CFA® for mid-level in-house lawyer

I am a 34 y.o. mid to senior level in-house derivatives lawyer at a French investment bank. My main career goal is to become a general counsel - the main issue I see is the fact that I am specialist and general counsels are usually generalist corporate lawyers coming out of private practice.

I have taken into consideration an executive MBA to improve my management skills and increase visibility (and also because I love the business side of things and wouldn't mind a commercial role). However, this isn't a viable option: my employer wouldn't sponsor me financially and wouldn't give me the time for an MBA. The only viable options are courses like Stanford LEAD or online MBAs from Warwick etc which I am not sure would add much to my opportunities.

I have started to consider as an alternative the CFA® which would be quite different in terms of skill-sets but would force me to at least improve my financial skills and understand better the requests from the business on a financial level. It would also give me an option to move to a legal/structuring role should there be opportunities. 

What are your thoughts? Any suggestion/tip would be helpful. 

Cheers

5 Comments
 

In terms of derivatives CFA is actually pretty weak. In my opinion, it's the one of the only parts of the curriculum where I think they could beef it up.  So from a derivatives perspective, I don't think you would learn anything from a CFA.  General finance definitely yes.

 

CFA practically has nothing on structured notes. It's really weak on derivatives.  You'll learn what's a bull spread, bear spread, straddle. What are VIX options. How does the BSM model work for option pricing....like really basic stuff...

 

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