<p>do any people take this path: go to law school to study something like business law or international law and then go onto consulting about those at consulting firms? or do they do this consulting service under their law firms?</p>
<p>There are members of the bar employed at consulting firms; state bar rules generally prohibit attorneys from sharing legal fees with non-attorneys, so those working for consulting firms are generally prohibited from giving legal advice in that capacity. There’s a trend toward permitting multidisciplinary practice, so this may all change in the next few years.</p>
<p>I’ll answer the OP’s question this way. In the last few years, the biggest recruiter of Harvard Law grads was not a law firm. It wasn’t a government agency like the DoJ. It wasn’t a nonprofit. It was McKinsey - the management consulting company. Very very few of those HLS McKinsey hires went to work for McKinsey’s legal staff. Almost all of them were hired to become actual consultants. McKinsey is also one of the bigger recruiters at Yale Law, Stanford Law, and some of the other elite law schools. And since they are hiring these grads to be consultants, not lawyers, it doesn’t really matter to them whether they will pass the bar or not (although I’m sure that passing the bar doesn’t hurt).</p>
<p>However, I would note that this road to consulting, especially elite consulting firms like McKinsey, is generally only restricted to the very top law schools. Going to some no-name law school is probably not going to get you a job at McKinsey. Generally, these consulting companies are hiring for pure raw talent, as opposed to specific skills, which is why they tend to recruit only at the very top law schools (it’s the same reason why McKinsey will heavily recruit guys with PhD’s in physics from MIT and Caltech even though physics has nothing to do with management consulting). Secondly, these consulting companies will also tend to recruit people for the name of their alma mater. Just from a marketing perspective, it’s easier to get consulting clients when you can say that your consultants are graduates of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and other similar places. </p>
<p>Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, I would point out that these consulting companies tend to cater most towards those law school grads who realize that they don’t like law as much as they thought they would. A lot of law school grads come out not really wanting to do law any more, either because they’re tired of it after 3 years of law school, or because they now understand what lawyers do and they don’t like it, or whatever. These consulting companies tend to cater towards those people. </p>
<p>Hence, I would say that I would not recommend going to law school with the express purpose to get into consulting. Yes, some people, especially at the elite law schools, do get into consulting. But it’s still a rather oblique career choice. I would say that if you want to get into consulting, a more efficient way would be to simply try to get in right after undergrad. The consulting companies hire boatloads of people fresh out of undergrad. You should go to law school because you actually want to be a lawyer.</p>
<p>I feel really dumb for asking this, but…</p>
<p>what <em>exactly</em> do consultants do? I understand that they consult, but on what? how? to whom? etc</p>
<p>There are many kinds of consultants. </p>
<p>In this thread, I was speaking specifically about management consulting, and even more specifically, about strategic management consulting. However, there are many other kinds of consulting available - i.e. Information Technology consulting (basically, advising companies on how to best set up their back-end computer systems and data centers), financial consulting (telling individuals or companies how to optimize their finances), and many other kinds of consulting.</p>
<p>Speaking specifically of McKinsey and its competitors, these consulting companies are hired by other companies to help them figure out what they should do with their business. For example, should a company develop a certain product or not, and if so, how? Does a company need to reconstruct its supply-chain and warehouse/distribution centers, and if so, how? Should a company acquire some other company, and if so, which company, how, and how much should be paid? Should a company move into a new market (i.e. another country), and if so, which country, and in what way? What parts of the business should the company invest more money into and what parts of the business should the company look to sell off or shut down? These are just some of the questions that other companies would hire McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and other strategic management consulting companies to help them answer.</p>
<p>Thanks, I understand now. However, it seems that these types of tasks would be more suitable for specialists in the field (MBAs, Econ PhDs, Operations Management PhDs), rather than raw talent of HLS or Physics PhDs.</p>
<p>Yet the fact is, McKinsey does in fact recruit people from HLS, just like it recruits people with Physics PhD’s. Similarly, McKinsey also recruits people straight out of undergrad, or in other words, people with zero or only limited experience in business. And of course, McKinsey also recruits plenty of people with MBA’s, econ PhD’s, and Ops Management PhD’s. And it’s not just McKinsey. All the major strategic management consultancies hire from across the gamut. </p>
<p>What management consulting companies tend to look for, first and foremost, is raw brainpower. This is why they tend to recruit at the top schools, regardless of major. I knew 2 art history undergrads who were hired into consulting companies right after graduation, with zero work experience. So you may ask what exactly does art history have to do with business? Hold on, I’m getting to it. They also tend to strongly prefer people who have ‘brand-name’ degrees, if for nothing else, because these people are easier to sell and market to potential consulting clients. Those 2 art history undergrads came from Stanford. </p>
<p>Consulting is also very much a ‘who you know’ business. You may recall that Chelsea Clinton was hired directly into McKinsey. She didn’t have any experience or any demonstrated kowledge in business, but it didn’t matter. She had a bachelor’s degree (in history) from Stanford, a master’s degree (in international relations) from Oxford, and of course, super-connections in the political world. </p>
<p>The reality is that the consulting companies will train everybody they hire. Consulting companies believe that they can get anybody with the raw talent up to speed in a matter of months. Whether they are right or wrong in believing that, it doesn’t matter, the point is that they believe that. What they cannot create is the talent itself.</p>
<p>what i was also thinking was, there are those consultants who explain to companies the legal systems of other countries when those companies decide to do business in foreign countries. are these consultants generally MBA-types, or do they have a JD for legal training?</p>
<p>what about someone who wants to go into international relations? would studying international law be a practical path to take compared to graduate school (or is international law really business oriented at law schools)? </p>
<p>“You should go to law school because you actually want to be a lawyer.”</p>
<p>sounds like a dumb question, but what does a “lawyer” do? aren’t there many types of lawyers? i’m sure there’s types other than litigation and writing contracts. what other tasks would lawyers encounter?</p>
<p>When companies want to do business overseas, they generally have their attorneys consult with foreign attorneys.</p>
<p>Besides litigation and writing contracts, lawyers appear before administrative agencies, handle adoptions, file patent applications, draft wills, advise school boards, lobby elected officials, write novels, play in rock bands, sell real estate, write “Stardust” and “Over the Rainbow,” and coach the St. Louis Cardinals.</p>