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Cornell 3-year JD/MBA vs. Columbia Law (probable acceptance)/ Harvard Law (reasonable stretch?)

I am currently a 1L with ~3.8/4.3 contemplating transferring to Columbia or NYU for familial reasons or if possible to Harvard for prestige. My grades second semester will hopefully stay the same, with a chance of decrease. My scholarship at Cornell Law covers cost of MBA (effectively, JD/MBA cost at Cornell would be equivalent to cost of JD at Columbia)

Future career path: I want to start out at Big Law and after 4-5 years move into an in house position and possibly a management position in the long run.

Concerns: I'm starting to question the value of a Johnson MBA because the school's ranking is slipping and I don't think its network is as strong as I would like. Furthermore, I really don't like Ithaca and feel like any initial success I have had will deteriorate if I have to survive here for 2 more years. At the same time, Columbia is a massive school and there is no guarantee I will be extraordinarily successful there. I would also have to give up an MBA which theoretically will provide me with the flexibility to move into the business world in the future.

Any advice would be helpful.

A non-M7 MBA is pretty worthless in general and even good MBAs are pretty worthless if you want to be a lawyer. That said, if you only want NYC transactional biglaw, it's only worth a transfer if you somehow save money at your new school. If it's equal cost (or worse, more debt), probably not worth rocking the boat.

Nelson wrote:A non-M7 MBA is pretty worthless in general and even good MBAs are pretty worthless if you want to be a lawyer. That said, if you only want NYC transactional biglaw, it's only worth a transfer if you somehow save money at your new school. If it's equal cost (or worse, more debt), probably not worth rocking the boat.

OP here:

Yea, I definitely want to do transactional big law. I guess what's really driving this is that I want out of Ithaca but the rational choice it to stick with it. It also gets icky with timing (I'd have to say no to the MBA before finding out about any transfer options).

Anyway, thank you for the input!

I think if I can understand the underlying elements the question is not so much an expected value calculus because you seem to realize completing your JD/MBA is objectively best but rather an emotional/existential/happiness calculus which is quite a different evaluative process. Of course we could examine employment outcomes (by the way Cornell rocked it 59% 101+ firm 10.5% fed clerkship) vs. Columbia (#1 79% 101+ + Fed) and look at the financial costs etc.

Anonymous User wrote:

Nelson wrote:A non-M7 MBA is pretty worthless in general and even good MBAs are pretty worthless if you want to be a lawyer. That said, if you only want NYC transactional biglaw, it's only worth a transfer if you somehow save money at your new school. If it's equal cost (or worse, more debt), probably not worth rocking the boat.

OP here:

Yea, I definitely want to do transactional big law. I guess what's really driving this is that I want out of Ithaca but the rational choice it to stick with it. It also gets icky with timing (I'd have to say no to the MBA before finding out about any transfer options).

Anyway, thank you for the input!

And worthless is probably overstating things. It's a nice talking point and you'll learn some stuff, but it's probably not a decisive factor. That said, if you want NYC transactional work, Cornell with your grades is as good as any other school. If you wanted to clerk or be a govt litigator, there might be a case for an HYS transfer, but not for your goals.

Get the MBA. Cornell has a great MBA program, and to be honest people that think you have to go to a top business school to make it worth have no idea what they are taking about. It is true that if you want to do litigation or public sector work the MBA is probably not going to pay dividends. But if you are going to do any business work, it is going to be very useful. Having the MBA will help you really understand your clients because they are also MBAs. Plus when you do the MBA program you are building a client base from your peers. If you don't mess it up, many of them will likely want you to do legal work for them down the road. Also your network will get twice as big.

I have a good friend that is General Counsel for a large company, he has a JD/MBA. I asked if he used his MBA, and he said everyday. Think about it. If you ever go in-house, it will be well worth.

Nelson wrote:A non-M7 MBA is pretty worthless in general

you are right about an MBA not helping much for legal hiring, but there are plenty of good non-M7 MBA programs.