My daughter received her MBA while attending law school. I have to admit that I worked toward an MBA part time after law school for a while, but I had a family and I could not see how it necessarily benefited a lawyer already in practice. (Maybe I was wrong). I have nothing against business degrees as I believe they complement a JD. I believe it probably helped get my daughter a job.
However, when I was in college, BBAs were all the rage, and as a lowly political science major I was the one enduing all of the ribbing from the business student about what, if anything, one could do with a political science degree. My ongoing joke at the time was that I intended to open a political science store in the mall.
What I thought I had observed then was, despite the hype of a business degree and all of the money colleges were raising to build new business school buildings, that those in the business schools seemed to be the ones who never studied, were always partying and who referred to their classes as "B.S. discussions".
Now, I read in the New York Times that business, the most popular college major, might be a detriment to getting into and succeeding in law school, which is where a lot of business majors head.
Well, the article did not deal directly with law school admissions or employment after graduation. It discussed a survey of the 21% of college students who major in business as maybe academically adrift. What the survey found was that business majors spent the least time of any major studying (less than a hour a day), have the lowest gains on measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication; a whopping 37% are unemployed or under employed after graduation, and 45% have to move back in with their parents or other relatives to survive.
Certainly there is anecdotal evidence of this when you look around. George W. Bush found it impossible to get into law school, but he got accepted to Harvard Business School. Then there is Donald Trump. It is hard to argue with his success, which is more a measure of his tenacity and over sized ego. But, listening to him talk, is there any doubt that, despite the high opinion of himself, he has the lowest measures of critical thinking or complex reasoning among most CEOs.
The lack of stable employment certainly leads business students to apply to law school, but the demonstrated lack of higher order skills, such as critical thinking and complex reasoning will not help them much either on the LSAT or in the law school classroom. At least for undergraduate business majors it might not help them get out of their parent's garage apartments.
At least a law degree has with it a license that allows one passing the bar to do something, and from those without law degrees from not doing it. A business degree has no such exclusion.
It might be an important consideration when thinking about pre-law majors. Maybe the joke was on me in getting a political science degree. But, maybe, the better choice might be engineering, technology, languages, or higher math majors. Maybe consider majors that interrupt your party time and that build those higher order skills.
While I agree that business degrees tend to be over valued, I'm not convinced that an undergraduate major makes a lot of difference in the legal market--unless a student is interested in certain specialized areas such as patent law.
Most law firms and corporate law departments size up a candidate based almost solely on law school performance, with little or no weight given to achievements at the undergrad level.
In the grand scheme of things, the poly sci vs. business school debate is a red herring; what happens in law school is a better predictor of one's legal career success.
Posted by: Kevin S. Brady | April 22, 2011 at 09:21 PM