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The answer is both, but mostly the former. IB's will hire graduates from the top law schools immediately upon graduation. Note, it has to be a top law school - those IB's are basically hiring you for the name of your law school and for the raw talent/work-ethic you are supposed to have by coming from a top law school.
Practicing lawyers can and do also get into IB, particularly if they have been working in the financial-services industry. This, however, tends to be significantly harder. There's really only one truly effective way to break into IB - and that's to get recruited upon graduation, either from undergrad or grad-school (usually from an MBA program, but sometimes from another grad-program like law school). It is significantly more difficult to get into IB from another job. It can be done, but the odds do not favor you.
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