Hello all, all this extra time due to quarantine has given me some time to think about my future (thanks Corona), and my post grad options as I round out my junior year at my Ivy League school. I'm starting to think about grad school, particularly law school and business school. I took a class last semester on anti-corruption in the international financial system and it really inspired me. I even wrote a 30 page brief on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and its effectiveness in stopping corruption and malpractice in multinational corporations. Would a joint MBA/JD from a school like Columbia (top choice), Harvard, Penn, or Stanford be good for getting into anti-corruption/compliance law?
Would I even be competitive to get in to any of these schools? Here is some info about me.
Junior at an Ivy League School (one of the "big three" Harvard, Yale, Princeton)
major: in Political Science/Middle East Studies, Certificate (read: Minor) in Arabic
GPA: 3.71 (hope to graduate with 3.75-3.78ish)
URM (Black)
LSAT : haven't taken it yet, but hoping for above 170
Work experience:
this summer I am working in investment banking at BB bank (thing Goldman, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley)
Previous summer worked at Middle East Policy think tank in Washington DC
Other
Speak fluent Arabic,
traveled extensively in the Middle East via various scholarships from the U.S. State Department for the study of Arabic (Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon)
So would I be competitive for any of the schools for a joint JD/MBA. Does that even really make sense for my goals, or would just law school/just business school be a better choice? Thanks for your feedback.
Thoughts on JD/MBA for getting into Anti-Corruption/Compliance Law Forum
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waddledode
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Tue Mar 31, 2020 10:45 am
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Anon-non-anon
- Posts: 199
- Joined: Fri Mar 15, 2019 12:40 pm
Re: Thoughts on JD/MBA for getting into Anti-Corruption/Compliance Law
Don't need the MBA. You can do compliance w/o a law degree but you would be well positioned to do compliance/anti corruption work (part of white collar crime groups in firms usually) with a jd from any of those schools. Focus on LSAT to get in. URM and decent GPA make them all possible I think, but not without a very good LSAT score.waddledode wrote:Hello all, all this extra time due to quarantine has given me some time to think about my future (thanks Corona), and my post grad options as I round out my junior year at my Ivy League school. I'm starting to think about grad school, particularly law school and business school. I took a class last semester on anti-corruption in the international financial system and it really inspired me. I even wrote a 30 page brief on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and its effectiveness in stopping corruption and malpractice in multinational corporations. Would a joint MBA/JD from a school like Columbia (top choice), Harvard, Penn, or Stanford be good for getting into anti-corruption/compliance law?
Would I even be competitive to get in to any of these schools? Here is some info about me.
Junior at an Ivy League School (one of the "big three" Harvard, Yale, Princeton)
major: in Political Science/Middle East Studies, Certificate (read: Minor) in Arabic
GPA: 3.71 (hope to graduate with 3.75-3.78ish)
URM (Black)
LSAT : haven't taken it yet, but hoping for above 170
Work experience:
this summer I am working in investment banking at BB bank (thing Goldman, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley)
Previous summer worked at Middle East Policy think tank in Washington DC
Other
Speak fluent Arabic,
traveled extensively in the Middle East via various scholarships from the U.S. State Department for the study of Arabic (Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon)
So would I be competitive for any of the schools for a joint JD/MBA. Does that even really make sense for my goals, or would just law school/just business school be a better choice? Thanks for your feedback.
Before you jump in though, look into doing a year in a compliance department at a bank or something. No need to rush to law school and I can tell you have a lot to research about various programs / career trajectories to do. I'll give you a head start. The specialized programs are relatively BS. Try to get into the best law school you can for the cheapest you can pay.
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Sackboy
- Posts: 1044
- Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:14 am
Re: Thoughts on JD/MBA for getting into Anti-Corruption/Compliance Law
There is both non-legal compliance where you help organizations come into compliance from an operational perspective, and there is legal compliance where you figure out if an organization is in compliance and what they would need to do to become compliant.
For the former, you can do that with just a BA. It's not very sexy work. You'll make $50-$60k starting and be a support function of whatever corporation you are with. The latter, you need a JD to do, and you'd practice it within the scope of big law firms, where you're a revenue generator and making $190k plus. In the BA role, you'll probably work 40hrs a week. In the biglaw role, you can expect to work between 50-60hrs a week most weeks. In neither scenario is an MBA useful. At best, it's you paying $100k for a piece of paper that you'll appreciate as it collects dust. At worst, it's you lighting $100k on fire.
A year of general compliance work could help you see if you like the type of work in practice. Still, you're probably not going to get a great taste of what it means to practice that type of work within a law firm. It's pretty niche, but you might want to reach out to some big law firms in NY and DC that practice in the area and see if you can get hired on as a paralegal within their team. That'd probably be the best way to get a taste of high-level compliance work in the area. Beyond that, I'd ask yourself if this is a fleeting passion or something you really want to spend the next 10-20-30 years doing. It's so niche that if you ever wanted to leave to do something else you'd probably have to get a new degree to reinvent yourself.
For the former, you can do that with just a BA. It's not very sexy work. You'll make $50-$60k starting and be a support function of whatever corporation you are with. The latter, you need a JD to do, and you'd practice it within the scope of big law firms, where you're a revenue generator and making $190k plus. In the BA role, you'll probably work 40hrs a week. In the biglaw role, you can expect to work between 50-60hrs a week most weeks. In neither scenario is an MBA useful. At best, it's you paying $100k for a piece of paper that you'll appreciate as it collects dust. At worst, it's you lighting $100k on fire.
A year of general compliance work could help you see if you like the type of work in practice. Still, you're probably not going to get a great taste of what it means to practice that type of work within a law firm. It's pretty niche, but you might want to reach out to some big law firms in NY and DC that practice in the area and see if you can get hired on as a paralegal within their team. That'd probably be the best way to get a taste of high-level compliance work in the area. Beyond that, I'd ask yourself if this is a fleeting passion or something you really want to spend the next 10-20-30 years doing. It's so niche that if you ever wanted to leave to do something else you'd probably have to get a new degree to reinvent yourself.
