running in law school?

an mba is essentially worthless (considering the investment) if you dont get it from a top 10 school. why waste $100K on an mba, in addition to $100K on law school?

i had several people in my mba class who were in jd programs. one thing they had in common--they came from families with money. theyre not making more money than the straight mbas. but if youve got money to burn, an mba cant hurt.

i went to a top 20 b-school program, but in retrospect, it was a waste of money--unless, of course, youre going to harvard or wharton. mbas are a dime a dozen these days.

mba wrote:

an mba is essentially worthless (considering the investment) if you dont get it from a top 10 school. why waste $100K on an mba, in addition to $100K on law school?

they're combined programs; thus it's just four years tuition. so it costs no more than going to another year of school. agree that mba's are a dime a dozen; but jd/mba's are not. there are areas where the combination is highly marketable but you have to be interested in those specific area's or else you are wasting another year of your life and another year's tuition.

i would say that if you get a jd from a top 30 law school and a mba from that same school (presumably the business school is similarly ranked), i'd say you haven't wasted your money. the cost to you, in terms of cash outlay and opportunity cost of a lost year of money-making, is probably about $150,000; since i know the people who got jd/mba's made more than i just with my jd did right out of school, i'd say it's well-worth it in the long-term. and, thinking outside of money terms, if this is what you want to do, as long as you aren't completely throwing away your money, do it.

JD/doc:

Thanks for your thoughts-appreciated. Any insight as to utilizing a possible combined MD/JD degree to work in hosp. administration? Typically, most of the positions at the level of departmental chairman and the like usually mandate a second degree, hence the JD consideration. Also how realistic would it be as an MD/JD to practice either full/part-time med. malpractice, from either side of the coin, fresh out of law school as a solo practioner? Is this the kind of specialty that would require a few years at a bigger firm to get my feet wet? Thanks.

I have no clue what you're talking about with eligibility and running for a school team, I just run on my own.

If you're asking if it is plausible to run fopr fun, the answer is yes.

I just started law school and run 1 hour M-F mornings, play soccer on fridays and do a long run on Sats. I also lift weights heavily. Today I skipped the long run and ran a local 5K just to check my fitness.

It's all about time management. I have 16 hours of class a week. Say 2 hours of reading/briefing for each hour of class (usually less). So all together, school should be <50 hours a week. I split up my weekend; sat is 5-7 hours of review of the previous week and outline organization while sunday is 6-8 hours of overview and prep for the upcoming week. And I'll study for a couple hours on friday night, before I go out. I sleep 6-7 hours a night and sometimes have a 1-2 hour nap right after I lift - which is right after class.

Things I don't do: watch TV, talk on the phone, surf porn, drink, be idle, or waste time with bullshit (aside from reading this board).

Well in my undergrad I worked 20-25 hours a week, ran XC and track, and still got solid grades. But I'm a "type A" who needs everything to always be neet and orderly. I cannot have something that needs to be done outstanding in my mind -- I have to do it now.

I go to a 2nd tier school. My sister went to a top ten school and her fitness went up during law school. She was able to run at least 5 times a week and 3 days after finals her freshman year she ran a 3:18 marathon.

Anyway, good luck.

anyone have experience with cornell law?

MD wrote:

JD/doc:

Thanks for your thoughts-appreciated. Any insight as to utilizing a possible combined MD/JD degree to work in hosp. administration? Typically, most of the positions at the level of departmental chairman and the like usually mandate a second degree, hence the JD consideration. Also how realistic would it be as an MD/JD to practice either full/part-time med. malpractice, from either side of the coin, fresh out of law school as a solo practioner? Is this the kind of specialty that would require a few years at a bigger firm to get my feet wet? Thanks.

I wouldn't recommend solo practice in med/mal fresh out of law school. On the defense side, no one would hire you. On the plaintiff's side, you would probably be an easy mark for decent defense lawyers and a prime candidate for legal malpractice. Your medical background would be worth more to an established firm that already has a steady stream of business. In the meantime, you would be learning the ins and outs of litigation, case management, and trial work. You're not going to learn that stuff in law school.

tigerset wrote:

anyone have experience with cornell law?

i know a few people who went there and a couple there now.

it's good if you can handle ithaca. from the people there now, i've heard rather poor things about their legal writing professors. other than that, no real complaints which don't exist at every other school, too.

Alright, another lifeish type question.

Afterall, letsrun is like family?

Anyway, considering the JD/MBA deal because it makes me well-qualified. Don't really have any particular interests in one field or another, but figure that since college degrees are mandortory nowadays, I'd get highest degree I can. Anyway, anybody feel this type of pressure? Not exactly sure what you want to do or like, but just gotta pursue high degrees because you feel you have to, to do anything in life?

Somebody throw me a lifeline?

well, you do (usually) need an advanced degree to do lots of things in life. but i don't think that's really become all that more true than it was maybe thirty years ago. college degrees have become dime a dozen but a degree from harvard or yale is worth a lot more than a degree from podunk state and i don't think that's changed all that much. you've needed a jd to become a lawyer in this country for quite a while now and an mba has been mandatory for management for quite a while, too.

if you're not exactly sure what you want to do or like, then i'm not sure what jd/mba makes you well-qualified for. i know quite a few people who went to law school because they didn't know what they wanted to do or liked and the vast majority of these people are not lawyers anymore or hate being lawyers; only a few learned to "like" the law. and one of the problems with a jd is that you're sort of stuck being a lawyer now. sure, you can change careers but you tend to be doing things you could have done without spending the money on the jd. the combo degree obviously gives you more options, but it also constricts you in some ways. if you find out that you don't like "business law" or management, you've pretty much pigeon-holed yourself out of jobs in other areas of the law, at least in the eyes of many employers.

i'll give you the same advice i give to everyone: if you're not pretty sure that you want to pursue a career with a jd/mba, don't do it. if you're still in school, you can take a couple years off to "find" what you want to do. work for a law firm or a company. see what they do.

and when you do find something you like, do pursue the highest degree in that area because that will give you more options.

chuck d wrote:

i'll give you the same advice i give to everyone: if you're not pretty sure that you want to pursue a career with a jd/mba, don't do it.

such simple advice, and yet many people, myself included, ignored the advice and regret it now. totally agree about the pigeon-holing one experiences with a specialized degree--not that you cant do other things, but OTHER people (ie employers) wont allow for it and are too biased to look beyond that degree. might has well have a scarlet letter "L" (or "JD") stamped on your butt for the rest of you life.

$100,000+, plus 4 years lost salary and any investments that could be made with that salary, is a ton of money to waste if you dont know for sure what you want to do with any degree--what's that come out to--$500,000? in some parts of the country, that can buy you 2-3 houses.

would you buy a new house if you "werent sure" what you needed it for? easier to move out of a house than out of your career if you decide you dont like it.

shop wisely for your degree!

Thanks to both, but it's so damn hard. Can't always follow your heart when there's bills to pay..

i don't know what sort of bills you have, but adding four years of student loans and (mostly) no job isn't going to help them at all. take a year to work in a law firm or something like that. law firms tend to pay pretty good for assistants, clerks, etc. even if you haven't started law school. you don't have to "follow your heart" to the law; but check to make sure that it's palpable to you.

Law school is fun.

This morning I studied for almost 4 hours and now I'll begin my outlines which will take about 3 hours. Yay!

I will agree with what some of the others said above, law school is not hard if you are organized. You will have plenty of time to run/train. However, you may not have time to race. If there are conflicts, you will need to decide which is more important, school or running. They both are, but there is a time and place ... .

I ran, but didn't compete.

Having things in my life besides law school kept me balanced, so that I didn't get all stressed out for exams, like the kids that had nothing to do but study and party.

One of the biggest fallacies of law school is the study group concept. Many, many people wasted lots of time in these groups, pretending they were studying and learning. Maybe they were, but I found them time consuming, inefficient, and unnecessary.

clarence darrow wrote:

it appears likely that i will graduate college with a year of ncaa eligibility left. i've also heard that the first year of law school is hard as shit. if i were to enroll in law school, is it plausible for me to expect that i could train and compete during that year? anyone here done it or know of someone who has?

it's definitely possible; but i think a lot of it depends on where you go to law school and how you personally adapt to the challenges law school poses. are you going to one of the "top" law schools? are you the sort of person who did all of your reading/homework in undergrad or will law school preparation be a big change? was your undergrad course load predominantly courses with lots of reading and paper writing or did you take more math/science/business courses and more multiple choice exams?

i came from a background where i did lots of work in undergrad so the work load, while increased, wasn't quite the shock it was for some of my peers. i also came from a background with lots of reading and more paper-writing and essay exams and thus the structure of the courses wasn't a shock, either. i went to a school that was top 25 but wasn't nearly as insane as yale, harvard, and whatnot. for me, it was like a job: get to school around 8:30 and leave (usually) around 5pm or so. leaves plenty of time for running.

the problem i see, however, has to do with competing and practice. if you have class scheduled during practice, i find it rather unlikely that the law school will be willing to accomodate you. the school assigns you to a certain schedule and that's how it is; the first year isn't like undergrad or later years in law school when you can choose your own schedule. plus, you'll likely be missing class to compete. now, some professors might be understanding; i doubt that all of them will, though. and, again, unlike undergrad, you can't drop the class and take it with another professor: you're stuck.

although it's possible, i would recommend against it. your life will basically amount to running and the law. if you find yourself in a bad situation where professors are upset with you missing class or you can't handle the balancing act for whatever reason, your grades will likely suffer. maybe you just want to work for the government or a smaller firm; but if you want to work for the "good" law firms, your first year grades will be the most important. you interview for the summer jobs after your second year in the fall of your second year (about nine months before the job even starts). all the employer has to go on are those grades and the few other things on your resume (which probably aren't much if you're going right into law school). and, most likely, the job you get after your second year is the place you'll work after you graduate from school. thus, the first year is likely your most important year. one of the reasons it's considered the hardest is because the emphasis is placed on it by employers.

if law school is just something you're doing because you want to continue running collegiately, want to have your school pay for a year of it, or simply don't know what to do with yourself because you majored in philosophy, then go right ahead. but, if you're seriously interested in being a lawyer and have high goals for your law school and legal career, i recommend entering a masters program instead. if you f***-up your first year, you're pretty much screwed.

if you have any more questions, just ask.