I have both (although I got them separately), and teach a lot of students going through the JD/MBA program at my university. In my experience, most of them end up working in law firms, not businesses, but in capacities which use some business knowledge, such as business litigation. Presumably one could also become corporate counsel with that background, although most don’t seem to go in that direction.

I would say the combo would give you more earing power, open more doors up, etc. I would suggest just doing the JD and then going back for an additional 2 years for the MBA because you may end up not needing it. For example, you may end up as a family law attorney, therefore the MBA would not be relevant at all. Or it can be handy if you do corporate law. It just depends where you end up because going to law school is one thing but what type of attorney you become and what you practice, will be totally different.

I worked for an attorney at one point who ended up doing estate planning. So he ended up going back to school to do a master’s in Taxation because it was relevant in his line of work. Good luck. By the way, you really don’t want to accumulate more debt than you already have to by doing both.

it would be wonderful in a large company. a lawyer that actually understood business AND you’d be a business person that actually understood law. the lawyers do not understand the business case ever. they only understand the risks and how to protect the company and try to address every million in one scenario that might occur. it takes them months to review something and then there are several revisions from that. the business people would be smart to involve the lawyers early in a deal but they hestitate to do so because the lawyer doesn’t understand the business and only sees the law side and they just complicate things / make the job more difficult. they lawyer will never be satisfied with the agreement and they just nit pick it to death. the business people have ten other deals they need to get done and can’t wait for all this legal review and re negotiation,etc. business people would rather sign and get it done and not have a contract / or even involve the lawyers. obviously risky for the company. they make the deals and involve the attorney afterwards when they really could have benefited more to have gotten help earlier. a balance is desperatly needed between the two.

the combo degree would also be helpful to a lawyer who wanted to manage other attorneys.

Wage and Labor consultant for a large corporation. Chances are, you wouldn’t even need to take or pass the bar. Just having the JD and MBA would make you an excellent candidate for a corporation that needs someone to consult and give appropriate advice in cases of equal opportunity issues, discrimination queries, settlements, etc.