speechie92

Hey everyone,

I've heard around that McKinsey recruits heavily at Harvard Law School, and presumably, at a few of the other top law schools as well, and starts these recruits at the Associate Level (100k+). How hard is it to get one of these jobs, assuming you are a student at HLS/YLS/SLS? Is it a common choice amongst graduating law students? Also, would this not be the fastest way to reach the associate level at McKinsey (since, otherwise, you would have to get some work experience and an MBA or alternatively, spend years in grad school getting a Ph.D?)

adam0302

It'll be hard. Pre-ITE there was some IB and consulting recruiting done at HLS/YLS/SLS. But in ITE you're better off going the MBA route if consulting is what you want. The versatility of a JD is a myth.

Polo08816

But the debt is NOT.

bluedevilmike

They definitely recruit actively at YLS, and they do a ton of first-round interviews (which include group exercises and a standardized test). I was a little startled at how few kids (five-ish? maybe?) they invited back for second-round interviews, however.

hypsmc42

Do not go to law school unless you want to be a lawyer. Take a couple of years to get some work experience and apply to b-school. It's simply not worth the effort if you aren't even planning on becoming an attorney, and as a result you won't make the grades necessary for this to even be an option.

speechie92

By no means do I feel as though I don't want to be an attorney; rather, I think it makes sense to know other options when it seems as though one's chances of getting hired at a top-tier law firm aren't the greatest these days.

BerkeleyMcK

Fastest way to get an associate position at McK is to get a BA position at McK & do a 1 year MBA (or get an early promotion, an extreme rarity, even for high performance, often more of a political promotion).

MBA is a perfectly fine track for getting an associate position at McK, not every MBA has work experience. Some get straight into an MBA program out of undergrad, which means you see MBA's entering at the Associate level around 22-24 if they're quick movers, but usually around 26-30. Normally, if you have a McKinsey associate at 25, he/she's a BA-hire who got the MBA paid for by McK

Law school is not the fastest track to an Associate position. However, its a perfectly fine track. HYS are all respected law schools, I tend to interact with more H&S than Y but thats besides the point. Just graduate cum laude and you should be able to pull an interview.

Note:
Many of the JD/PhD's I see at McKinsey work in fields outside their graduate degrees. They all have distinguished degrees and did good work, but they generally pick a specialty / field at McK which is unrelated to their area of study. Occasionally you will see some overlap between their assignments and education, but even then the overlap is generally pretty small, not enough to warrant an additional 2-3 years. It makes much more sense to get an MBA, time-wise, career-wise, debt-wise.

I would tell you that if you want to be a lawyer, or like law exit opptys in case you tire of mgmt consulting, then go the JD route and see if it works. However, if you are studying to be a lawyer to get an Associateship at MBB then stop what you're doing right now. There's nothing special that JD adds to your resume or exit oppts as a consultant unless you want to focus purely on legal practices.

krasivya

Agree with all of the above. For a more flexible resume, you could consider doubling with a JD/MBA. I know many schools off it for like a year extra with financial aid.