition is stiff in their US offices, I just hope it's a bit more lax for their offices abroad, because, as they need native speakers there, they generally cannot hire US citizens.
I do think of a JD/MBA, too.