Are you better off going to law school or getting an MBA? In regards to IB, PE, HF, REITs, etc. What is the best?
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MBA, no question
Perspective: Have JD, currently finishing up MBA from target school.
Thoughts: Only get a JD if you know you want to be an attorney. None of those types of businesses recruit at law school OCR for finance roles. MBA far more applicable / flexible.
What about joint JD/MBA programs?
Don't do it unless you have a very good reason.
Never understood why some people went for this joint degree, given that JD and MBA do not complement each other. Having legal background will not help you become a better banker (and vice versa), unless you work at a distressed debt shop, in which case being able to read and understand case law can potentially help (then again, you don't need 3 years of law school to be able to read case law).
If you are looking to go into finance for one of these types of firms, I don't think JD/MBA is the way to go - its two extra years for something that you do not need.
I think its a decent idea for lawyers who are going into highly complex practices (securities, corporate law, bankruptcy, real estate transactions, etc.) and who are at universities with top tier law and b schools to have a better sense of the business and math around things.
However, this is something that attorneys generally realize after the fact- i.e. "it would have been more beneficial to do an MBA accounting class that some nonsense Trust and Wills or International Law course that is not applicable to my Big Law practice."
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