Top Law Schools

.

Drop out and go to business school.

Jumping to finance is rare, but not unheard of. If you're still in school, take as many business school finance courses as you can and build up your excel skills. Know the basics, like DCF valuation and financial statements. Try and land financial externships while in school. Target jumping to a smaller shop now, otherwise you'll have to spend a few years working deals with bankers and building a story of why you want to make the jump.

Jumping to PE is pretty unheard of. I don't know anyone in PE that didn't come in as an analyst or after their MBA. Your best shot at PE is probably to jump to an ibank or similar shop and then try to lateral to a PE shop after you have some finance experience.

Also, it seems like the jump might be easier for distressed deal lawyers, since there your JD actually adds tangible value even if you're working the finance side. This is especially true if e.g. you did restructuring work at K&E.

.

I work at a bank and there are quite a few guys here that did biglaw and then got an MBA and now work in various capacities. I can't think of one off the top of my head that made the transition to finance without an MBA.

Bringing it back. Doing mostly banking/finance and capital markets work in BigLaw now, with some M&A mixed in. Interested in making the jump to finance soon/down the road as well and realize B-school's probably the best vehicle to make the switch. Anyone wanna elaborate on the past few posts? interested in hearing what the people at JDarby's bank did before Bschool and what they're doing now at her bank.