Is an MBA neccesary for me? Forum

[shane0515]

I'm going to a top 14 law school soon and I want to enter business law. Would getting a joint degree look better or worse for recruitment? I want to get an MBA as well as a JD just so I can have some good job secruity in case of another recession. If I loose my job I want to have better job opportunities.

Is getting an MBA really worth getting?

[Tenth Usher]

I've yet to read or meet anyone who thought it was "necessary" to get a JD/MBA, but maybe someone pursuing both degrees can weigh in as to the advantages the dual degree provides you.

[270910]

Substantially worse.

Do more research. Getting 2 degrees at once is rarely a good idea. No corporate law firm requires an MBA, and many would see it as a liability from a fresh grad.

[Mich_Guy]

I'm going to a top 14 law school soon and I want to enter business law. Would getting a joint degree look better or worse for recruitment? I want to get an MBA as well as a JD just so I can have some good job secruity in case of another recession. If I loose my job I want to have better job opportunities.

Is getting an MBA really worth getting?

@ shane0515:

As an MBA alumni, and a rising 1L this fall, I can definitely comment of your question with some special insight. First, like yourself, I was also admitted into a pretty good law school as part of this fall's incoming class. Needless to say, I am in a slightly different demographic than you are (10 years work experience, BS Degree in Electrical Engineering, MBA in Finance), but nonethess I can hopefully lend you some advice that would be of value to you moving forward.

In my humble opinion, as a JD/MBA, you will definitely set yourself apart from your peers in law school in more ways than one.

(1) An MBA (especially if it consistently ranks in the top 30 nationally (USNWR/Businessweek)) from a very reputable school will add incremental value to your resume as you progress toward graduation and beyond in your career. More and more law school graduates (even those who come from T-14s) are finding it increasingly more difficult to break into top law firms and BigLaw salaries right after graduation because of the change in the legal landscape due in large part to an oversupply of lawyers and a big dropoff in BigLaw hiring nationally.

(2) Even in a normal economy, law school grads will face an uphill battle trying to pursue BigLaw opportunities. The extremely few exceptions are those who can place within the top 10-15% of the class academically, and even then it is not a shoe-in. So the MBA would add significant value by allowing you to cross-over into corporate networks that an ordinary law student may not necessarily have access to (I knew a few people in my B-School class who did the JD/MBA thing and were tremendously helped out by the MBA recruiting networks (professional conferences, recruiting events, career fairs, etc...one JD/MBA guy even hired into an investment banking job out of NYC after law & business school, another JD/MBA classmate went to work for a BigOil company in their legal dept).

(3) While there are no specific jobs or professions that are limited only to people who have both JDs and MBAs, the JD/MBA is still great to have on your resume because it will enable you to accumulate a unique combination of skillsets that an ordinary Business school student or Law student will not have. This means that when your interviewing for full time opportunities during your 2L summer & 3L fall, you will be able to capitalize on different work (b-school & law school internships) and classroom experiences (case studies, group projects) that will give you a huge leg up on your classmates, which will basically be your competitors.

Me personally: I am thinking of either doing either Management Consulting, Investment Banking, or Corporate/Securities Law after graduation from law school. Intellectual Property Law is also an option because of my engineering background, but I have not yet decided.

Well, I could go on & on, but I think you get the picture here....Good Luck with your decision!

Mich_Guy

[capitalacq]

Substantially worse.

Do more research. Getting 2 degrees at once is rarely a good idea. No corporate law firm requires an MBA, and many would see it as a liability from a fresh grad.

not the case, but keep on believing!!

[capitalacq]

I'm going to a top 14 law school soon and I want to enter business law. Would getting a joint degree look better or worse for recruitment? I want to get an MBA as well as a JD just so I can have some good job secruity in case of another recession. If I loose my job I want to have better job opportunities.

Is getting an MBA really worth getting?

You won't need it and the few extra job opportunities it adds aren't worth the cost for you. You'll be fine with just a JD. If you don't have a finance/accounting/business background (doesn't sound like you do), I'm sure you can cross-register for a few courses at the business school.

[byunbee]

JD/MBA sounds more useful for employment in biglaw relative to any other dual degree, but I think we need more people who are pursuing both degrees and have actually gone through OCI to enlighten us.

[LLB2JD]

Substantially worse.

Do more research. Getting 2 degrees at once is rarely a good idea. No corporate law firm requires an MBA, and many would see it as a liability from a fresh grad.

Where did you pull this out of? How can having a JD/MBA be a liability? You mean to tell me that potential clients of big law firms frown at having someone with a JD/MBA work on their cases? It is amazing how the fact that you do not need an JD/MBA to land employment in corporate law has totally evolved into it being a grand liability here on TLS.

[capitalacq]

Substantially worse.

Do more research. Getting 2 degrees at once is rarely a good idea. No corporate law firm requires an MBA, and many would see it as a liability from a fresh grad.

Where did you pull this out of? How can having a JD/MBA be a liability? You mean to tell me that potential clients of big law firms frown at having someone with a JD/MBA work on their cases? It is amazing how the fact that you do not need an JD/MBA to land employment in corporate law has totally evolved into it being a grand liability here on TLS.

its a myth that the uninformed like to spread

[270910]

Substantially worse.

Do more research. Getting 2 degrees at once is rarely a good idea. No corporate law firm requires an MBA, and many would see it as a liability from a fresh grad.

Where did you pull this out of? How can having a JD/MBA be a liability? You mean to tell me that to potential clients of big law firms frown at having someone with a JD/MBAs work on their cases? It is amazing how the fact that you do not need an JD/MBA to land employment in corporate law has totally evolved into it being a grand liability here on TLS.

Because it takes an extra year, and 90%+ of desirable corporate law firms hire on a track that assumes a person has 3 years in law school. It is also not necessary to have an MBA to practice corporate law, but having an MBA might mean a person is a flight risk.

I don't have direct experience, but I've been reading this website for 3 years now. From time to time people who ARE getting JD/MBAs swing by, and they usually say it negatively impacts the direct hiring from large corporate law firms. On top of that, the law degree doesn't markedly increase desirability to the kinds of opportunities that would have been available to an MBA.

I'm sure they get hired, and I'm sure there are opportunities for which it is uniquely suited. But my response is tailored to the many people, especially the OP, who think an MBA would help get a corporate law job - and that is pretty objectively false. Browse through the associate ranks at the top law firms and tell me how many MBAs you see.

The big point is that most people think it would be a good idea without having done research in to how it would impact hiring. If your goals are not the usual school -> corporate law practice then maybe it could be useful for your niche, but rarely do people suggest that. And if it turns out you want or need the MBA later in the career, MBA schools ain't going anywhere.

[270910]

And this

You won't need it and the few extra job opportunities it adds aren't worth the cost for you. You'll be fine with just a JD. If you don't have a finance/accounting/business background (doesn't sound like you do), I'm sure you can cross-register for a few courses at the business school.

Is more or less my point anyway, it sounds like we might just disagree on terminology / phraseology more than substance.

[CanadianWolf]

The best resource for this type of question with respect to large law firms are headhunters/ recruiters, although they deal with placing lawyers already practicing, since they tend to be in frequent or constant contact with hiring partners.
My understanding is that it is a benefit since it's easier to communicate with your law firm's business client base (saves the client money on legal fees while reducing the chance of miscommunications). Of the few that I know with this degree, some were able to negotiate higher starting pay at the outset of their legal careers.
I read an article within the last 18 months or so concerning Harvard Law School and their focus on making their law degree more practical (I believe the article mentioned "more MBA-like") and, hence, more valuable in the short term to employers. The article also discussed Harvard's move to de-emphasize Constitutional Law by removing it from the required first year curriculum & making it a second year elective. Northwestern University's law school is a, if not the, leader in this area broadly speaking.

[imchuckbass58]

Substantially worse.

Do more research. Getting 2 degrees at once is rarely a good idea. No corporate law firm requires an MBA, and many would see it as a liability from a fresh grad.

No, you do more research.

I have it on good authority (career services and admins at my school) that many firms, including some "top" ones are actively lobbying schools to expand their JD/MBA programs so they can get JD/MBAs into their recruiting pipeline, and have expressed a preference in seeing more of these students.

Additionally, anecdotal evidence here suggests that JD/MBAs foten significantly outperform regular JDs at corporate-centric firms. Think median getting Cravath, Cleary and Weil.

It's not always a good idea because of cost, and to OP's point, it is pretty much never "necessary." But saying that a JD/MBA from a good school is a liability is just not true.

[270910]

I have it on good authority (career services and admins at my school) that many firms, including some "top" ones are actively lobbying schools to expand their JD/MBA programs so they can get JD/MBAs into their recruiting pipeline, and have expressed a preference in seeing more of these students.

anecdotal evidence here suggests that JD/MBAs foten significantly outperform regular JDs at corporate-centric firms. Think median getting Cravath, Cleary and Weil.

I'm just a law student, I don't speak with authority. I admit I might be wrong. But those two statements strike me as absurd and I have never in my year of law school or extensive research encountered anything that even slightly comports with that.

So, we have a difference of opinion. No reason to get bent out of shape about it on either end. *shrugs*

[imchuckbass58]

I'm just a law student, I don't speak with authority. I admit I might be wrong. But those two statements strike me as absurd and I have never in my year of law school or extensive research encountered anything that even slightly comports with that.

So, we have a difference of opinion. No reason to get bent out of shape about it on either end. *shrugs*

By extensive research do you mean TLS?

I don't have a problem with differences of opinion or if people have heard differently from someone who would actually know about these things. But predominantly, opinions on TLS seem to be based on what people have previously read on TLS. It's just a huge echo-chamber where someone (usually a 0L or 1L) says something, someone repeats it, and eventually it becomes "conventional wisdom" and accepted as truth.

My statement, rather than being based on TLS, is based on (1) being a JD/MBA, (2) talking to at least 8 or so JD/MBAs at Columbia and 3-4 at other schools who have already been through the recruiting process, and (3) talking to people whose job it is to hire law students or get law students hired.

There are many downsides to getting a JD/MBA, most notably the cost, the extra year in school, and the possibility you won't use the degree in certain practice areas. But firm aversion towards JD/MBAs is not one of them, at least if we are talking about big firms with traditional corporate/lit practices.

I don't mean this as a personal attack. I just think it would be a lot better if people on TLS did not opine on things unless (1) they have personal, firsthand knowledge of what they're talking about, or (2) have independent, non-TLS corroboration from people who do. Or, at the very least, if someone is expressing an opinion not based on (1) or (2), it would be great if they could qualify it as such instead of stating a guess as if it were fact.

[choices11]

I completed an MBA prior to law school, and am now a rising 2L at a top 20 law school. From my experience, the MBA will not substantially increase your employability on the legal side initially; however, the long-term benefits of an MBA are numerous. Although most lawyers say that you can learn all the business you need to know in your first couple years, the MBA is shortens the learning curve and, if nothing else, gives you more credibility with your clients. Also, a law degree restricts you in many ways as to what you may do with the rest of your life. Most industries see JD's as over-qualified, and expect they will request too much money. The MBA will give you some mobility. If you want investment banking or to work in financial or securities regulation, an MBA will be extremely helpful (depending on what your concentration is, I guess).

I agree that the added cost of an MBA is probably not worth it for small- or mid-sized law firms, but for Biglaw or any type of corporate work, an MBA certainly provides a benefit.

One thing I do not understand on these forums is people's view of how the firm will look at your resume. The fact that some people say that a firm will look at a JD/MBA and think they are too much of a risk or liability is ridiculous. Hiring partners view things just as you would, if you see a "JD" vs. a "JD/MBA" you know that you would always see the JD/MBA as a greater asset with a more varied skill set.

Lastly, since I know this is the main consideration for most people on TLS, several NLJ 250 firms start JD/MBA's on a second-year associate salary. FYI.

[TTH]

If it doesn't help and is free, no big deal (hai dere, JD/MPP kids)

If it doesn't help and takes an extra year and/or costs money, it hurts.

JD/MBA doesn't help and will likely take more time/money.

[criminalattorney]

it's worthwhile to get it even if it costs more money and time. taking courses outside of law allows you to see things from a different perspective, not to mention the extra network you'll establish to help you later in your career.