Law School for Real Estate?
Anyone have thoughts as to whether law school is a good move, considering I am still at the early stage of my RE career?
The company is willing to float the bill for it (so long as I meet certain grade thresholds) and I'm thinking this could be a chance to gain some knowledge that will be helpful in my career down the road and even more so if/when I open up my own shop. The firm does not have an in-house attorney/council working through contracts, P&S Agreements, leases, etc and so this may be a good way to wiggle myself into a position to add value. Only caveats I see to this is the time it requires to study, go to class, prepare, etc while working full time.
Any guidance is appreciated.
If my company paid I would do it for sure. Im assuming this is a small/boutique shop? Plenty of programs tailor to full time professionals like yourself. In law school, you will get the fundamentals on law, but not learn how practice law. I doubt you will go into depth on real estate until your final semesters.
Appreciate the response.. Would it make more sense, seeing as the end goal is opening up own development shop, to go to Law School or some sort of Business School for either MBA, MSRE/MSREDev, Etc?
A lot of schools offer a joint JD/MSRE. If your company is footing the bill for a full law degree, talking them into an additional MS degree shouldn’t be hard. If you want to open up your own shop, nothing will beat actual experience but from an academic standpoint, the JD/MSRE would be the best foundation.
sounded like you wanted to move up in the company as their go to legal guy. I think the question you would have to ask yourself is whether or not you want to do anything with this law degree, if you even want to get on the legal side. If you want to move up and definetly know you want to do real estae, msre/msred is the route. If you potentially see yourself spinning out of real estate, mba will get you better rounded. Although you dont need a masters to reach your end goal of owning your own dev shop, msre/msred would be most aligned.
This. It's going to be dependent on what you want to do later on, but either way you'll still be set.
More on law school specifically, friends who've taken the LSAT have said it isn't terrible, you just have to recognize what the questions are asking, especially in the logic games section. The stress in law school compared to other grad programs is considerable too, but I would imagine it's not as terrible as people say. 1L is fairly loaded with all your generic legal classes, and from what I've been told it's pretty hard to juggle a job during 1L, with some schools pretty much downright forbidding it. Later on, thankfully some states have bar reciprocity membership agreements so you can practice in multiple states. Best of luck on the LSAT.
If you're interested in going law school, I highly suggest you meet with some people who practice already or are in their later years of school and pick their brains on the experience. A lot of people say they want to get their JD or be lawyers and when they get there, are totally blindsided by the required work load, time commitment, and just general experiene of working in law.
If you're planning on going to a decent law school, I would definitely talk to some alumni or current students. My girlfriend is currently in a decent program here in socal, and there is NO WAY she could work full time, or even part time really while she's been taking classes. Everyone is different and I get that, so maybe you'd be an anomaly to what her and her friends/colleagues tell me. And maybe theres a less condensed program, I know she is doing a 3 Yr full time. I definitely wouldn't expect to perform the same you have been while carrying a full courseload, and I also think your employer would understand that, since they'd be making the investment.
If you like real estate law, this could be perfect for you as you move into a new role in the company. Keep in mind its going to take you atleast 3 years, especially if you're working, I would think to get the JD. Having a law degree can obviously be helpful but there may be other options for you if you aren't necessarily in love with law. They'd probably pay for a MBA in RE or MRED which, depending on what you want to do down the line, could be more impactful.
The prevailing wisdom on this board is only go to law school if you want to be a lawyer (real estate attorney or another area). And to know that you should talk to many practicing attorneys and intern at a firm in your desired specialty to see what life is actually like in that discipline-profession.
There are far more useful (and much less expensive and time-efficient) pedigrees for real estate than law: an mba focused on entrepreneurship and finance comes to mind or a locally known msre with a strong network and technical finance skills is much more practical.
Another thing not discussed is JDs are largely looked at as non-business/investment/math people and such a designation could lead to typecasting from a hiring perspective.
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