Point: More JD/MBAs
Jeffery Ma (4L)
More JD/MBAs snagging Bay Street jobs. More JD/MBAs flooding the MBA Dean’s List. More JD/MBAs mentoring other JD/MBAs. And more JD/MBAs to hang out with during 4L!
Sounds like bliss if you are a JD/MBA, except that most JD/MBAs oppose the proposed expansion of the JD/MBA class from 30 to 40-50 JD/MBAs each year. I will humbly propose to my fellow JD/MBAs that this is short-sighted at best, and turning away future success (at least on Bay Street) at its worst.
More JD/MBAs, More Competitive Advantages on Bay Street
I am sure the law school is tired of reading Ultra Vires to find out how well the JD/MBAs are doing during recruitment. Now, how about we propose that there will be 50% more JD/MBAs? Unless Pearson Specter Litt and every other Bay Street law firm stops wanting business-hungry students to work amazingly long hours for their corporate operations, JD/MBAs will snag an even greater percentage of total Bay Street positions and bolster the degree’s reputation.
For those who believe the opposite and are concerned about diminishing returns to their JD/MBA, I would suggest that:
We Can’t Escape Those JD/MBAs
JD/MBAs could make up a staggering 20-25% of each JD class. Law firms and our classmates will not have much of a choice but to be bitten by the JD/MBA bug. That is a big win for degree inflation, which helps the degree-heavy JD/MBA. Heaven forbid that JD/MBAs start recommending other JD/MBAs during recruitment…oh wait…
But more importantly:
Mo Graduates, Mo Alumni, Mo Money, (Mo Problems?)
This might shock JD/MBAs, but ten years later, no one except other JD/MBAs will care about whether 30 or 50 of us got JD/MBAs. What we will care about is having great alumni to connect with during the prime of our careers. Today, those JD/MBA alumni number about 200 and include the especially illustrious Mark Wiseman, Dan Debow, Andrea Stairs, George Babu and Cornell Wright. Tomorrow, there could be two, three or even four times the number of great JD/MBA alumni to connect with.
Biggie should have said, “the more alumni we come across, the more money we see.”
But Finally, It’s Not All About the Money, Right?
Clearly, Kevin O’Leary did not graduate with a JD/MBA. For the rest of us, would it not be nice to have more JD/MBAs to consult and party with during the ups and downs of law school or the lull of 4L when all our friends have graduated? Not to mention that these people will become friends that will be cool enough to hang out with long after graduation. Having more great friends is Charlie Sheen-level #winning in life.
But don’t take my word for it. If you are not a JD/MBA, you might humbly propose that there should be fewer JD/MBAs. I mean, who wants more Suits?
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Counterpoint: Not more JD/MBAs
by Nick Moritsugu (?L) and Nick Charleton (4L)
The JD/MBAs have long been the elite among the elite at the University of Toronto. We are a small group of individuals who – through business simulations, finance lectures, and shameful amounts of debt – sit comfortably in ivory towers that loom far over those that the plebeian JD/nothing students have erected for themselves.
There is an approaching menace, however, that has shaken our towers and threatens to knock us down into the depths of mediocrity. I am talking, of course about increasing enrolment in the JD/MBA program.
The “ideal” JD/MBA candidate is a JD student who has a genuine interest in business. This student joins Rotman to push the boundaries of what the JD alone can offer them and leaves ready to tackle the legal realm or pursue a business-related career – maybe even both. This ideal candidate, in reality, doesn’t exist. It never has. There has never been a time in the JD/MBA’s history where a candidate has actually fit this idyllic model for the program (obviously excluding Peter Blanchard, JD/MBA 2013 (nobody reading this knows who he is – think Brendan Stevens but with an engineering degree and somehow even better abs and hair)).
The reality is that, historically, most JDs entertain the idea of the joint degree because they aren’t really sure what they want to do with their lives and do not want to confine themselves to the imposingly linear path of a legal career. And, yeah, they want to put off real life for another year. That said, you can roughly divide the “reasons” for doing a JD/MBA into two camps:
1) You want to be a Bay Street Lawyer
JD/MBAs have traditionally punched far above their weight in terms of job numbers in both the 1L and 2L recruits. In fact, some firms exclusively hire 1Ls from the JD/MBA cohort. Lately, many who are entering the program are doing so because the extra degree not only gives them a leg-up in terms of legal recruitment, but a “bonus” chance at recruitment.
There are a number of problems with this motivation. First, there are accessibility concerns: the JD/MBA is very expensive, and it would be an unfortunate end result to have this “bonus” chance available only to those who are able to forego income and pay additional tuition. Second, hiring among 1L JD/MBAs has gone down in not only relative, but also absolute terms over the past year, perhaps a warning sign that the program is reaching capacity (though the evidence is unclear at this point). Third, the number of legal jobs on the market (especially 1L jobs) will likely not grow at a pace to match an increase of 10-20 students in the JD/MBA program.
This means that if we scale up the size of the joint program, the potential result will be either a smaller percentage of JD/MBAs getting law jobs or, in a much less likely scenario, 100% of JD/MBAs will somehow manage to get jobs at the expense of the rest of the JD class. Thus, students thinking about joining the program should think that past a certain critical number (that perhaps has not been reached yet), the legal hiring numbers for JD/MBAs might eventually mirror those in the JD.
2) You might not want to be a Lawyer, and want business experience
Rotman is a beautiful building, with glittering study rooms and electric fireplaces. Unfortunately, as a JD/MBA at Rotman, you enter a dreaded “grey” zone for your second summer. Though some legends (*cough* Peter Blanchard) are able to secure prestigious business jobs for the summer after their MBA year, many JD/MBAs are met with blank stares when asked if they can apply for the investment banking or consulting job of their dreams. These firms, justifiably, want to hire candidates for their final summers, with the possibility of hiring them back for a full time position after graduation. JD/MBAs who do not want to go through the 1L recruit are left in a difficult position: they essentially cannot take part in the Rotman on-campus recruit, and must try to source jobs through alternate channels.
The JD/MBA Students’ Association has been advocating for JD/MBAs to receive dedicated career services from Rotman for years, and word has it the newcomers might be in luck (fingers and toes crossed). So what does increased enrolment mean for those of you in this camp? Our concern is that with additional enrolment, and relatively stable 1L hiring numbers, there will be a bigger glut of JD/MBAs left in this grey zone for their second summer.
Fortifying the Tower
All of this may seem quite pessimistic (we are, after all, taking the counterpoint position). That said, there are a number of things that could be done in order to resolve some of the issues identified here, and make the program a stronger one – for 50 students or 15.
We hold no illusions of control over the program’s size: that will be determined by student demand, and Rotman’s admissions policies. It is simply our hope that if the program grows, students are provided with appropriate information on which to make their decisions, and are also given appropriate academic and career resources. With that in mind, we float the following as just a few ideas for the JD/MBA.
Rotman must reconsider the career services it offers to JD/MBAs. At the moment, the majority of career services for those of us in the joint degree comes from alumni and upper-year students. Ideally, Rotman would have a Career Coach and business development associate that works solely with JD/MBAs in order to find interesting and unique opportunities, particularly those in the 2nd year grey zone. This would be beneficial to the school too, because (if our predictions are correct) they will not always be able to count on JD/MBAs entering law as “sure things” that will fortify hiring statistics.
To augment this, the faculties should use their joint resources to compile JD/MBA hiring statistics and information about where students have been placed for summer jobs and where alumni are currently working.
Finally, both faculties should push for increased coordination and more JD/MBA-specific programming. At the moment, the JD/MBA is more like two degrees done concurrently, rather than a true joint program. With increased enrollment in the program, there is an incredible opportunity for Rotman and the Faculty of Law to offer tailored opportunities for JD/MBAs. Both faculties offer an incredible range of classes, speaker series, and workshops that are geared towards niche industries and areas of the law. To date, however, there is not a single class that has been crafted with JD/MBAs in mind, despite the fact that there are about 90 JD/MBA students currently enrolled at the University of Toronto. In fact, there are several classes we can’t take and the rest is put on ad hoc by the JD/MBA Association.
With just a few simple changes such as these, the JD/MBA could be sold as much more than a back-door into law. It would draw in students of an incredible calibre and provide them with the resources to succeed in whatever they endeavour to do. Indeed, our ivory tower would be pushed to new heights.
