What are the non-law options with a JD?

<p>What are the non-law options with a JD?</p>

<p>I am aware that consultancies like McKinsey and some i-banks like Goldman Sachs do hire JDs.</p>

<p>Is there a high probability of getting a non-law job with a JD considering the economy and the over-saturation of the law profession market?</p>

<p>Will I look poorly to prospective employers as a JD applying for a non-law job?</p>

<p>In general, what are the various non-law options for a JD?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

<p>I cannot stress this point enough - do not pursue a JD unless you want to practice law (or, in some cases, enter academia). Law school programs are designed to teach you the skill of being a lawyer. If you do not want to be a lawyer, you will be spending a lot of time and a lot of money on learning a skill that will be useless to you. There was once a time when the JD was the “do anything” degree, but that day is long gone (the MBA is now your best bet for “do anything”). If you apply for a non-law job with a JD you will probably not be hired, either for being overqualified or for not having the right training in the right area. If you get a JD and then get a non-law job, chances are the job you get won’t pay enough for you to pay off the massive law school debt you incurred. If you get a primarily non-law job and realize that you need a basic understanding of the law, there are tons of specialized master’s programs out there to provide you with the background you need.</p>

<p>In sum, if you do not want to be a lawyer but get a JD anyway, you will regret it.</p>

<p>Agree with LoveNYC123. I know a few people who have JDs who are also engineers and some insurance and contracts managers with JDs. None of them received a salary boost because of the JD. If anything, it made them harder to employ. They report that they encountered some suspicion about whether they could focus on the job at hand and not try to practice law. Employers also suspect they will leave as soon as they find a “legal” job. </p>

<p>I’m not saying it can’t be done, obviously. On the other hand, it’s something to weigh. </p>

<p>If you actually do want to practice law and this might just be a backup plan if there are no legal jobs when you graduate, it’s a horrible plan. After a year of working in a nonlegal job, you’d be less marketable for legal jobs than the next wave of graduates coming out of law school with fresh Lexis/Westlaw training and legal internships under their belts.</p>

<p>I find that a JD is very helpful in some fields where credentials in the public sector matter. For example, accountants that hold a JD are often viewed as more desirable to work with when issues of estate planning, and wills arise. In addition Financial advisors who hold a JD can also be looked upon as more trustworthy and knowledgeable. In short, I think that outside the legal profession(practicing law) I think it adds to or compliments another main area of expertise. I have also heard of some usefulness in new areas of science like genetics where patents on genes are becoming a big issue. In all, however it really will be useful along with continued study in another field.</p>

<p>Re post #2: Nonsense. There are hundreds of thousands of people in this country who hold law degrees but do not practice law. </p>

<p>Some common alternative career paths for lawyers: entrepreneur, manager, labor negotiator, mediator/alternative dispute resolution specialist, arbitrator, administrator of not-for-profit organization, legislative/policy analyst, political strategist/analyst/politician, financial analyst, financial consultant, management consultant, legal educator, law librarian, law school administrator, legal researcher/writer/editor/publisher, court administrator, regulatory agency staff, regulatory adviser/compliance officer/manager, trust & estate planner, financial planner, real estate investor/manager, hospital/health care organization administrator, foundation grant officer, event planner, law school career services officer, bar association staff/manager, sports/entertainment agent, legal headhunter, lobbyist/government relations specialist, legal journalist/correspondent/commentator, law enforcement officer (in particular, many FBI agents hold law degrees but do not practice law), criminal justice educator.</p>

<p>Some of these jobs require a law degree but do not involve the practice of law; for others a law degree is not required but substantive legal knowledge or skills acquired in law school or law practice are important or can give the lawyer a competitive edge. Rarely, if ever, will a law degree operate as a barrier to entry or a limitation to advancement in fields like these.</p>

<p>Some less common non-lawyer jobs held by lawyers or people trained in the law:

  • baseball manager/general manager (Tony LaRussa, Branch Rickey, Hughie Jennings, Miller Huggins)
  • baseball commissioner (Kennesaw Mountain Landis, Fay Vincent)
  • football coach (Vince Lombardi, Mike Leach late of Texas Tech)
  • actor/comedian (John Cleese, Raul Julia, Paul Robeson, Fred Thompson, William Sanderson, Demitri Martin)
  • movie director (Otto Preminger, Frederick Wiseman, Federico Fellini)
  • film critic (Michael Medved)
  • TV/radio talk show host/commentator (Jerry Springer, Ann Coulter, Larry Elder, Geraldo Rivera)
  • wine expert (Robert Parker)
  • crossword puzzle creator (Will Shortz of the NY Times)
  • sports announcer/analyst (Howard Cosell, Jay Bilas, Steve Young, Dick Button)
  • novelist (beyond the obvious Scott Turow/John Grisham/Erle Stanley Gardner types, you have, e.g., Sir Walter Scott, Henry Fielding, John Galsworthy, Louis Auchincloss, Goethe, Edward Bellamy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alexander McCall Smith, romance novelist Hailey North)
  • poet (Archibald MacLeish, Wallace Stevens, William Cullen Bryant)
  • playwright (Federico Garcia Lorca, Elmer Rice, Pierre Marivaux, Tristan Bernard, William S. Gilbert of Gilbert & Sullivan)
  • screenwriter (Ben Hur, much of the Star Trek series, The Paper Chase, and such popular TV shows as Ally McBeal, The Practice, and Street Legal were all written by lawyers or people with legal training)
  • televangelist (Pat Robertson)
  • artist (Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky)
  • cartoonist (Greg Howard, creator of “Sally Forth”)
  • composer/musician (Hoagy Carmichael, Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein, Igor Stravinsky, Paul Simon, Ruben Blades, Paul Robeson, Francis Scott Key, Julio Iglesias, Andrea Bocelli)
  • restaurant critic (Nina & Tim Zagat)
  • restaurateur (Colonel Sanders and the founders of California Pizza Kitchen among many)
  • labor leader (James P. Hoffa)
  • President of the United States (Barack Obama and 25 others)
  • President of another nation (Nelson Mandela among many others)
  • leader of an independence movement (Mohandas Ghandi)
  • monarch (Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands)</p>

<p>Sky’s the limit.</p>

<p>bclintok, for many of the jobs you listed, a law degree could be a competitive edge, but that doesn’t necessarily justify getting a law degree for that career. For example, it would make much more sense for an entrepreneur (one of the occupations you listed) to get an MBA than a JD when considering the utility and financial cost of both degrees.</p>

<p>bclintock - I second the FBI. I’d also look into local law enforcement agencies like marshals and sheriffs offices. But, let’s be clear: many of the jobs you list (law librarian, legal educator, law school administrator) are just specialized forms of legal academia. They may not be legal practitioners in the strict sense, but, neither are they straying too far from the legal field.</p>

<p>Others like, legal head hunter, only make sense after someone has gained some experience with what law firms are looking for; again, not exactly breaking new ground</p>

<p>Still others on your list like, Baseball Commissioner or baseball club owner are once in a lifetime careers that depend more on contacts than any particular skill set taught in law school. The fact that some of them may have also gone to law school may just be a reflection of the fact that they had the family wealth to throw away on a degree they didn’t need.</p>

<p>Don’t get me wrong, some lawyers are able to have second careers in diplomacy (more than half the Secretaries of State for the past 100 years have been lawyers) and business, and, academia but, usually not until they’ve actually worked as lawyers for a number of years.</p>

<p>One bit of trivia: you actually don’t need to be a lawyer to be a Supreme Court Justice; there’s nothing in the Constitution that requires it.</p>

<p>Re: post #6 above. I think it depends on the inidvidual. Sometimes the JD route makes sense as a path to the alternative. It depends on the individual’s other interests, aptitude, academic strengths. Law training is great preparation for almost anlots of different careers. </p>

<p>Almost everyone with a joint (JD-MBA) degree would tell you that law school is far more rigorous. So many people with legal training think that the education has benefitted them in other areas.</p>

<p>By the way, I will note, however, that I can hardly think of a job that actually REQUIRES an MBA. </p>

<p>But, to the original poster, I think it is worth noting that most of those who receive a JD will end up practicing law at some point.</p>

<p>Paul Simon (the musician) doesn’t actually have a law degree. He dropped out of law school.</p>

<p>Likewise for Cole Porter.</p>

<p>Blind people have also succeeded in all those professions, but it doesn’t mean you should gouge out your eyes. The question is whether it HELPS (and more precisely, whether it helps enough to justify the cost and time), not whether it doesn’t preclude you.</p>