Rising Pre-Law Junior with good stats - Am I too late?
Hi all. I have a unique situation I want advice on.
I am a rising junior at Wharton undergrad. Even though I attend Wharton I have wanted to be a lawyer my whole life and I have pursued that pathway. At Wharton I concentrated in Management (but can switch that on a dime). My gpa is a 3.94 (LSAC weighted 3.99). I have taken the LSAT and scored a 176. Basically I have an ideal resume that sets me up for the top of the T14 and makes me very competitive for a Yale-Harvard-Stanford slot, since I am around the 75th percentile of stats for admitted applicants there. At this point it seems not easy (obviously) but "tracked" that if I wanted I could end up at a biglaw position at a top firm.
This summer I got an internship that looks fantastic for pre-law (think White House, ACLU, Biglaw research, etc level, 3-5% acceptance). It involved a lot of hands on legal work and I'm having second thoughts. In my work I've also gotten to talk to a lot of current and former biglaw guys that regret the path very much.
I always planned to take two years in between undergrad and law school. At the very least I would like to try some kind of high finance work, which most of my peers are doing already. I have a solid network from my friends at Wharton who are either working at firms I would want to be at right now, or recently graduated and are starting there.
Assuming my goal was to get an internship in IB or PE:
1. Is this possible?
2. How much of a disadvantage would I be at?
3. Am I a fucking moron? Should I just continue down the biglaw path? I'll probably enjoy the legal work, I'm really just looking to explore a bit more. In comparing the salaries on the right side it doesn't look too different from what my path in biglaw would be with the Cravath scale, if I didn't take two years off.
Also sorry if any of this sounds stupid/I used the wrong terms. Not as familiar with finance recruiting as I am with law school admissions.
Based on the most helpful WSO content, here's what you need to know:
Is this possible?
How much of a disadvantage would I be at?
Am I a moron? Should I just continue down the biglaw path?
For further guidance, you might want to look into specific threads on WSO that discuss transitions from law to finance, as well as networking strategies to break into IB or PE.
Sources: Internship Choices (PE vs IB), I did an Internship in IB now im unsure if following the path, it was shit, Talk me out of law school (HYS law), Advice for undergrads going into IB interested in PE, Big Law (M&A) to IBD Associate
delay grad
prolly can’t find top banking/pe for Summer 2025, but would leverage Wharton network for some type of small hedge fund/MM pe role. Then go full time at a well know bank/pe shop.
The real question is, why tf would you want to do banking for two years of all the things that you could do? If you are passionate about law, and want to be a lawyer in the future, there’s no point in sacrificing 2 years of your life for no reason imo.
The reality is that the pre-law school internships you do don't really matter all that much for admission, except to the extent that they demonstrate you were "busy" with a well respected program/job. Most of admission to the law schools I'm targeting in HYS+CCP is LSAT/GPA based and those stats right now are in the 75th percentile or higher for those schools, with essays/story pushing you over the top. So there is very little utility for me to pursue another "legal" undergraduate internship in this time.
After some debate I've decided that I am definitely going to take two years off in between undergrad and law school. So I'm thinking I want to use those two years to explore finance, and at the very least, confirm if it's something I do/don't want to do before I fully committing to practicing law. I do enjoy law in theory but the more I'm hearing about biglaw practice the more I am turned off by it. The money is good but I am especially concerned with the anecdote I keep hearing of "you only work harder as you progress up in role," which is the opposite in something like banking. I am expecting to do horrid hours anywhere I work right out of school but, ideally, those would get better with time and not worse.
def makes sense if you want to explore finance and see if it’s something that your interested in. I came into school thinking I wanted to go to law school too, but big law doesn’t seem as interesting as “high” (lmao) finance does. Im going into RX banking which has a ton of legal elements to it. Lot of senior members have law degrees, tho arguably RX is a lot different now than when they were entering the industry. Also seen lots of law degrees in special sits/distressed investing platforms, even hedge funds (Diameter cofounder famously went to law school).
This may be irrelevant to your original question, but just thought I’d share if ur interested in both law and finance. I still see law school somewhere in my future, even though i’m very set on being an investor long term.
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