Does IB to Biglaw make sense?

I'm a sophomore at university. I want to go to law school, with the end goal being Biglaw. I'm also really interested in IB, especially M&A. It is likely that because of character & fitness issues, in order to go to a top law school for BL, I will have to work after graduation for at least a year to prove some kind of sense of responsibility and maturity. 

Does anyone know if Biglaw firms will look more favorably on someone who had work experience at a BB or EB investment bank? 

 
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I have a friend who was more poli sci oriented in college but decided to study business as well anyway because it seemed like a fun, lucrative thing to do I guess. He ended up going to a BB top group after graduation, realized he was not such a finance guy (to me that seemed to make sense for me as he LOVED politics and law stuff in college but obv it’s his life), did some PE recurring but ultimately went the law/politics route. Did like a year working on campaign consulting after his analyst gig and then to a top law school and now big law. I figure there may be others who have gone from IB to BL and a couple of other people I know come to mind now as well like that. I definitely do think lawyers, especially BL lawyers respect bankers for their sharpness, business acumen and work ethic from the lawyers that I know. Obv to be a lawyer there is more to that and need to know law well and go to a good school and do well there but I figure it is a nice to have and respected line on resume for a recent law school grad or current law school student during BL recruiting but I have not personally done BL recruiting so my thoughts are really just based on my limited logic, knowledge and experience as an outsider 

 

Very very very few former bankers are lawyers. Being a lawyer is far more boring, more difficult to get there (law school debt and time investment), and less lucrative in the long run with worse exit ops. Being an analyst will probably help with most firms recruiting but can actually hurt with some firms. They want malleable grads in their mates 20s without much experience. They need bodies in the corporate department, not people with banking knowledge. Bc most big law attorneys didn’t go to an Ivy and obtain a good non law job, they often have a chip on their shoulder regarding good pre-law credentials. 

 

No. I've seen plenty of ib mds basically do the legal advisor role themselves.  Never seen a lawyer do a bankers job.

Law school is not very applicable to the job, expensive and stressful with another stress filled Bar exam that must be passed after hours of study(that again doesn't really matter).

Its like if we required ib analysts to pass the cfa exam 2 months into the job. A total time suck and not relevant to ib.

 
wherethefisdonny

No. I've seen plenty of ib mds basically do the legal advisor role themselves.  Never seen a lawyer do a bankers job.

Law school is not very applicable to the job, expensive and stressful with another stress filled Bar exam that must be passed after hours of study(that again doesn't really matter).

Its like if we required ib analysts to pass the cfa exam 2 months into the job. A total time suck and not relevant to ib.

Former lawyer here and crediting all of this. Bankers can do a lawyers job. Vice versus almost never true. 

 

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