Hey y'all,
I'm about to finish my LLM (masters of laws) in Intellectual Property Law (top LLM school v my previous lower-regional JD) and have passed the patent bar. I'm about to finish my program but have slowly been getting less and less excited about getting locked into a law career, although IP (patents especially) is in high demand, since the only real routes are prosecution (writing patents) or litigation (work-life balance not ideal).
I have a close contact at a big name (maybe not BB but not far off) Compliance Consulting Firm for HF/PE and he told me they regularly hire JDs, especially (as he says and also went through) who were in between being a lawyer or other routes with limited options to really exit law. (Chill with the "Why would you go to law school when you knew you didn't wanna be a lawyer".. lol).
Short background, I kinda went into law school with the idea of not being a lawyer or trying to find something on the "business" consulting/strategy side, whatever that meant to me at the time. Was always into trading as a kid, started with penny stocks the end of high school, involved in a young investors club in college, options, and gradually progressed my knowledge but nothing crazy in depth. I like to think I have great people skills and gain trust easily, which leads to people opening up more and becoming a valuable resource, and also tend to have a broader point of view on things.
I was pre-med in undergrad and after realizing i didn't wanna go thru med school (or deal with blood lol), I decided to finish the degree and go to law school instead in hopes that my degree made me "special", which got me some scholarship. Halfway thru, after taking an IP course, I realized I was eligible to take the Patent Bar (STEM degree required) and loved the business aspect of IP so I decided to do the LLM only if it was at a top school since my JD was only good for my specific region.
Now that I'm about to finish over the summer and taking all these IP courses and thinking as a lawyer, I'm just not feeling it anymore and I don't see a clear path of getting into some sort of Strategic Consulting position and being able to use my IP background versus just being a lawyer with not much say in the details of a deal. BUT, i'm also thinking (the optimistic/things happen as they're meant to side of me) this may be exactly what I envisioned. Prior to finding out I'm eligible for the patent bar, my initial plan was to take an SEC regulatory course in law school since I loved trading but once I found the patent thing, the courses overlapped time-wise so i went all in IP (especially since I was basically the only one at my school who was going into Patent law and thought that was cool - IP wasn't big in my area (mostly Personal injury and estate planning) versus other big markets like DC/NY.. which is why i moved to a bigger market for my LLM).
My close family friend contact is a MD at a Compliance Consulting firm (who supposedly banks high 6 figs - low 7) who told me to look into HF/PE compliance material to see if i'm interested, and said he'll pass my resume along to his boss as well as explaining to me in depth one night the work he does in layman's terms (so it kinda sounds like I may get an offer). I've already began researching Form ADVs and other SEC Registered Investment Advisor regulations and am already intrigued.
I guess my question is if I go this route (Compliance Consulting Associate for HF/PE- big name, described on here I think as MM), what kind of options do I have for career growth in terms of not only staying at this firm and making my way up to MD etc, but also maybe moving to a CCO position for a HF/PE or more specifically, PE in terms of possibly being in a more strategic role with my IP background if I have limited finance/econ experience (but willing to learn!! or maybe MBA!?)? Also, what kind of salary should I expect for a Regulatory and Compliance Associate position with a law background?
Thanks so much guys
You mention an interest in trading; IP law is kind of a weird in-between for a hedge fund... if you had MS/PhD in a subject, it could be appealing (especially for biotech), and if you were bankruptcy-focused it would be great for a distressed fund, but I think compliance consulting will set you back as far as moving to the investment team (fantastic if you want to move to in-house counsel / compliance). CCO is definitely in the cards down the line.
If you’re more open to the private markets side, there’s probably a market for IP law backgrounds in the VC world, but again I think if you’re going into compliance consulting first it will be an especially steep uphill battle to get a deal team seat.
Thanks for the reply! Yeah I only have a Bio BS.
CCOs I've heard can bank really well so i'm not opposed to that especially because this family friend originally had a HF which led to this contact and possibly other contacts as well, and then if I take this job, that should lead to more HF/PE contacts, so that is definitely on my radar in the future and is more appealing than my IP prospects atm.
Private Markets VC is interesting, didn't think of that. I'd have to look more into what those IP related VCs look for in a candidate.
What if I went into Valuation at this firm I'm looking at, how do you think that would play out? Would i even have the background for that?
Just trying to explore all my options, especially before I talk to my contact again.
Your best move here is Litigation finance. Get in touch with the team at GLS in Chicago.
Lit, and especially IP Lit, backgrounds are valued in this space more than corporate backgrounds.
Going to PM you!
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