MBA vs Law

You need to talk to friends, family, and a career coach. Alas, we can't tell you what you should do as a career!

Hi there,

too be honest - this is very subjective and the right choice very much depends on the career you see yourself in in the longterm. Suggest you spend some time reflecting on that and then backsolve the right stepping stones in your career accordingly. 

If you reach no clarity at all on where you see yourself, then an MBA will typically give you a bit more flexibility in terms of choices.

Feel free to reach out for a chat, if you'd like help exploring what might be the right end and journey towards it in your case.

Regards, Andi

Hi there!

This sounds like a great prompt for ChatGPT :)

For me it's not a question of advantages and disadvantages, it's rather a question about what is it that you want to do. 

And what you want to do has to do with who you want to become long-term. 

So my recommendation would be to take some time and reflect on this. Try to visualise what sort of work you'd be doing in 5, 10, 20 years from now. Once that becomes clearer in your mind, try thinking which career path would bring you close to that. 

Aside from this, both options are fine - you really can't go wrong with either of them. It's more about which of them keep you closest to your essential intent. 

Best,
Cristian

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Scenario 1. Do the MBA. You'll make good money but be miserable because it's not what you want to do. You'll probably end making less than your MBA peers. After a few years, you'll look back and think about career change again and restart as a lawyer.

Scenario 2. Do the law school. It's what you want to do. Even if you don't make a lot of money it is what you seem to enjoy doing. You'll probably be more successful than by doing something you didn't want to do.

These are just 2 possible scenarios. Many more out there. But you need to understand you gave the answer yourself: you don't really want to do the MBA and are looking for confirmation. Not sure why, because it is clear that  you don't want to do the MBA.

Hi there,

Q: I (22 y/o) find myself in a position where I can prepare for admissions to either MBA programs or law schools. My lifelong aspiration has been to become a lawyer despite having a STEM degree, but a surprise offer at one of the MBB firms has introduced the possibility of pursuing an MBA.

If you want to become a lawyer then law school makes more sense. The fact that you could do an MBA is not really relevant as it is not in the direction of your goal from what you shared.

Best,

Francesco

Hello,

I fully agree with Andi here – there’s truly no right answer to your question, it’s very subjective and depends on your needs, goals, and preferences. 

If you want to be a lawyer in any case, I don’t think doing an MBA and delaying law school will give you much of an advantage. Although there’s nothing wrong with going to law school later on in your career either.

The MBA is a more flexible degree, in the sense that if you’re not 100% convinced you want to do law, it will open up more pathways for you than a law degree. That said, from your post it’s not entirely clear that you actually want to do an MBA. There are plenty of things you could be perfectly qualified for and capable of that you’re not interested in for whatever reason – in my opinion, it makes little sense to go down those routes. 

Hi,

Andi and Cristian have already shared an important point around figuring out your own interests/goals. It's definitely not an easy question to answer, and in my own experience I found that speaking to people to gain perspective helped.

There was a previous thread asking a similar question - you can also take a look at some of the responses there:

Consulting or Yale? | PrepLounge.com

All the best!