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I'm currently on a year-off before law school and am debating on whether to take CFA level 1. I am trying to illuminate how much benefit it would have in the law firm hiring process, if any at all (with regards to transactional corporate law type jobs). I was wondering if any of you guys/gals had any insight on that? Thanks for your help!

The answer is yes.

CFA Level 1 will help you when you get a corporate law job to actually understand the documents you are drafting/reviewing. From my general experience though, firms don't care about these sorts of credentials (CPA, CFA, etc) outside of Tax or ERISA and in your case, if the partner did know how hard the CFA was, he would know it's level one of three. Also, some firms for SA purposes may view it as a job hopper liability that you will be more likely to leave for big consulting after the summer.

i think it's a plus as long as you had the work experience that went along with it. but if you're studying to take the exam with no finance work experience, it'd probably be a waste (just as having a cpa with no real accounting experience is a waste).

Give me a couple years and I will let you know, but to echo previous posters, you are wasting your time if you don't already have the mandated work experience.

f0bolous wrote:i think it's a plus as long as you had the work experience that went along with it. but if you're studying to take the exam with no finance work experience, it'd probably be a waste (just as having a cpa with no real accounting experience is a waste).

More importantly, 4 years of relevant work experience is required to become a CFA. If you don't want that kind of career track, don't get the CFA.
Even level 1 is a freaking hard exam and you'll probably need to take a course to be able to pass. If you then go to law school it means you'll be 7 years out before you can even become a CFA.

Practically speaking, it's one or the other, not both.