One day something interesting popped into my inbox.
Among the newsletters and freelance cattle calls was an email from NYU Law School’s Tax LLM program.
It contained a fee voucher.
I was shocked and flattered – tax law was my passion during law school, and NYU’s LLM program is consistently ranked #1 in the country.
A Master of Laws (LLM) degree is a post-law school master’s degree. Tax is one of the few LLM specialties not considered an utter waste of time.
I immediately filled out the LSAC application and strategized how to get recommendation letters from law professors who have long forgotten who I am.
After my initial wave of enthusiasm, I remembered the fraudulent employment stats and starting salaries published by law schools. I also remembered how angry everyone was 2L year when we realized that our school lied to us about our prospects.
After some research into the value of tax LLM programs, I realized that there’s simply not enough reliable information available for me to make an informed decision regarding the purported benefits of an LLM.
What I’m fretting over:
- What if I can’t find tax law employment after getting a NYU LLM? Would I just return to Thomson Reuters with $80,000 more in student loans?
- What if law firms ignore the LLM degree due to my University of Minnesota degree? An outstanding LLM isn’t going to cut it for a firm looking for an Ivy League Law Review alum.
- Even if I get a job at a top Manhattan law firm, would my (supposedly) higher salary overcome the significant opportunity cost of giving up my current corporate career?
Pursuing an MBA raises another set of worries:
- Would the post-MBA job make up for the opportunity cost of missing two years of salary?
- Am I even interested in the types of consulting work that could come after getting an elite MBA?
- Am I too old? I’m north of the median age of the elite business schools, making admissions (yet alone a scholarship) increasingly unlikely.
I’m also not sure that a full-time MBA would be more valuable than my JD (it certainly isn’t at Thomson Reuters). Perhaps that perspective is too narrow though – many of the Fortune 500’s in town seem fixated on MBAs for high-level management positions.
An additional degree feels like a Rainbow Road shortcut – do you remember Rainbow Road?
It’s the final racing track in the Super Mario Cart video games. It’s long as hell, but there’s usually a risky shortcut available.
The shortcut could win the game for you, but if done wrong, it could also set you so far behind that there’s no comeback.
Mulling over graduate schools is an annual distraction for me.
Like many ambitious 20-somethings, I’m impatient with my promotions and constantly pondering getting an MBA or some other advanced degree. I hate wasting time building career capital, which is why these advanced degrees are so appealing.
I think the schools know this – hence the fee vouchers.
I just can’t figure out if another degree is a Rainbow Road shortcut, or just an expensive distraction.
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