My future aspiration was to work at a BB as an analyst but now, I’m considering law school in a couple of years, then into Corporate Law. (I’m an '09 grad) For those of you who have dabbled into Law - either as a law school student or someone who had considered it - what are ALL the factors I should consider in deciding whether straight-up finance (as an analyst) is for me or corporate law? One factor I shan’t consider is probably the labor, as both will impel me to work as a corporate slave… Your advice is much appreciated!
rockstar Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > My future aspiration was to work at a BB as an > analyst but now, I’m considering law school in a > couple of years, then into Corporate Law. (I’m an > '09 grad) > > For those of you who have dabbled into Law - > either as a law school student or someone who had > considered it - what are ALL the factors I should > consider in deciding whether straight-up finance > (as an analyst) is for me or corporate law? One > factor I shan’t consider is probably the labor, as > both will impel me to work as a corporate slave… > > Your advice is much appreciated! Don’t do it! Law school will train you to do one thing and that’s be a lawyer. Period. Also how much do you know about “corporate law”? Do you know what a corporate lawyer does? It’s a lot of mindless doc review, and copying and pasting things so company xyz can do another a secondary offering or helping to engineer a merger between two trucking companies in Ohio (not that I have anything against Ohio). It’s not that stimulating and you’re definitely running around at the request of the bankers. Do you like fire drills? Of course all this assumes you get into a top 14 school. If you don’t, your chances of doing any of this are almost nill. Not to mention the legal hiring market sucks right now and there is a definite paradigm shift in how the big firms hire entry level attornies. And trust me, BIGLAW is really the only option to head down this road. So my advice is don’t do it. Go into ibanking, equity research, corporate finance, anything but don’t do law.
I had considered law school. I was pre-law in college. Most people on this forum are obviously going to be biased. I decided not to go for law b/c I have always been interested in finance. Pre-law as a major was a backup for me; I wasn’t accepted to the business school/major while in ugrad. Also, you should only go if you get into a top school. Even if a first-year law associate’s life sucks, so does a first-year analyst/associate in an IB or other finance company. In every profession there are some people who love it and you may be one of those people who loves corporate law. It’s highly doubtful, but it’s possible. It’s also highly doubtful you would love investment banking though. This is a great site: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/ Here’s a discouraging account of one law student. http://www.calicocat.com/2004/08/law-school-big-lie.html
I had just committed to attending “the” top law school in canada, although the decision was a very difficult one to make. While I do understand that as the name suggests, law schools train you to be a lawyer, I would love to hear everyone’s opinion on the following: 1) Do skills/experience/networking in some areas of commercial law (there is so many ways to parse this but let just start with governance versus finance) give better leverage and entry into IBing than working 6 years start from entry level IBing work (i am assuming the opportunity cost of becoming skilled in commercial law is at least 3years education + 1 article + 2years real work, plus some lost wages i suppose.)? 2) Does IP lend itself to IBing or even some boutique PE VC? 3) Does passing all three levels of CFA but not have a charter (due to lack of qualified work experience) in your honest opinions help at all if somewhere down the road one wishes to make a transition from an applicable area of law to IB? (I really cannot spend another year in school for a MBA, so not an option.)
- No 2) No 3) No If you want to work in finance …then work in finance.