M.D/J.D. employment prospects? Forum

[JoblessAndHopeless]

Hey guys, long time lurker here.

I graduated with my medical degree in U.S. in 2014 and after stints in couple residencies, I've had enough with clinical medicine. Long story short, I wanted out from clinical medicine, and so left residency.

I've always been interested in law, and even thought of going to law school instead of medical school in undergrad, but my parents steered me away, as they'd rather see their darling little boy become a doctor instead, ugh.

My question is, what is the job prospect for M.D./J.D. graduate who wants to work in law?
I know (from looking at Vale of Tears thread), employment prospects in law are not so good nowadays.

Would it be any different for dual degree holders? I would imagine lot of medical malpractice cases would be advantageous if handled by M.D./J.D. attorneys?

I just want to make sure this would be the right path before I sink my time, effort, and money into law school.

Thanks.

[fire_ice]

Sorry if this is not helpful in a way you wanted, but I would go back to medicine. At this point for you, law school is not worth the time and money.
What aspects of clinical medicine did you dislike? There must be specialty that doesn't involve much of aspects you dislike. Also, have you considered research?

[Anonymous User]

Your prospects will depend a lot on where you go to law school.

But if you go to a good law school, food and drug law is a great practice area that I recommend you consider. I work in big law in DC in this area. And I love it. The hours are bearable and the work is extremely interesting. A lot of great exit opportunities too, including at food and pharmaceutical companies or FDA.

Right now, there are like 5+ openings in DC for food and drug lateral associates.

It’s a small bar and limited mostly to DC. If living in DC for a while is not enticing to you, it’s probably not a good option for you. You can ambulance chase anywhere, but FDA training is best in DC at one of the big firms.

Your medical degree would be extremely valuable in FDA law. Patent law seem to suck up most of the PhDs, so most FDA lawyers have little science background. A medical degreee would be much more useful for FDA law than patent law. You can also consider healthcare regulatory work (ie, CMS, reimbursement stuff, fraud and abuse issures).

[eastcoast_iub]

I only know one person with both degrees and he is a share partner at a top corporate firm. His practice has nothing to do with medicine though and not sure it his MD helped at all. Maybe helps at the margins as a good story to tell in an interview.

[Anonymous User]

Sorry if this is not helpful in a way you wanted, but I would go back to medicine. At this point for you, law school is not worth the time and money.

This is a really silly response. "I hate what I trained to do and have already left it." "Go back to that job."

I have definitely seen JD/MDs working in medical malpractice, and worse comes to worst, having the MD won't hurt you in terms of law school admissions/having a job; at worst it will be a neutral.

Law school is a lot of time and usually money, so I would make sure that you're confident law school is right for you - find as many lawyers as you can and ask them if they'd meet with you to talk about their jobs; figure out if what their jobs are like would suit you; maybe take some time off and work just for the experience and to get a better sense of what options are out there. There is actually no need to rush into another lengthy and expensive grad program just because the first one didn't agree with you - you probably want to think long and hard about what you want to do, rather than just move down the grad school list.

But while law might not be right for you, that doesn't remotely mean you should go back to medicine.

[Anonymous User]

There are definitely jobs in healthcare law where an MD and a residency would be considered valuable. It's a small, niche area of the law, and most of your colleagues will not have a medical background. It is also, generally speaking, not going to be the most highly compensated field of law, though the hours may be easier than some of those such areas.

But law is a much, much harder career overall than medicine (in terms of how difficult it is to be financially successful, to find personal fulfillment and to balance work obligations with life in the long term), so it's hard to advise a doctor to go to law school.

One consideration is whether you might try to take the MD and move into health policy, either directly or through some sort of public policy graduate school. I think that may match your goals more than a legal degree. You can do those jobs with a JD, too, but you wouldn't be on the typical path.

[Anonymous User]

Do you want to do biglaw? I think being an MD may help get IP jobs. There are a lot of JD/PhDs, so why not an MD? Especially in a life sciences/biopharma firm (mostly in west coast and east coast).

I know a few JD/MDs but most do not practice law. They’re mostly in medicine and got the JD because it was something they wanted to fall back on. Thinking about it, the other direction probably wouldn’t work as well.

One thing that you should consider, if you want a general corporate or litigation biglaw position, is that whether we like to acknowledge it, many firms prefer somewhat younger associates (mid to late 20s). I knew a few people who were older and tried to get biglaw jobs and they struck out (graduated with honors and on law review and seemed to have minimal social skills). It’s unfortunate (and technically illegal), but it happens. Assuming you went straight through, you will be 33 by the time you graduate from law school, which is on the older end. Also, for family/life purposes, may not be too fun.

As I mentioned above, IP does have many older associates because they have PhDs and such, so I think there’s always that pocket available.

[JoblessAndHopeless]

Thanks for all the replies guys, much appreciated.

I'm not necessarily looking for biglaw employment at the end. I would be happy with healthcare law, med malpractice, and such in small to mid size firm after graduation. It's just after reading through the Vale of Tears thread, it has me freaked out and whether law school would be a good investment. I guess I'm asking whether the M.D. and clinical experience I have would give me a legs up in job hunting at the end, especially if I end up going to Tier 2 school or smilar.

And I am currently 30 years old (single, no kids, no student loans, but currently flat out broke), so once I take the LSAT, and do the application process, I probably wouldn't even enter law school until I'm 31, so probably 34 when I am done.

If I take out loans for law school tuition + living expenses for 3 years, how much debt would I be looking at?

[Anonymous User]

I would strongly advise you against law school. I get angry at myself on a daily basis for not doing a pre-med post-bacc when I had the chance to get out of law. I didn't do a post bacc because I had no scientific background and I was afraid I was going to fail at it. Now I have graduated law school and I'm jobless. You have one of the most respected degrees in the world and an incredibly valuable skill set. Projections indicate that demand for physicians (not all specialties) will increase within the next decade, while the legal employment market is glutted. You have a sure fire path to respect, stability, and wealth - especially since you're debt free. I'm nearly the same age as you and I wish I could be in your position. If I were you, I'd go back to being a doctor. Otherwise, do anything but law.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for all the replies guys, much appreciated.

I'm not necessarily looking for biglaw employment at the end. I would be happy with healthcare law, med malpractice, and such in small to mid size firm after graduation. It's just after reading through the Vale of Tears thread, it has me freaked out and whether law school would be a good investment. I guess I'm asking whether the M.D. and clinical experience I have would give me a legs up in job hunting at the end, especially if I end up going to Tier 2 school or smilar.

And I am currently 30 years old (single, no kids, no student loans, but currently flat out broke), so once I take the LSAT, and do the application process, I probably wouldn't even enter law school until I'm 31, so probably 34 when I am done.

If I take out loans for law school tuition + living expenses for 3 years, how much debt would I be looking at?[/quot

Really depends, if you want to go to a top school and don't have top grades/LSAT, then you'll be looking at $150,000+ of debt at graduation. If you go to a lower ranked school, then the debt burden should decrease. If you are going to do this (which I don't recommend - law school is a giant waste of brainpower and being a lawyer sucks), minimize your debt burden as much as possible and try to figure out areas of the law you will like (not just what makes the most money or has the best job prospects).

Honestly, I get asked all the time by people about going to law school and my response is always not to go unless your parents are paying or you have a massive scholarship, law school degrees are a waste of money and time and the legal profession is pretty shitty, even if you are successful. Never seen an industry where even those at the top wish they had done something else with their lives.

[JoblessAndHopeless]

I would strongly advise you against law school. I get angry at myself on a daily basis for not doing a pre-med post-bacc when I had the chance to get out of law. I didn't do a post bacc because I had no scientific background and I was afraid I was going to fail at it. Now I have graduated law school and I'm jobless. You have one of the most respected degrees in the world and an incredibly valuable skill set. Projections indicate that demand for physicians (not all specialties) will increase within the next decade, while the legal employment market is glutted. You have a sure fire path to respect, stability, and wealth - especially since you're debt free. I'm nearly the same age as you and I wish I could be in your position. If I were you, I'd go back to being a doctor. Otherwise, do anything but law.

I see your point. I guess it's kind of like grass is always greener on the other side.

The thing is, since I didn't finish residency, my options in medicine right now are severely restricted, because most hospitals, clinics, employers want their physicians to have completed residency and be board eligible/board certified. Without finishing residency, I can't sit for the boards.

Besides, I just can't imagine doing clinical medicine for the rest of my life, there's some good parts of it, but medical profession now for physicians is just a shitshow with high rates of burnout.

This was me before I left (and I wasn't alone when talking with my colleagues, both residents and private practice docs):

Spending all day Sunday dreading going back to work on Monday.
Getting a sinking feeling when looking at the list of the day's patients.
Developing an increasing sense of cynicism toward the patients.
Fantasizing about telling the administrators and difficult patients how I really feel.
Getting physically assaulted by drunk, high patients in the ER (no joke)
Receiving a medical journal in the mail and just pitching it in the trash because medicine is the last thing I want to think about.

Don't believe when your doctor says they love their jobs, I would say fully half of all of them wish they could quit and wished they never went to medical school.
I guess my point to your post is, it's not that great man.

[schmooky]

Before embarking on another professional degree, I would try to get law-related work experience, just so you know a bit more about the field you would be committing three years + debt to. For example, try to get a job in health care policy. That can be in DC or even locally. Maybe health care compliance. You're clearly smart and hardworking—you made it through med school after all—you can find a job where your background in medicine has value without fully committing to a new profession.

[Anonymous User]

I think you should really consider IP law if you do law or biotech or something similar. I know that my friend from my regional school had a 2.9 something and got biglaw. Didn’t take it, but had a unique background (chemical engineer). I think you’d be in a similar boat. However, this applies to specialty groups, though

[Anonymous User]

Your employability is going to be much more influenced by where your JD is from than it will by whether you have an MD or not. That said, your employability with an MD/JD will generally outpace the employability of similarly ranked students from schools at a similar caliber -- so it definitely helps!

I'm sympathetic to your plight. I personally love the practice of law and doubt I'd like medicine nearly as much. The fact that you have strong career possibilities in your current field might not matter that much if you hate the idea of continuing in that career. You seem to understand that going to law school isn't going to improve your job prospects -- and, as such, is a pretty mediocre investment from a purely financial standpoint (but in all fairness, there aren't a lot of careers with better income/employment prospects than medicine). But there's substantial value to your happiness and, therefore, it might be worth investing the significant time and money required to obtain a JD and switch careers if that's really what's at stake here (/ if the marginal increase in your happiness from a career switch exceeds the marginal utility you would derive from the money/time/effort you'd put into the career switch).

If you're pretty sure about not wanting to be a doctor--and it sounds like you are--a good half-step would be to invest the medium amount of time/money into studying for the LSAT (and, if you do well enough, into law school applications). There's a real cost to studying for the LSAT and applying to law school--it's a frustrating and time-consuming process. But it's a far smaller step than actually going to law school. Having an MD could give you a pretty big leg up in law school applications, especially if you're able to build a compelling story around your degree (besides "I don't like medicine and law is another field for smart professionals"). Depending on your uGPA (and your LSAT), it's entirely possible you could find yourself with a full ride somewhere in the T14. And how much sense it makes to switch careers is going to depend on your options. Are you going to have to go $200,000 in debt to go to Miami? Well then you better be pretty darn sure and really love the law as compared to medicine. Or do you have a full ride at Penn? Because it's impossible to evaluate in the abstract whether it's worth the time/effort/financial cost of going to law school to switch careers--it's not necessarily a mistake for you to go to law school--it might be worth considering taking the LSAT; and then, if you do well enough, applying to law schools; and then, based on how you do with respect to offers/finaid, evaluating your options (and maybe making the jump).

[Florence Night]

Seems clinically insane to not try 10 other specialities before switching to law.

[Mr. Archer]

Well, at this point you're not going to law school until 2019 at least. If you really want to go to law school, you need to start prepping for the LSAT to see what you're working with. You were able to get into and finish medical school, so you should be able to make a good score with some practice.

I would caution you to think about why you want to do law though. If you don't have any actual experience in law, like an internship, you should try to get a part-time law job. Preferably, you should try to see what it's like to practice law in an area that interests you. You might not like it. Almost any job seems better when you hate your current one. You don't want that to happen again after you spend three years in law school. It sounds like you wouldn't like big law if you went the law route based on some of what you don't like about clinical medicine. Maybe you would like something like medical malpractice or health law. There's a lawyer where I live who is MD/JD and practices medical malpractice. He went to a terrible law school but seems to do alright. Med mal is supposed to be tough though. One time I heard a trial lawyer say you shouldn't even try a med mal case until you have 10 years of litigation experience (not sure if that's true). Other than health law, it sounds like you would be doing a lot of litigation/trial work. That takes a certain personality and skill set. You might be able to do some interesting IP law (I assume you have a bio or chemistry background).

Since multiple people have told you to go back to medicine, what were you planning to do after you finished residency? Maybe taking a little bit of time off before going back and finishing your residency would be worth it if there's something up ahead you like. Or, maybe you could do something in health policy without having to do the JD or maybe just getting an MPH. I just don't get the direct jump to three years of school, possibly with lots of debt, based on some thoughts of liking law and maybe doing law school that you had around 8 years ago.

[kalcifer]

You can do life science tech transections. I routinely run into MDs and PhDs in life science tech transactions. Being able to understand the science (for example knowing the differences between CAR-T and TCR-T) when negotiating contracts, supporting an IPO, or just communicating with the clients really helps, and the people working in the field know that.

[Anonymous User]

Seems clinically insane to not try 10 other specialities before switching to law.

Medical specialties? No. Other professions? Sure, probably.

[Anonymous User]

Depending on how your pedigree is and how much you want to be involved in healthcare, I think you should consider consulting or working in some sort of healthcare-focused finance role before going to law school. It won't require 3 years of school (or additional debt) and your MD could be just as much if not more of a value-add.

[jd20132013]

I would strongly advise you against law school. I get angry at myself on a daily basis for not doing a pre-med post-bacc when I had the chance to get out of law. I didn't do a post bacc because I had no scientific background and I was afraid I was going to fail at it. Now I have graduated law school and I'm jobless. You have one of the most respected degrees in the world and an incredibly valuable skill set. Projections indicate that demand for physicians (not all specialties) will increase within the next decade, while the legal employment market is glutted. You have a sure fire path to respect, stability, and wealth - especially since you're debt free. I'm nearly the same age as you and I wish I could be in your position. If I were you, I'd go back to being a doctor. Otherwise, do anything but law.

I see your point. I guess it's kind of like grass is always greener on the other side.

The thing is, since I didn't finish residency, my options in medicine right now are severely restricted, because most hospitals, clinics, employers want their physicians to have completed residency and be board eligible/board certified. Without finishing residency, I can't sit for the boards.

Besides, I just can't imagine doing clinical medicine for the rest of my life, there's some good parts of it, but medical profession now for physicians is just a shitshow with high rates of burnout.

This was me before I left (and I wasn't alone when talking with my colleagues, both residents and private practice docs):

Spending all day Sunday dreading going back to work on Monday.
Getting a sinking feeling when looking at the list of the day's patients.
Developing an increasing sense of cynicism toward the patients.
Fantasizing about telling the administrators and difficult patients how I really feel.
Getting physically assaulted by drunk, high patients in the ER (no joke)
Receiving a medical journal in the mail and just pitching it in the trash because medicine is the last thing I want to think about.

Don't believe when your doctor says they love their jobs, I would say fully half of all of them wish they could quit and wished they never went to medical school.
I guess my point to your post is, it's not that great man.

Aside from the physical assault this sounds like big lawy

[omegaweapon]

I would strongly advise you against law school. I get angry at myself on a daily basis for not doing a pre-med post-bacc when I had the chance to get out of law. I didn't do a post bacc because I had no scientific background and I was afraid I was going to fail at it. Now I have graduated law school and I'm jobless. You have one of the most respected degrees in the world and an incredibly valuable skill set. Projections indicate that demand for physicians (not all specialties) will increase within the next decade, while the legal employment market is glutted. You have a sure fire path to respect, stability, and wealth - especially since you're debt free. I'm nearly the same age as you and I wish I could be in your position. If I were you, I'd go back to being a doctor. Otherwise, do anything but law.

I see your point. I guess it's kind of like grass is always greener on the other side.

The thing is, since I didn't finish residency, my options in medicine right now are severely restricted, because most hospitals, clinics, employers want their physicians to have completed residency and be board eligible/board certified. Without finishing residency, I can't sit for the boards.

Besides, I just can't imagine doing clinical medicine for the rest of my life, there's some good parts of it, but medical profession now for physicians is just a shitshow with high rates of burnout.

This was me before I left (and I wasn't alone when talking with my colleagues, both residents and private practice docs):

Spending all day Sunday dreading going back to work on Monday.
Getting a sinking feeling when looking at the list of the day's patients.
Developing an increasing sense of cynicism toward the patients.
Fantasizing about telling the administrators and difficult patients how I really feel.
Getting physically assaulted by drunk, high patients in the ER (no joke)
Receiving a medical journal in the mail and just pitching it in the trash because medicine is the last thing I want to think about.

Don't believe when your doctor says they love their jobs, I would say fully half of all of them wish they could quit and wished they never went to medical school.
I guess my point to your post is, it's not that great man.

Aside from the physical assault this sounds like big lawy

I know someone who had a partner throw a pen at them, so it's really more a difference in degree of assault.

[Anonymous User]

Would you consider working for a pharmaceutical company doing regulatory work? For example, reviewing promotional materials. That’s what I’ve been doing this morning in my big law job. It’s kind of fun, and easy. A PRC committee at pharma company often has a medical person (who can be a MD), and lawyer, and a person from regulatory affairs. The MD reviews things for medical accuracy. The JD reviews for legal risks. I think both could be a fun in house job. A pharma company paid my whole big law salary last year for a third of my time. I suspect I could easily find a in-house job doing this making 200K+ and not working nearly as hard as I do now.

Anyway, it’s a job you could consider now as an MD—lots of interesting work in pharma for non-practicing MDs. If you had a JD and MD, you could combine those interests in interesting ways.

I agree with many of the posters here: law school can make sense if your parents are risk and money means little to you; you get a schoolship; you get into a good law school, ie, top 10 or otherwise strong brand. Though if you want to work in pharma law in a company, not a big firm, you can probably been fine from a lower-ranked school.

[albanach]

You can do life science tech transections. I routinely run into MDs and PhDs in life science tech transactions. Being able to understand the science (for example knowing the differences between CAR-T and TCR-T) when negotiating contracts, supporting an IPO, or just communicating with the clients really helps, and the people working in the field know that.

This seems a better way to take advantage of the medical degree than healthcare or medmal.

Healthcare law is, to a large extent, all the other commercial transactions with a regulatory overlay. Hospitals have real estate, HR, supply chain, IT, etc., all of which are like most other companies, differing in that there are hospital specific regulations e.g. Stark and anti-kickback.

Medmal doesn't seem terribly well suited. OP hasn't practiced independently, and it's really hyper-focused tort law, but most practitioners don't get to specialize. One case might be a birth injury, the next a surgical issue and then a missed diagnosis.

Life sciences and related IP law, or the food and drug law mentioned above, might allow OP to better use their science knowledge.

[gogu]

To OP: I know you didn't mention IP among your interests in law, but I will just chime in that I know a few M.D. / J.D. patent litigators. It is unusual but can be done. I am a patent litigator as well and went to law school in my 30s, so I hear you about your concerns in that regard. I, too, changed careers from something that was less than fully satisfying to go into law, which is more satisfying to me. If you get law school paid for and do well, then the age thing isn't that big of a problem.

[JoblessAndHopeless]

Thanks guys for the replies. IP does interest me a great deal as well. Still undecided however, given the conflicting opinions here. I may just take a cold turkey practice LSAT and see what I score.