Sunday, March 13, 2011

JDs, MBAs and JD/MBAs

Perhaps the funniest thing I ever heard regarding JD/MBAs was from the Barely Legal Blog, which called them "dumb and dumber".

I have an MBA that I got a long time ago.  I spent a lot of time getting it and in the end, I have to admit, I wasn't that satisfied with what it did for me.

There are MBA programs that are true career-changers.  They vault your career to a place you just couldn't get it to without the MBA.  However, these programs are truly the cream of the crop.  Maybe the top 20.  Maybe not even that many.  In law circles, the top 14 are regarded as being in a different strata, and that's probably analogous to how many B-schools are really that good, and will open doors that wouldn't be available, otherwise.

Now, I will say that an MBA from a fully AACSB (American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business) accredited school is generally a pretty hard thing to get.  You have to do a lot of work.  The classes aren't that easy.  It's not impossible to do, but for the most part, like an ABA accredited law school, the AACSB accreditation proves that you got something that took some effort.

However, one of the first differences between the MBA and the JD is that not all schools are AACSB accredited.  It's as though every state is like California's law school situation.  If you can get accredited, great.  If not, who gives a rat's ass, just open up a law school anyway... or in this case, a business school. 

This could be debated back and forth, endlessly, but the non-AACSB MBA programs are, to put it mildly, not up to the same standards as the AACSB programs.  I've known quite a few people who got non-accredited degrees and looking at the quality of the academic work they were required to do, I'd put what they were doing a notch below what most undergraduate business programs make you do. 

So, that's problem #1.  There's a lot of folks running around who can say, with absolute certainty, that they have an MBA.  Without the prospect of the equivalent of a bar exam waiting at graduation, basically, if you have the cash, you're going to get an MBA. 

Saying you have an MBA carries exactly zero, zip, nada weight with anybody.  I never mention mine without also mentioning where I got it from.  I doubt it helps much.  Most people have never heard of the school I got mine from.  However, I'm trying desperately (and probably not that succesfully) to make it clear that I didn't attend one of those downright bad schools.

For the most part, I had a lot of respect for my classmates.  I thought they were a cut above.  But even my school admitted some clunkers.  One of them was a woman from my workplace who I thought was mentally retarded.  She was admitted as a provisional student, took one class, then dropped out.  She did get a passing grade in the class, though.  If she had wanted, she probably could have stayed.

Perhaps the most annoying was a rich housewife with no work experience.  Work experience was required, just as it is in most of the better b-schools.  I can't blame the school so much for this one, though.  She probably told them that she was the chairman of the board of directors and CEO of a nonprofit.  That was actually true.  What she probably didn't tell them was that she was the only person in the nonprofit and that it got all its operating capital from her husband.

Honestly, though, those were the only two that come to mind that weren't pretty sharp people, in my opinion.  Trouble is, you go further down the food chain and the mentally retarded co-worker becomes the rule instead of the exception at the crappier schools.  In fact, the mentally retarded co-worker got her undergrad from one of the more ridiculous MBA diploma mills in the area.

Problem #2 is that there's this thing called an executive MBA.  The basic point of an executive MBA is that you pay a lot more money, but you don't have to do all that pesky academic stuff.  Yeah, they make you take some classes and turn in a paper or two, but the executive MBA programs are an even more naked attempt to put an MBA in the hands of anybody who can pay for them. 

Now, say what you will about most law school graduates, but at least outside of California, they all attended fully accredited schools and before they could practice law, they had to pass a rather rigorous standard exam, the bar exam.

MBA?  None of those quality controls at all.  If you can fill out a FAFSA, you can get an MBA. 

Generally, none of that really matters, because for those outside a few elite schools, the MBA doesn't establish your career.  It enhances a career you had already.  What it will do for you is when you go for that VP level job and they want to see an MBA, you'll have it.  At that point, they're judging you on the decade or decades of work experience you have, not where your sheepskin is from.  So, you can rise to the position of CEO with an unremarkable MBA.  You just have to have one from somewhere.

Every now and then, you'll see a comment by somebody who says something like, "I took 20 years out of the work world to raise my kids and I got an MBA so I wouldn't have to take an entry level job.  But I can't get anything but entry-level job offers.  I'm so mad at my MBA."

Or, "I got a sociology degree and was working retail, and I got my MBA, but the only thing that did for me was get me into the retail management program at my current employer."

MBA employment statistics, after graduation, are through the roof.  So are salaries.  Why?  Well... figure a lot of the guys who got MBAs were already making good money before they started their MBA program.

Unlike the JD, the typical person getting an MBA is an engineer (you see this a lot, especially at certain schools... fully 50% of my class was engineers), IT guy, accountant, marketing person, human resources person, etc.  You get the idea.  The people who tend to get MBAs are already working in a business discipline. 

However, if your pre-MBA experience is not really that impressive, the MBA won't do that much for you.  Yeah, going to a better school might help more than going to a lesser school, but the MBA can only do so much.

Also, the better the school, the more unlikely you'll get in without having demonstrated some solid work experience before you even apply. 

So, an MBA is substantially different than a JD.  Most MBAs are a way to further your career, not a way to start it. 

Now, I have heard two interesting things regarding JDs in the business world.

The first is:  some people still believe that a JD is a good general business degree and can get your business career started.  Well... yeah, but there are a lot of undergraduate degrees that will allow you to do much better.  I think the JD was a bona-fide entry degree for business back in the 70s and prior.  It was probably considered about the same as an MBA.

Since then, though, JDs practice law.  If you don't want to practice law, and instead would like to work in business, you'd be infinitely better off to spend a year getting a master's in what you'd like to do than to get a JD.

In fact, if you can add and subtract, a degree in accounting is infinitely better for getting you into the business world than a JD would be.  In fact, I'd say a bachelor's in pretty much any business discipline is going to open more business doors than a JD would.  Perhaps the one exception here is that if you went to work for a company in the area of human resources, I, personally, would think a JD would be a great degree to have.  Probably the perfect degree.  I couldn't say one way or the other as to whether the hiring function in a company feels the same way.  Given that the hiring function is usually HR people who don't have JDs, I doubt they would be that eager to say, "Hey, this is totally superior to MY degree.  Let's get you in here so we can compete for my next promotion". 

Frankly, I knew a few JDs working outside the law in companies, and having the JD helped them exactly zero.  My impression is that it makes you look wierd and people think you're flighty.  Like somebody so ADHD that they can't decide what they want to do.

Now, the business world is filled with people who can't decide what they want to do.  The fact that a JD makes you seem exceptional in this regard should tell you something.

My advice:  if you want to work in business, and not in the law, don't get a JD.  It's a pointless move.

The other thing I've heard people say is that JDs should not get an MBA jointly.  Instead, they should hold off and use the MBA to re-start their career later if they decide they don't like the law.

I actually sort of agree with this, and in a way, this is what I'm doing in reverse (more on that later). 

Getting the joint JD/MBA is only useful if you want to work for a law firm that prefers or requires one.  I have heard of firms that offer a bonus to JD/MBAs, so for whatever reason, they must like them. 

For the most part, though, if you're getting a JD, you should only be doing it to practice law.  Getting the MBA really isn't going to open many (if any) doors that a JD wouldn't have opened by itself.  I recommend using the time you would have used to get an MBA and devoting it to your JD studies.  We all know by now that class rank and the strength of your school are what will (or won't) get you a job.  Pretty much anything else is meaningless.

Also, the hiring process is different in business.  I have hired dozens of people in my life, and one thing you try to guage is their fit.  Personality is part of the equation.  I get the impression that in law, it's class rank and school, and unless your personality is just incomprehensibly and obviously too obnoxious for anybody to be around you, the hiring decision isn't going to be made on personality.

The point being:  hiring decisions are a little more multidimensional in business.  It's not just the degree, school and GPA.  You can show up to a lot of businesses, say that you graduated first in your MBA class, and frankly, a lot of them will react by saying, "So, what?" 

The business world is full of A students who work for C students.  Academic credentials mean a lot in some disciplines, but they aren't the whole picture the way it is with hiring in the law.

The way you get ahead in business is to be good with people and to be a good manager.  A lot of those types of people didn't have stellar grades in school.  Some of them have chips on their shoulders about high-falutin' brainiacs with their fancy degrees and straight A report cards.

Academics, alone, is seldom enough to get you the job.  So, if all you have is a brand-new MBA with a good GPA, that carries some weight, but not enough to get you hired if that's all you've got.

Still, I agree with the sentiment that you shouldn't get a joint JD/MBA, generally speaking.

Now, can you work in the law for a few years, decide you don't like it, then reload by getting an MBA and getting into business?

If you get into a top MBA program, yes.  By that, I mean, really top program.  Top 25, at least, maybe higher.

Otherwise, it's going to be tough.

There are a few jobs out there that require general business degrees, but for the most part, when companies hire, they are trying to hire people with specific skills.

They're trying to hire an accountant, or an IT person, or an HR person. 

Which means, to get that job, they expect either education or experience or both, in that specific area.

An MBA is actually a generalist degree.  You may chose to major (or get a concentration, or whatever your school calls it), but we're talking about taking maybe 4 or 5 classes. 

The general gist of an MBA is that it is a credential for jobs in management.

However, if you have no previous experience in a discipline, they're not going to hire you in as a manager.

(Keep in mind that I'm speaking in generalities, here.  I'm sure there are exceptions, but they've very, very few and I wouldn't build a career plan around the exceptions.)

Figure if a company is hiring from the outside to bring in a manager, they want either somebody with previous management experience within that discipline, or a person who was maybe a step or two away from management within that discipline.

They're not going to hire somebody with zero management experience and / or zero experience within that discipline just because a person has an MBA.

So, personally, if I were an attorney looking to get out of the law and into something else, I'd probably get, say, a Master's in Marketing, or a Masters of Accountantcy, or a Masters in Information Technology.

Trying to just show up with a garden variety MBA really doesn't prepare you for much.  An MBA isn't really an entry-level credential.  It doesn't generally qualify you for entry-level jobs.  Even MBA consulting jobs are frequently going to be based on your non-MBA education and experience.

Now, on the other hand, going the other way, I think it does work.  A JD is an entry-level credential and can get you entry-level jobs.  I can only guess at this since it's what I'm trying to do, now, but the general idea is that if you have a JD and pass the bar, you can practice law.  You can also compete for jobs in the law (scarce though they may be.)

So, if you're a business type and want to change careers to the law, yeah, you do it by getting a JD. 

I do realize that the bottom line in all this is that most MBAs do precious little for you.  Unfortunately, I think that's probably true.  It'll help you enhance a career that's already going well.  However, it won't turn around a career that's going badly.  It also won't let you start in the busines world 5 rungs up on the ladder ahead of people who have already been working in it.

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