When a law student completes his law degree, he or she is equipped with legal knowledge and particular skill sets that are unique to the legal industry. Litigation, legal firms, or getting master’s degrees from Indian or overseas colleges are the most frequent professional paths for law degree holders.
Corporate law companies have typically been seen as the most profitable professional option, particularly among recent graduates on most NLU and law university campuses.
Which Finance sector does most Law graduate choose?
Investment banking is a new field that has recently piqued the attention of law students. Even while a small number of lawyers with a great affinity for finance have routinely cracked into this coveted profession of finance in the past, enthusiasm in investment banking has already been expanding among a wider segment of law students in recent years. Investment banking, on the other hand, is exceedingly tough to enter, and only a small percentage of those who try come close to hitting into the ring of investment bankers.
Lawyers, on the other hand, were some of the greatest prominent investment bankers in history, and lawyers that have an unspoken advantage in this regulated environment. To give an insight, Goldman Sachs’ founder and CEO, a very well-known investment banker in history, is a law graduate. Hundreds of professionals in the American corporate legal sector have served as investment bankers at a certain point in their careers, as few people have a better inside perspective of the high finance and deal-making world than investment bankers, which can provide an excellent basis for a corporate law career.
Yes, many lawyers and law graduates would give their right arm to work in investment banking, although what exactly does it take to get through it?
How to switch from Law to Finance?
Although the attractive perks of investment banking may tempt one to pursue it immediately after law school, several banks prefer to hire someone with transaction expertise who can demonstrate how their legal education and expertise apply to the investment banking business. As a result, it’s preferable, to begin with, a top corporate legal firm and obtains skills in financial transactions such as Mergers and acquisition or financial markets, so you can tell a compelling tale in interviews about why you want to move into finance. If you have no significant experience in business, Mergers & acquisitions, stocks, or other comparable fields, business schools can be useful following law school.
If you have a background in law and want to enter financial services, here are five things you should do:
- Make certain your motivations for changing careers from law to finance are valid. Simply being attracted to banking and finance because it pays well is insufficient since law and finance were two quite different fields that require very different sets of talents and competencies.
- You can start by contacting your friends and family and asking for references to recruiters, as well as contacting your previous clients to establish informative sessions or potential opportunities with their businesses, and so forth.
- You can apply your previous client- and industry-related experience. If they’re in a specific industry, like technology, go into investment banking in that field, or if you’ve done a lot of M&A, go into investment bank Mergers and acquisitions divisions.
- If you’ve worked at a well-known or well-known law company, you’ll have an edge because bankers are familiar with the best law companies. If you worked at a modest law firm, though, your potential to stand out will be determined by how much knowledge you have obtained in a focused field. After that, start with smaller banks.
- Interview Success – Lawyers need to deliver a compelling story to recruiters. In general, the interviewers want to understand how you would fare as an attorney in this difficult market and whether you will be willing to forego a legal career in favor of investment banking. To answer these questions, you’ll need to show all your credentials, including undergraduate financial courses, self-study, some other classes you’ve taken outside of your job, and the information you gained throughout law school. If you’ve had work experience in business or corporate law, your case will be considerably stronger.
Leave them with idea that you’ve always had a penchant for money and deal-making, but also that you chose to work in investment banking for all these grounds.
Conclusion
In the end, the phrase “school of law to investment banking” is misleading because few, law students go straight into IB. You work for another few years at a legal firm, preferably in Mergers and acquisitions, stocks, financial markets, restructuring, or other extremely relevant, before switching to another firm. It isn’t “simple,” but it is less difficult than transitioning from most other industries to Associate level investment banking. Your largest benefit is time: unlike kids who just finished university, you don’t have to make the shift in 1-2 years.