New York Lawyer
November 12, 2002

Q:
I'm seven years out of a mid-tier law school (average grades), and I have practiced in-house, in an association and with a small firm since then. I'm half way through an MBA program with a reputable university with at 3.75 GPA. What jobs meet at the intersection of a JD and an MBA?

and

What is an attainable position for me in the legal field that will draw on my MBA, my background as a math teacher and some advertising experience?

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A:

What happens at any intersection is a matter of which direction the traffic is going ... or, in your cases, where you want to go with your double degree. Surprising as it may seem, potential employers will draw different inferences from a joint JD/MBA, a JD followed by an MBA and an MBA followed by a JD.

As I've noted in a prior column, those receiving joint JD/MBA degrees have to send the marketplace clear signals about whether their design is to be a lawyer who knows a lot about business, or a businessman who possesses the technical knowledge of a lawyer. Frankly, the joint degree tends to bewilder employers unless the candidate articulates a clear focus; many joint JD/MBA,s for example, have engineering backgrounds and think the degree is the fastest/best equipment for starting and heading up an entrepreneurial business.

An MBA that follows a JD (and the varied legal experience the first question mentions) creates a natural inference that the purpose in obtaining the credential is to create a lever for leaving legal practice. Looks life you've been bouncing around in law without finding a happy home. And the fact that your B-school grades are far superior to your law school grades support the inference that you have greater interest and aptitude in being a generalist (general management) than in being a specialist (lawyers are specialists, even when they speak broadly).

On the other hand, a lawyer with an MBA who states he/she wants to plow "the legal field" is sending a different message: namely that they want to be a business lawyer who has solid insights into the issues and mindset of corporate clients. Maybe you want to be in a firm ... maybe in-house. Maybe you want to create enterprises and be known as an SEC, tax or M&A guru. (lawyer-as-builder/enabler). Maybe you're interested in the ongoing corporate governance of a mature company (lawyer as maintainer). Maybe you want to reduce your clients' risks of doing business by being a compliance or risk management expert (lawyer as risk-reducer/danger spotter). Maybe you want to find the battles surrounding things that already have gone wrong (lawyer as litigator). The precedential value of teaching math or dabbling in advertising is about nil -- unless you express a strong interest in developing an educational enterprise, software program or other bit of intellectual property.

Look at it this way: the job market assumes that your most recent career decision or setting (or education) is the most powerful indicator both of what you are capable of doing (we're supposed to get wiser with age) and what you want to do (your motivation).

At the JD-MBA intersection, therefore, people turning out of the one-way street of law into the broad highway of business have a ton of choices, and their marketability will depend on how convincingly they can make a case for the direction they want to travel. They can be deal lawyers (particular if their legal background was in commercial transactions, real estate or contracts). They can become investment bankers, financial consultants, turnaround experts, venture capitalists, market makers, brokers or other financial types. The can move into entrepreneurism, whether in start-up, emerging growth, second stage or transformational businesses. They can aspire to general management, although the suitability of ex-lawyers for executive management is not automatically assumed by the marketplace. They can take over Dad's Chevrolet dealership.

The question is what do you want to do? Oh, yeah: And why?

From the marketplace's point of view, you should remember this: like other areas of technical expertise such as human resources, information technology, accounting/controllership, etc., law represents a technical discipline that usually as applied on the staff side of the organization, rather than in line management. The difference is that line positions contribute to making the company money, whereas staff jobs, while essential, cost it money. It is relatively unusual for a staff-side person to make the transition over to general management -- to move from being a specialist to becoming a generalist. But it certainly does happen, and an MBA degree is a strong signal that that is what you want to do with your career -- and that you are willing to invest the time and effort to make that transition.

So ... stop asking what employers will let you do, and starting focusing on what you will tell them you want to do. Going back for a second advanced degree is not like Field of Dreams: "Build it and they will come." Unh-unh. They have to know where to come. Better still, why don't you drive over to them --after you've passed through that intersection.

Sincerely,
Douglas B. Richardson
President, The Richardson Group