When Is Law School Actually a Good Idea?
Law school gets a bad rep on this site, which makes sense considering the self-selected sample of contributors. Seems like the consensus is that most people go to law school for perceived upper-middle class prestige without really thinking it through and end up hating it.
From my perspective banking and consulting do seem to make more economic sense than rushing into law school if you have the choice (no school, better exit opps). Sure you can play the "do what you're interested in" card, but I'm calling B.S. that there is anyone who is really interested in the shitwork you're pulling in any of those fields for at least the first few years and no one really knows what they're going to enjoy doing 5+ years down the road.
I didn't go to a target, and I have no shot at a Mckinsey-Goldman level job, but I have the grades and standardized testing chops for a solid shot at HYS Law, and I am far from the only person I know in my boat. It seems to me like a T-6 law school might make more sense than a Big4 advisory or F300 analyst position with a solid chance I'll be stuck in middle management forever.
Looking for someone to convince me I'm wrong
Hey randomconsultingguy, I'm the WSO Monkey Bot and I'm here since nobody responded to your topic! Bummer...could just be unlucky but one of these topics will help shed some light:
Hope that helps.
If you think you’ll be stuck in middle management at a F500 company, what makes you think you’ll be any more successful in the legal profession? You’ll just get paid more to hate your life for the first eight years, then once you realize you won’t make partner, you’ll be stuck in a career that you hate.
Don’t do law school and biglaw just because it seems like a golden path to success. Do it because you’ll truly enjoy the work - that’s how you’re successful in any field. And definitely don’t do it because of the prestige and exit opportunities; there are better things that will set you up for success in the business world other than $200k in debt and three years of a tangentially related curriculum.
Q: When Is Law School Actually A Good Idea?
A: When you want to be a practicing lawyer
I just saw another post that said you go to a T30 and have a 3.98? I thought based on this post you had a 3.8 at like Southern Illinois University or something. Start prepping and hitting the pavement hard, there is no reason to go to law school - you can get screeners at all the top consulting firms and likely a good deal of banks as well for full-time.
Keeping the post below as it took a while to write. My background is bad grades (sub 2.5) at a ~100 ranked state school to close to full ride at a t25 law school. I did the whole biglaw thing (also recruited for non-law 2L and 3L years) and I now am moving to PE.
Some notes/paragraphs: 1. If you do go to law school. HYS is likely worse than a full ride at T6/T14 as there really isn't separation in the jobs you get on a compensation basis. If you are truly competitive for HYS, grind the LSAT and get a Ruby from Chicago or a Hamilton from Columbia. The difference in debt matters hugely while the comp doesn't change coming out - biglaw lockstep is biglaw lockstep. Of course if you have a few million in trust fund or parents paying something, HYS should be the choice then. Yes maybe HYS has better OCR but its not worth the 200k extra in debt.
Middle management at a f500 pays the same as middle management legal. If you think you think are going to get stuck in middle management at a f500, its as hard or worse to move up as an in-house general counsel because its harder to make lateral jumps (ie; moving from the fp&a team to the product development team) to sidestep a boss who is a couple years older than you. Yes people move from AGC type roles (which can be comparative to director level), but this is because their roles as managers of other attorneys and larger projecct management not their pure analytical skills. Maybe you do have the chops to make equity partner at a law firm, but then if you have those chops, I would argue you aren't getting stuck at middle management in a F500.
Your universe of recruitment opportunities out of law school, with no work experience is basically just: biglaw and MBB. I had interviews with Bain/Mckinsey at the post-MBA level and recruiters for Deloitte and Strategy& wouldn't talk to me for non analyst roles. If you recruit for corporate roles that will give no work experience looks, they don't pay much over 100k. For ibanking, do a search of investment banks/law schools for the past 2 years and pick out the number of people who placed directly into associate positions with no work experience prior to law school. Then compare this number to the people from your school who placed into any Ibank/TAS role from your school the past 2 years. Yes MBB does recruit at a few schools, but the odds are likely worse than going to most T15 schools for your MBA.
Biglaw junior shit work is worse than banking/consulting/F500/Advsiory junior shit work. If you are posting on here, I assume you aren't dying to become a litigator. Guess what for corporate work, I really hope you like searching for change of control provisions in hundred page documents, organizing signature pages, and doing high level project management for issues that you won't really get to negotiate until you are close to chopping block time. The differentiator between junior shitwork at advisory/banking/consulting and biglaw is that you can go much more places with it. Numerous members of my law school class and juniors/mid-levels from my law firm are running into this exact issue looking for non-legal jobs.
If you are a junior with what you think are grades competitive for HYS, guess what your grades are competitive to get anywhere where you can go to a Goldman/Mckinsey level firm a year or two after graduation. Yes maybe your path won't be the well beaten summer PE your sophmore year and summer analyst your junior year to goldman IBD but there are a sizeable of people who did 1-2 years at a f500/big4advisory/boutiquebanking -> high end consulting/banking.
Why not consider a target one year Mfin or one year MiM if you want structured recruiting? If you have HYS grades/ability to get a 171 or 172 on the LSAT, you should be able to get into a top Mfin or MiM. 1 year there -> 2 year banking/consulting stint -> whatever exit is a better outcome than 3 years law school -> biglaw.
Not super familiar with the space, but wow +SB for the effort in writing this out!
This was probably the most thorough and helpful post I've seen on this site. Really appreciate you sharing your experience. Re the masters in management-do you have any idea if applying MBB/ T2 consulting during the fall of my senior year would keep me from reapplying if I didn't get in and did an MI?
Not certain there re: MBB, I know they don't auto-reject if you don't make it through the summer analyst recruitment. However, I think the gating question would be, would a masters in management be a recruiting uplift for a 3.98 at a T30? I orginally wrote this post before I realized your stats from seeing a different thread. I don't think alot of the candidates doing a MiM have top-tier stats like that.
I would regardless take the GMAT this Summer (while also recruiting for full-time positions) as your stats I would think are quite competitive for deferred admissions to top B-Schools (assuming you get a 730+). Then you can forgo doing a MiM and forgo law school and have the b-school plan 2-4 years after graduation if recruiting doesn't go as well as it should.
I am of the opinion that your "match" jobs should be T2 consulting / MM IB / good FDLPs with your "reach" jobs being top tier banking and MBB.
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