Anyone do Law School AFTER banking analyst stint?
Just wondering how common it is. I’m a junior at a semi-target going to a BB this summer. I also recently scored very well on the LSAT and based I’m pretty confident I can get into Harvard or Stanford law schools. I’m planning on applying next year, but if I do get in is it worth asking for a deferral to do 2 years as an analyst or going straight through?
Do you want to be a lawyer or a banker...?
You can be both, I am a Harvard Lawyer working at PJT and I am not the only one.
HaRvaRd LaWYeR working at PjT
Lol ok prospect
You can be both, I passed myself off as a Harvard lawyer while working at Pearson Specter until the pressure of lying got to me a little so I left to be an investment banker for a while at Sidwell
And then you spent all your energy bringing in a deal with no fee and had to go back to being a lawyer
Well done
Lol
I don’t get it. Sidwell & Gionnopolis are referred to as investment bankers but take over companies like PE and dump shares like HF
It depends what you want to do but doesn't really make sense given that the cost is extreme plus 3 years of grinding through law school and foregone earnings. between lost salary and the cost of tuition its about a $1 million investment unless someone is paying for your tuition in which case is a $600+ investment assuming you're in banking OR PE at that stage in your career (post analyst).
Obviously, if you want to be a lawyer then it makes sense but just consider the costs involved. I'm also considering this route as well and am curious what others think. Could the long term benefit of law degree be a lot more tangible than a 2 year MBA business schools">M7 MBA in terms of career advancement at a bank or PE shop?
i have also thought about this a lot and the question must be: What sets a higher floor on your earnings? An MBA business schools">M7 MBA or a Top JD.
High floor I would definitely guess law school. Lots of lost MBA business schools">m7 business school graduates. But a Harvard law degree can always find some law firm to use you for prestige and billable hours.
Assuming you're talking about law firm work after law school and not PI stuff, then it looks like law school sets the higher floor. At a T14 you'd have little problem getting a biglaw job, and those pretty much all pay 190+15k max bonus across the board for first-years. Meanwhile MBA business schools">M7 MBAs looked to be about 150k median all-in first year as of a couple of years ago, but I'm sure the sample has a much higher variance.
I think if you're applying next year you need to make the decision whether you want IB or law. Banks give you ~2 weeks to decide whether to take your offer, so you'll know by September if you're going to be in banking. That being said, my friend interviewed at an T14 law school this year and said one of the people also there on his interview day was an IB analyst from GS. I don't think it's unheard of to do law after your stint but you'll need to apply then not apply next year then defer.
I wouldn't assume you'll automatically get into Harvard or Stanford Law just because you have good LSAT/GPA - but best of luck to you.
I actually think IB might be a good use of your gap years before law school. IB + Top law program makes for an impressive resume and earning an IB salary will help with cost of attendance / affording the forgone salary if you do decide to go.
Maybe consider a joint JD/MBA instead?
law school is just a function of gpa and lsat
It’s not, I organized several mock admissions activity with actual law school adcoms for an organization I was involved with in UG, and they look at a lot more stuff than just the LSAT and gpa
Most corporate lawyers I know are either unhappy/indifferent to their work and quite of few have/ want to go into banking. Just food for thought
Most investment bankers are also unhappy/indifferent about their work
Most xyz career are unhappy indifferent. You work to make money. 10 years of doing anything and you realize that.
But being lawyer does feel like being someone else’s slave for high salary much more. I’ve heard drug abuse is very high.
Speaking from personal experience, people that excel and are happy with law school/being a lawyer are people who really love the law. Don't do it for the sake of wow I can get into law school at aforementioned schools. Not worth the time, money and misery if you don't really love it. And I mean love it, not just kinda like it.
Besides that why the fuck will you want to have a JD if you are in banking already anyway, better talk to some of the miserable souls at biglaw firms that will be working with you on deals first before you make a decision.
This. If you think you get little to no air time on calls or in meetings as an analyst or associate in banking, check out how invisible junior lawyers are on an M&A deal. You could also go talk to lawyers who've left big firms to go corporate and ask how much fun it is with roughly the same, or less, money than you'd make as a first year associate in banking (plus the extra student loans).
That said, there's a lot of other things you can do with a law degree outside of working for a huge firm. I assume that's where the best money is though.
dude once you get a law degree you're pretty much stuck working as a lawyer. People will pigeon hold you to that and it's a rap. If you don't believe me go look at reddit at the sea of miserable lawyers who are stuck in a field they hate because nobody wants to hire someone who has a law degree for anything other that legal work. Idk why everyone on this site keeps spouting that you can always change industries/careers if you work in finance/accounting/law. It doesn't work that way, people will only see you as X if you work in X industry for Y amount of years, and one of the only ways to really change that is by abandoning the career altogether and picking up a new skill/trade/major by going back to school to learn from the basics. I will say this, if you're a lawyer you can definitely go work in finance/accounting since the fields are so related and intertwined, that your skill set as a lawyer is definitely helpful in say tax advisory or restructuring. But a lawyer working in say a hospital as an MD/nurse or working as an Engineer/Software Developer? Nah, gotta go back to school and learn the very basics of that trade.
So many hedge fund founders and so many investment professionals at buy side firms have JD degrees. Why does everyone think law school = lawyer. At that point professionally, couldn’t I use a law background as a strong case for an activist hedge fund or credit? I understand the argument of losing out on compensation, but unlike an mba, a JD is still a strong and unique value-add certification (so I see it as worth the extra year). My plan has always been to get a law degree if I get pushed out from my firm, and then rerecruit/return to credit.
Is my thought process missing something? I’m surprised everyone on wso is against JD for advancement in Wall Street or is this classic wso just dismissive of a path that isn’t their own?
You are missing the point. You go to law school to get a JD to qualify to sit for the bar exam (in most states) to be certified to practice law. Why would you spend three years doing case studies, memorizing the blue book, and mastering the ability to footnote to NOT practice law?
The point being that if you know this far in advance that you are not going to practice law, get an MBA. No one frowns upon JD holders in finance, it just isn’t very common. The fields are distinctly different and most know out of the gate which option suits them.
To your hedge fund example. Again, makes no sense. Why would you want to spend your college years studying law when you could be in an MBA program exploring investment clubs, targeting HF internships, and surrounding yourself with a potential network of business focused professionals? HF/banks/consulting firms pay lawyers to do the legal work and offload some risk (“well our lawyers said so”), you aren’t going to provide savings or anything because you can read an offering document better than your non-JD counterparts. The guy who runs the show at the HF will email the docs to his golf buddy who runs the show at the law firm and let them handle it.
Fortunately, you can do whatever you want and give us all the bird. That just might be getting a JD and never practicing law, but don’t find it strange when someone raises an eyebrow.
Wrote my response below before seeing this.
It’s not that investment professionals don’t have JDs. It’s just that it’s not the best path. The same person who has that JD today could have spent those 3 years doing something else. Whether they spend those 3 years at a job, or trying to start a business, or whatever, almost any option will grow you faster as an investor while also being far cheaper than law school.
I’m just one example, but law school was a huge mistake for me. Thank god I got it out of the way early; I finished JD when I was 24 and was in an MBA program by 27. Had I started later, that would’ve been a tougher move.
People want the security that a fancy degree offers. Not irrational. I just don’t like the trade. I think we are headed into a world where people care what you actually know, not what signaling devices (degrees) you’ve purchased.
Regarding activism and credit specifically. You are correct that these are two areas where lawyers have some relevance. However both of these are primarily about finance skill/experience and less about legal ability. So you’ll say “but I’d rather have both” but will your finance and business acumen be less developed because you spent all that time in law school? I think so. Just my opinion, I think being a good investment analyst is mostly about the experience and repetitions, not about the toolkit. So 3 years out of the game is costly. Conversely, I’ve seen finance professionals pick up the legal side relatively easily. Especially in activism where lawyers really don’t play a differentiated role. Credit, legal ability has value but again, I wouldn’t pass up 3 years of sharpening business/finance skills for it.
Did structured credit for a year and a half. Bankers structured main clauses, lawyers just wrote them and argued about arcane tail risks with other lawyers.
Many of the JDs you see in finance are older, and they entered the field when hiring for PE etc was a bit less mature than it is now, so it was easier for them to make the switch. I doubt most of them really thought when they were in law school that they'd go into finance. If you're not even in law school and you already know you don't want to be a lawyer, what's the point? The tuition + opportunity costs for law school are enormous, that time could be better spent working.
Did law school right out of college. Good handful of former analysts in my class. Not like it’s the common pre-law role or anything, but there were enough if them.
You didn’t spell this out, but it seems slightly implied from your post that the allure of a Harvard/Stanford brand is motivating the decision just a bit. I would caution against going unless you really want to practice law. Yes there was a time in the past when a top JD was more generalist and you might find lots of non-lawyers with Harvard JDs. But it’s not like that today. Unless you really want a legal career, a top law school will be a less ideal path.
A friend I went to law school with did a 3-year stint as an IB analyst in Canada prior to starting law school. He said he absolutely hated IB and it was the worst 3 years of his life. Now he's been working as a corporate/securities lawyer for several years and seems like he'll continue indefinitely.
Wouldn't recommend doing a JD unless you want to practice as a lawyer for at least a few years though. What you learn working at a law firm is far, far more valuable in your career than what you learn in law school.
The second part I think should be OP's biggest concern. If you think law school will help you get "smarter" / think in a particular way (which I find persuasive), fine, but if you think it will enhance your investor skillset I would be more hesitant to recommend that path. American law schools concentrate on disputes, i.e. how would a court handle xyz novel situation or resolve a particular transaction that went sour. However, the vast majority of financial transactions go off without a hitch and you won't be exposed to the legal aspects of those transactions in law school, you learn them by practicing at a firm. E.g. you won't know how to craft credit agreements or what the standard features are at the moment etc, you'll have a theoretical understanding and you'll learn about major disputes in the history of American credit agreements. Hope that's helpful, I'm not a lawyer but these are some of the perspective s imparted by lawyer friends.
Agreed. Law school is more suited for litigator (courts/disputes) than solicitor (office/deals) work. If you want deal experience and learn how agreements can be structured to assist with transactions, you’ll learn 99% of that at a law firm, not law school.
Source: I went to law school and have worked as a transactional attorney.
My buddy is doing IB for two years and then going to law school, but that's because he wants to be a lawyer and can't afford to go to law school right now. Do not get a JD unless you are absolutely certain that you want to be a practicing lawyer. Law school is expensive and stressful.
Regarding the "high cost," many may be unaware that plenty of schools provide significant financial aid depending on the strength of the applicant. It's not uncommon for those with stellar applications to receive scholarships that exceed the cost of attendance.
There are calculators online that help weigh the cost of law school. The barbell scenarios in which you should attend are * if you're accepted to Yale, Stanford, Harvard * if you get a mostly full ride at a strong regional school
From what I understand, the problem isn't leaving the working world for 3 years, but the toll law school itself takes on family life. People tend to underestimate how difficult it can be to study 70+ hrs a week while trying to maintain relationships.
But also, YOLO amirite?
I did 2 years as an analyst at a lower-tier BB, then went to YLS/SLS/HLS and now going to RX at an EB (PJT/LAZ/EVR/HL/MoCo). I don't regret going to law school, but I also did not have to take on any debt, and I enjoy learning law from an academic perspective.
how did you avoid taking debt
I'm fairly fortunate in that I was able to borrow from my parents so did not need to take out student loans. If I wasn't able to do this, I probably would have instead tried to get a merit scholarship from Columbia, Chicago, NYU, or Penn (you can usually get a 50-100% merit scholarship at those schools if you're able to get into one of the T3 law schools), or just stayed in banking/finance.
Do you think the 3 years you spend in Law School were worth the time you could have been moving up the ladder to associate directly?
Why not just lateral if you wanted to stay in banking?
I think this path is actually more common than you think. However, from anecdotal evidence, they usually go back into business as opposed to going into law.
From what I hear, an analyst stint at an EB/BB will substantially increase your odds of getting an offer at Wachtell/Cravath.
Could you please expand on what you've heard in regards to this? Does it make a difference if its coverage role versus product / capital markets? And how does it make a difference?
Sorry about the unambiguity. I belive there isn't preference for any specific industry/product group. From what I heard, Wachtell likes BB experience because it's a proxy for 'how well you can handle the hours'. Additionally, an analyst stint will give you a leg up...but not as much as law review, class rank or an appellate court clerkship.
Lmao not really sure why anyone would do this. It's really hard to go from making 6 figures easy, to getting stuck studying with no income for a set number of years with little marginal benefit.
Do what you want? Live and learn. If you do your internship and hate it, try the law? Just because there are "traditional" paths that make things easier, that doesn't mean it's the only right answer. Ultimately it's your life, identify your goals, and pursue that.
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