Don’t get me wrong, the summer has been great so far. Work was great. Classes have been interesting. And Chicago is a fun place to spend the summer.  But over the past couple of weeks, the pace of everything has started to pick up.  Professors are teaching us more new concepts, giving us more assignments, and really starting to push us harder. While under normal circumstances, this would be manageable, it gets a bit tricky for rising seconds years in the JD-MBA program.  Because not only do we have final exams, but we also have to move from Chicago to Evanston, complete final projects for other classes, go through on campus recruiting at Northwestern Law School, prepare for our pre-orientation trip called KWEST, complete a few online seminars that Kellogg requires in advance of coming to campus, and fulfill journal obligations, among other things. As if the exams themselves were not hard enough.

In the immediate future, I have  final project I have to finish for my DECS 434 class and a final exam in Accounting 430. Both the project and the exam are proving to be very tough.  For the project, it’s been tough working around everyone’s schedules, and we also have to turn the project in early because of our KWEST trip, something the non-JD-MBAs don’t have to do.  Similarly, in accounting, many of the JD-MBAs are taking the exam early, on Friday before KWEST. And others are taking it the Tuesday after our trip but during orientation, which is also not ideal because it will be nearly impossible to study during our KWEST trips, and attendance at orientation is mandatory, so there is no real extra time advantage to waiting.

Fortunately, exams are water under the bridge for 1Js, since we’ve been in class all year as 1Ls.  So after spending much of last year terrified by 1L final exams, this summer feels a little bit easier.  For one, I’ve gotten used to the fact that exam performance can be pretty variable sometimes depending on the class, the other students taking the course, and how well you perform on any given day. Second, at Kellogg grades aren’t as important as they are at the law school, at least not typically.  And third, JD-MBAs go through this every year, and most of them end up doing quite well professionally. So in the end, my nervousness is tempered with a bit of ease.

On the other hand, most JD-MBAs here are starting to get a little tired, especially those that are also taking part in legal recruiting and traveling back and forth between Chicago and Evanston.  My DECS group was up last night until the wee hours of the morning, and had to be up early this morning for interviews downtown about 5 or 6 hours later. The same thing will probably happen tonight. And then on Saturday morning we’ll all wake up, pack, and head to the airport to head out on our KWEST trips.

It’s definitely a hard period for those in the program, but we all have so much to look forward to over the next few weeks.  Those going through recruiting will get law firm offers.  After a year of working really hard through 1L, we’ll finally be able to go to KWEST, and we’ll be starting at Kellogg in just a few weeks, the reason why many of the JD-MBAs came to the program.

It should be fun to see how everything here ultimately plays out. Stay tuned to hear more about our transition to Kellogg.

At long last, OCI  is finally under way. It’s the thing most law students wait for, especially after working so hard and at times struggling through the first year core curriculum.  So for two or three weeks, over 175 firms and offices come to campus to do initial round interviews based on the student’s selections, before the callback process begins. And this year is shaping up to be pretty big as compared to years past, at least according to the estimates that firms and our career center have given me.

In terms of the interviewers, many of the lawyers are coming to campus from Chicago, but there are also lawyers from NY, the Bay, DC, LA, and other parts of the country too. Likewise, most of the interviews are conducted by partners but a number are also conducted by senior level associates, and others are conducted by two attorneys where one is very senior and the other may be a more recent alum.  Another thing that’s nice is that most of the lawyers are also alum Northwestern Law, which is great because the alum understand some of the nuances of our program which can really help form faster connections during the actual interviews.

In terms of logistics, just about all of these interviews are held at a building named Weibolt, which is just next door to the law school. Weibolt is a building that is part of Kellogg’s downtown campus, and has lots of small conference rooms that are perfect to conduct the on campus interviews.  The set up always seems a little funny to the part time students who are here for class, but after a few days of seeing our setup, I suspect most of them get used to it.

In addition to the actual interviews, there are also “Hospitality Suites” that some firms have. Usually two or three firms each day will purchase a suite in addition to their interview rooms. Students go to the suite to meet attorneys, though usually not the interviewing attorneys, and grab a bite to eat or a refreshment as they wait in between interviews. It’s a great chance to meet attorneys at a firm you might like and also a wait to submit a resume if you didn’t get a chance to interview with that firm on campus.

In general, the OCI season is a great time now to take advantage of all the events we had last year – the career fairs and mixers and various chats with attorneys – where many of the same firms were available to share information about the legal industry.  In general, NU Law does a really good job at this programming and the career center is always rated one of the best in the country. I hope that fact means that the students here will also do really well, as they have also done in years past.

For JD-MBAs, the interviewing season is especially busy. Not only do we have interviews, but we also have final exams and projects for our summer classes which are coming to an end, we are moving up to Evanston to start at business school, and we have a pre-orientation trip next week, followed by orientation and class at business school after that. A herculean set of tasks if you ask me. But I guess that’s the sacrifice of doing an accelerated dual degree program here. Besides, in my book, busy usually means fun, because it’s a good opportunity to gain multiple interesting experiences.  And in the end, the JD-MBAs always tend to end up with really cool jobs, so I suspect that everyone will end doing up okay.

Personally, I just moved to the Park Evanston yesterday which is a hot spot for many of the Kellogg students. I also have two final exams this upcoming week and a final project on Friday. In the meantime I also have a few upcoming interviews this week for OCI, a few callbacks on the horizon, and my pre-orientation trip that I discussed in a recent post on Saturday (Click here for my recent post).

Fortunately, my OCI schedule is a bit lighter than most people’s as I only signed up to recruit with a few firms. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Vedder Price this past summer so am being selective about interviewing for this next summer.  I’m mostly targeting a couple of firms here in Chicago, but stay tuned to see how things shape up.

Best of luck everyone with your interviews!

At long last, twelve months after moving to Chicago and embarking on the long and difficult journey of 1L, law school students at Northwestern will finally start to go through the OCI (on campus interview) recruiting process in just a few days. Unlike business school, where recruiting officially begins in January after students have a chance to get settled in, meet a larger variety of employers, and prep with classmates for case-based interviews, in law school, on-campus interviews officially begin in mid August before students ever step foot on campus.  In times past, this was probably ideal for students, because it allowed them more time to prep for interviews in the summer before the hustle and bustle of classes started taking up more time. But now, even as the economy continues to improve, there is still a lot of uncertainty regarding recruiting, so there is not really an ideal time.

The good news for the class of 2012 is that schools and employers are projecting an increase in the number of summer associate positions available next summer as compared to last year, but nothing can be said for certain.  First, the projections are based on the assumption that the economy continues to improve and doesn’t take a quick turn for the worse. It also assumes that the attrition rates continue at a normal pace and that firms haven’t decided to use more slots than normal on laterals or 3Ls looking for jobs.

Still, it’s likely that the recruiting numbers will increase this year given the number of employers who are coming to Northwestern and going to other campuses.  After all, the number have increased dramatically, despite the fact that firms are being extremely conservative with their hiring decisions these days.

My 1L firm Vedder Price looks forward to hosting a summer class in the summer of 2011, and I look forward to seeing if anyone from Northwestern will join the firm.  For the summer of 2010, the firm did not have an official class, but that was mostly because the firm wanted to focus on current employees and ensure that everyone in the class of 2009 had a spot at the firm upon graduation. And fortunately for graduates, the firm delivered on its promise, and everyone from the previous year ended up having a chance to go back to the firm.

But for a lot of other firms, there’s still the “elephant in the room” as students may wonder what happened to the employees who were recently deferred, laid off, or not given offers, just one year ago, before firms started increasing hiring again.  But I suspect this is a question that likely won’t come up, which in my view may be for the best given that it’s hard to point fingers at anyone given the economic times that we’ve seen over the past two years.  In fact, things were so bad that even many of the best-managed businesses and law firms couldn’t foresee the economic crisis coming, a fact which is supported by leading economists and recent supreme court opinions (Click here for the In re Citigroup legal opinion)

Fortunately, times are better now, and law firms and students are experiencing the best employment prospects that they’ve seen in a couple of years.  This is great news for the class of 2012 and hopefully good news for those in the class of 2011 that are looking for new opportunities this year.  It will be interesting to see how some of the numbers play out over the next few weeks during OCI.

Best of luck everyone with your interviews.

And stay tuned for more careers and recruiting details and news over the next few weeks.

At long last, the Northwestern Law Class of 2010 finally made it. The law school class officially graduated back in May, and my JD-MBA classmates graduated from Kellogg in June, since it’s a quarter system.  And what a momentous occasion! After giving it all they had to survive the workload of the 1L year, spending dozens of hours interviewing at firms, agencies, and organizations the very next fall, finding jobs in one of the  most depressed legal economies of all time, and then surviving the final year of school despite thinking it would never be over, they finally made it.  Congratulations everyone!

But unfortunately, as good as that news sounds, it’s not quite as good as you think.  Unlike MBA students and students in other graduate program, instead of starting new jobs, going on lavish vacations, and enjoying summer time on the beach in Chicago, the newly minted law school alums have spent the past two months studying for the bar exam.  In fact, on my way to work today, I passed three new alums who were headed to campus at 7am to study for the day.

But there is one piece of good news. That news is that the exam is next Tuesday, so one week from now, all those things I said above, will become reality for 3Ls everywhere. I’m sure it will be a time of great celebration.

In any event, best of luck to everyone studying.  And if you’ve put in the work all summer, then don’t worry, people pass and I’m sure you’ll do great.

And a special good luck to all those at Northwestern Law!

I recently received an email about someone in that very position.  They are interested in attending Northwestern Law and asked about transferring from Northwestern Law into the JD-MBA program.  If you’ve done a few Google searches, you’ve probably noticed that it’s not a topic that has a whole lot of public information, and in my view one where the answer is highly dependent on the specific person.

Nonetheless, I’ll provide a few of my thoughts here, and also present you with how I might think about the decision if I were in your shoes.  But I’ll also preface that given the lack of information, I won’t make many assertions and unfortunately can’t provide many data-driven answers.

See below for the question and below that for my response.

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APPLICANT QUESTION

Dear Jeremy

Thanks for the blog. I was wondering how feasible it is to transfer from the NU JD program into the JD/MBA program. I spoke to admissions, but they did not seem to provide a very clear answer. Do you know if JD transfers to the JD/MBA program are common?

Thanks!

(Name)

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MY RESPONSE

Hi (Name)

Thanks so much for visiting my site and for sending your question. I’ll preface my response  by saying that, as I alluded to in my intro paragraph, this is definitely a tricky topic, which is likely why the response from admissions may have “seemed” a bit unclear to you.  Not only is it a topic without much concrete information to begin with, but it’s also one that’s turns out to be more convoluted than you might think.

As you’ve probably already noticed here on Northwestern’s website, the JD-MBA program, unlike Northwestern Law School, does not accept transfers from other schools.  I suspect there are a number of reasons for that, one being that the JD-MBA program is considered a real joint “program,” not two disjointed graduate school programs.  As such, it has a handpicked class that gets to know each other well during the first year, the students are afforded the opportunity to strategically take certain electives in the fall that you would likely not take at another school, and we go through the same recruiting process together for our shortened and more intense first summer.

On the other hand, as you deduced, there is no “formal” policy against transferring from the law school to the JD-MBA program.  So why the unclear answer from admissions?  Probably because the process is  unclear, and also because transfers are not typical in the program.  One reason may be because transfers are not typical to MBA programs generally, which is the program you’d be in at the start of your second year upon transferring.  And if you’ve taken the time to look at our site, the JD-MBA application process at Northwestern is managed out of Kellogg.

Another reason, which is much less concrete, is that admissions has always been somewhat of a “black box” anyways. And that’s not just at Northwestern, but it’s the case at most top schools, especially business schools.  That’s because admissions has to balance determining the composition of a class, aligning competitive test scores and GPAs, looking at things like diversity of background and country of origin, read your personal story and assess fit to the program, and in the end make sure all of that fits together every year.  And for Northwestern, this is true not only of Kellogg but the JD-MBA admits must fit the same way at the law school and in the JD-MBA “program” specifically.  A herculean task by all measures, and one that can’t be described in a simple email or phone chat.

And one last reason that it’s difficult to measure success (i.e. “feasibility”), because there’s not much good data out there. For one, it’s hard to say how many people actually apply to transfer every year.  People certainly do, but I suspect a number of applicants don’t disclose to students that they apply, both (i) because of the complicated nature of the process and (ii) because of the competitive nature of getting admitted to Kellogg.  So it’s impossible to tell you how many people apply every year, and I also can’t estimate any number that might come to Northwestern Law with the hope to come to the JD-MBA program.  My hunch is that the latter number is not that big.

But perhaps more importantly than the pure numbers, is the probability that many transfer candidates don’t submit their best applications. That’s because to apply to business school as a 1L is a hard task. Taking the GMAT, writing your essays, interviewing, and worrying about your application are hard enough on their own, let alone balancing that with being a 1L, which has long been considered the hardest year in any graduate school.

Similarly, the application process to business school tends to be more difficult because the application is so different. Law school admissions have long stressed grades, writing ability, and the LSAT. On the other hand, business schools tend to emphasize things like quantitative skills, leadership qualities, and management experiences. So they look for different things in the application, and as a result, it’s likely many law students don’t submit the right information in their applications.

Further, there’s also the challenge that most candidates have that the biggest qualification for top business schools is strong work experience, and at a school like Kellogg it’s usually either prestigious or very interesting experience. And that’s in addition to managing teams, leading high impact projects and having strong sense of where you want to take your career, something many law student don’t bring to the application process because their focus was different and are often a tad younger.

As a result of everything I just described above, I’ll reiterate that law students likely don’t always submit the best applications, so this should not necessarily discourage you from applying if you do come to Northwestern Law.  Instead, remember that people have applied to transfer from Northwestern Law and have gotten in before.  And so a low acceptance rate may not be as relevant to someone who really does fit the MBA profile and has significant experience. If you have the experience, credentials, and a good application, but for some reason never knew about the program, then in year’s where there’s space, they will probably consider your application.

In sum, transferring into any program that has all these requirements would seem to be a convoluted process, and a nearly impossible process to quickly explain to a “potential” applicant to the program.  Ultimately, you’ll have to really asses your desire to obtain both a law degree and business degree, and balance that with the risk of not getting into Kellogg and only obtaining a law degree only.  On the other hand, if you decide the risk is not worth it and wait to apply to the JD-MBA program, that ‘s also risky, because the JD-MBA class is small and getting the program is competitive.  And in the end, it’s just a balancing test of sorts, and a decision that only you can make.

So take your time to think about it.  Collect as much information as you can. Talk to students in all of the respective programs. And try to speak with admissions, who will know more than any other source.  And after that, all you can do is use that information to formulate a plan. And that plan should be one that makes the most sense for you in terms of fit and interests.

And in the end, no matter what you decide (MBA, JD/MBA, or JD application), your success will likely hinge on your ability to not only prove you have what it takes to get in (intelligence, scores, experience, etc.) but also on writing the right type of application for each school and in the process evincing why you would be a good addition to the class.

I hope this helps.  Best of luck whatever you decide!