<p>A lot of people just want to have the knowledge of law, as well as the law credential, but not necessarily practice law. For example, I know some police officers and Federal agents who got their law degrees in night school because they felt that the education would benefit them in their job. In most cases, their night school tuition was paid for by the government as part of their jobs’ tuition reimbursement program. </p>
<p>Then there is the subset of law grads who don’t intend to be lawyers, but actually aim to be politicians. A disproportionate number of US Representatives, Senators, and Governors hold law degrees, yet obviously very few of them actually practice law. Furthermore, a large number of political staffers hold law degrees. The current White House Chief of Staff, Josh Bolten, holds a Stanford Law degree. Stephen Hadley, current National Security Advisor, has a Yale Law degree. John Podesta and Leon Panetta, former Chiefs of Staff under Clinton, also held law degrees, as did Sandy Berger, National Security Advisor for Clinton (Berger came from Harvard Law). Many other White House, Congressional, and Senate staffers hold law degrees. If you watch the TV Show “The West Wing”, you will note that many of the White House staffers hold law degrees. And of course Clinton himself graduated from Yale Law, as did Gerald Ford. </p>
<p>If government and politics is the path you want to take, then obviously it would help a lot if you go to an elite law school, especially Harvard, Yale, or Stanford. </p>
<p>And then there are those people who take their law degree and go into business with it. Some people actually use it as a “backdoor MBA” to get the jobs that MBA graduates would normally get. For example, the largest recruiter at Harvard Law is not a law firm, and it’s not the government. Rather, it’s the management consulting firm McKinsey. McKinsey is also a highly prominent recruiter at the other top law schools such as Yale. The top investment banks also recruit at the top law schools. For example, Robert Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton, graduated from Yale Law, worked for a few years as a lawyer for Cleary Gottlieb, and then jumped to Goldman Sachs where he eventually become Co-Chairman. </p>
<p>{In fact, Rubin was unusually peripatetic. He freely admitted in his autobiography that he didn’t really know why he was going to law school except that he had a vague feeling that a law degree would be helpful for whatever he chose to do with his life. He actually knew before he started law school that he didn’t really want to be a lawyer for the long term. He actually started at Harvard Law, then dropped out in the first week, spent a year bumming around Europe, including taking some classes at the London School of Economics, and then matriculated and graduated from Yale Law. These are the guys you just hate because they just make everything look so easy.}</p>