Selecting the right job for law school
Guys, I am looking for sincere advice about my career. This is very specific post so it may not help many other people but I would really appreicate your thoughts.
For my full-time I would like to look at two things: (1) whether I like the job (2) whether it will help me to get into good law school (possible JD/MBA).
I am planning to work for 2 years and go to law school for JD or JD/MBA. Then with few years experience in M&A practice I want to come back to banking for M&A or restructuring.
Out of following options, (1) MS Finance (2) CT Capital Markets (3) MM IB (Oppenheimer, Duff & Phelps). What would be the right choice for me to satisfy both criteria?
Thank you
MM IB, A year ago I was contemplating law. Spoke to a guy at Watchtell/Sullivan & Cromwell/ Cravath, who is an associate that participates in the interview process. His words: "most of the pre law work experience interviewees come in with are basic jobs, what we really look for is class rank, law review etc; however if the person did something like investment banking prior to law school, that's gonna grab my attention"
Disclamer: The jump from law to IB is quite rare, it only happens amongst the top M&A firms like Skadden, S&C, Cravath. It usually comes about as a result of networking, and experience; usually about 4/5th year of an associates tenure. However in this current market its gonna happen less because the experienced hire pool is so large. If you want IB, do IB !
Thats all you need to know. The best way to IB is IB...
Doing this does not make much sense. If you want to be a lawyer, go to law school immediately (or work for a year or two as a paralegal).
If you want to be a banker, work in M&A. Maybe do a MBA to rebrand. But Finance > JD > law > finance just seems needlessly complex. Why do you want to do this? There are easier ways to get into restructuring.
Unless you want to be Bond Counsel or something then I doubt you need law school. Bond Counsel definitely gets paid though, I'll tell you that for sure
also some of the least interesting people I know. tax accountants included.
I don't disagree with that at all
There is a JD oasis!! I would ask those monkeys too
Why would you want to go into Big Law? Take the MM IB or Citi offer and run with it. The chances of getting big law even from the T-14 aren't so hot, you have to pay 250K in direct costs and a lot more in opportunity cost to get a job that will pay less than a first year direct promote associate position.
I would agree - "if you want IB, go IB" - but it's never that simple. A close friend of mine knew he wanted to become a lawyer before he started as an Analyst. He just didn't want to go straight to three more years of school, and figured that spending a few years learning how to work hard, learn something about, and make some money wasn't a terrible idea.
On the topic of Law to Investment Banking lateraling, I echo the point about top firms presenting the "best" opportunity, and the reality of such moves being fairly rare.
That said, for some reason or another, I've encountered a ton of JDs in securitization groups. Not sure why, but I wouldn't have expected it.
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