JD/MD Candidacy and Worth

[studentofknowledge]

Hey SDN,

I just finished my third semester at a large public university and am currently double majoring in Applied Mathematics and Biophysics. I have been looking more into what I want to do with my future and have been intrigued by the dual-degrees in Law and Medicine offered by a vast array of universities. Currently I have a 3.98 GPA (made a B in Orgo Lab unfortunately) and will hopefully keep in above a 3.8-9 as my college career progresses. So far in my life I have been extremely indecisive of what I want to do, sometimes I believe I want to become a doctor, other times work in the financial field, and just as often I see myself in Law. I think I can see myself being a JD/MD even though it seems like after I graduate it would be another 7 years of school (which means 2025 and me being 29 years old OMG), but is it worth it? Will my hard work pay off if I keep with these goals and aspirations? Is there a job market for JD/MD's? Thanks in advance for your replies.

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[NotASerialKiller]

29 years old OMG

Perish the thought!

 

[Ismet]

What do you want to do with a JD/MD?

Also, plenty of people START med school when they're 29 and older. People in their 40s even start medical school. Worry less about age and worry more about if this career is actually something you want to do. You're not going to be able to bounce between being a lawyer and being a doctor. You'll primarily be one or the other, but have the knowledge of the 2nd degree. The "practicing" MD/JD I know is a malpractice lawyer, he doesn't practice medicine but he was board certified in IM and has that strong medical background. I know a couple others in school on an MD/JD program and I know one wants to deal in healthcare reform.

 

[justadream]

What do you want to do with a JD/MD?

Also, plenty of people START med school when they're 29 and older. People in their 40s even start medical school. Worry less about age and worry more about if this career is actually something you want to do. You're not going to be able to bounce between being a lawyer and being a doctor. You'll primarily be one or the other, but have the knowledge of the 2nd degree. The "practicing" MD/JD I know is a malpractice lawyer, he doesn't practice medicine but he was board certified in IM and has that strong medical background. I know a couple others in school on an MD/JD program and I know one wants to deal in healthcare reform.

Somewhat off-topic question that I'm genuinely curious about:

For the malpractice lawyer, how does he keep board certification if he does not practice? I presume then that just passing the board exam every X years is enough?

What if he wanted to go back to medicine? As long as he maintained board certification, he would be okay, right? (even if he hadn't actually practiced clinical medicine for decades).

 

[Ismet]

Somewhat off-topic question that I'm genuinely curious about:

For the malpractice lawyer, how does he keep board certification if he does not practice? I presume then that just passing the board exam every X years is enough?

What if he wanted to go back to medicine? As long as he maintained board certification, he would be okay, right? (even if he hadn't actually practiced clinical medicine for decades).

He didn't maintain board certification. He practiced for a few years after residency and then was dissatisfied with medicine so switched over to law. Not sure how it works for going back to medicine.

 

[Dr. Death]

29 is old? Crap I'll be that old before I even start residency

 

[bc65]

There are lots of md-jd's. You won't be unique, and there isn't much need for them.

I considered that dual degree at one time. I was advised against it because in most cases it's a waste. You will end up practicing either law or medicine. So pick the one you plan on practicing and just do it.

I know several md's who went to law school. One speaks on malpractice issues and wrote a book. The others just went back to the full time practice of medicine. Malpractice attorneys have told me that the doctors turned lawyers they go up against in court are usually terrible attorneys, and usually lose. Just anecdotal, make of it what you will.

If you practice medicine, the law degree will be useless. If you're interested in administration, an MBA or management degree of some sort would be more useful.

If you go into malpractice law, you would gain next to nothing by having a medical degree, since you would need to consult with different specialists for each case anyway. Your 4 years of med school and years of residency would have been better spent in the practice of law, giving you 4 to 7 more years of legal experience.

Maybe @Law2Doc will comment, based on actual experience.

 

[studentofknowledge]

There are lots of md-jd's. You won't be unique, and there isn't much need for them.

I considered that dual degree at one time. I was advised against it because in most cases it's a waste. You will end up practicing either law or medicine. So pick the one you plan on practicing and just do it.

I know several md's who went to law school. One speaks on malpractice issues and wrote a book. The others just went back to the full time practice of medicine. Malpractice attorneys have told me that the doctors turned lawyers they go up against in court are usually terrible attorneys, and usually lose. Just anecdotal, make of it what you will.

If you practice medicine, the law degree will be useless. If you're interested in administration, an MBA or management degree of some sort would be more useful.

If you go into malpractice law, you would gain next to nothing by having a medical degree, since you would need to consult with different specialists for each case anyway. Your 4 years of med school and years of residency would have been better spent in the practice of law, giving you 4 to 7 more years of legal experience.

Maybe @Law2Doc will comment, based on actual experience.

After reading these replies it seems like becoming a JD/MD will make me a "Master of None" per say. I think I am more interested in the administrative field anyway and will definitely look into MD/MBA or MD/AM programs. Thanks for your input!

 

[GiveMeThatMD]

See, now if you're being sued for medical malpractice, you can just sue them right back!

 

[Law2Doc]

After reading these replies it seems like becoming a JD/MD will make me a "Master of None" per say. I think I am more interested in the administrative field anyway and will definitely look into MD/MBA or MD/AM programs. Thanks for your input!

I more or less agree with what's described above -- you'd have to pick one or the other of law and medicine, and won't get paid more for having the other. There are (or used to be) entire websites devoted to why this hasn't worked out for people and makes no economic sense. I actually think all dual degrees are pretty dubious unless you have a particular career goal in mind that requires it. The MBA is actually of little to no value if you get it without substantial work experience, so you are infinitely better off getting an executive MBA post-residency rather than a dual degree program. I don't know what AM is, but doubt you need one. Nor do you need a double major to go to med school. Wasted effort. You seem to be collecting laurels rather than having laser-like focus. You'll be better off down the road when you if you fix this shortcoming. More isn't always better.

 

[flapjack3d]

If you want to practice medicine, the only thing you might get out of the JD part is critical thinking skills. Very low yield.

 

[Law2Doc]

If you want to practice medicine, the only thing you might get out of the JD part is critical thinking skills. Very low yield.

I think there are tons of transferable skills-- it's just that nobody is going to compensate you for them and those extra 3 years could be better spent focusing on the one field you intend to practice. IMHO, having a law degree on top of a medical degree only makes sense for the career changer -- meaning you did one career, and years later after some practice and soul searching, realized the other was just a batter choice for you. Totally get that.

But to get them both up front, as a dual degree, just so you can postpone a career decision, is simply not as valid. pick one. If you are wrong you can always change course, but both fields are to some degree about pulling the trigger, and making a decision, not being wishy washy and hedging your bets. Indecision will haunt you in both fields.

 

[bc65]

Also, don't forget the financial costs ( tuition plus opportunity costs ) of doing the second degree. Realize that the second degree will cost you tuition for 3 or 4 years, plus interest on the loans, plus lost salary for 3 or 4 years of peak earning years. Look at all the threads here where people question whether medicine makes sense given the high cost of going to school. If you add the additional costs of law school on top of that, it's definitely a losing proposition.

Many people who know the legal field recommend against law school these days unless you will get into a top 10 ( T14) school or have a guaranteed job in a family firm. Unlike medicine, where a job in primary care is all but guaranteed to a graduate of any US school, in law these days, unless you graduate from a top 10 or 20 school, you may not have a job at all. This is unlikely to change in the near future. A medical degree is unlikely to have much added value to a law firm, even a malpractice firm.
I have frequently heard it said that "You can do anything with a law degree". Unless you're practicing law, that really means "You can't do anything with a law degree".

 

[Law2Doc]

Also, don't forget the financial costs ( tuition plus opportunity costs ) of doing the second degree. Realize that the second degree will cost you tuition for 3 or 4 years, plus interest on the loans, plus lost salary for 3 or 4 years of peak earning years. Look at all the threads here where people question whether medicine makes sense given the high cost of going to school. If you add the additional costs of law school on top of that, it's definitely a losing proposition.

Many people who know the legal field recommend against law school these days unless you will get into a top 10 ( T14) school or have a guaranteed job in a family firm. Unlike medicine, where a job in primary care is all but guaranteed to a graduate of any US school, in law these days, unless you graduate from a top 10 or 20 school, you may not have a job at all. This is unlikely to change in the near future. A medical degree is unlikely to have much added value to a law firm, even a malpractice firm.
I have frequently heard it said that "You can do anything with a law degree". Unless you're practicing law, that really means "You can't do anything with a law degree".

Well, the "you must go to a top 10 law school" concept is kind of a myth. The market is very tight but nowhere near that tight. People on here like to exaggerate about this. Even if the bottom 50% of the class at each of the bottom tier of law schools have trouble finding jobs, which might be the case, suddenly it's "nobody outside top 10". But that's not true. Sixty percent of the people at even the worst law schools still find jobs even when the other forty won't. That's a really bad job market, but you shouldn't extrapolate from that to if you aren't in the top 10 "you won't get a job at all". Bad odds doesn't equate to no odds.

 

[bc65]

Well, the "you must go to a top 10 law school" concept is kind of a myth. The market is very tight but nowhere near that tight. People on here like to exaggerate about this. Even if the bottom 50% of the class at each of the bottom tier of law schools have trouble finding jobs, which might be the case, suddenly it's "nobody outside top 10". But that's not true. Sixty percent of the people at even the worst law schools still find jobs even when the other forty won't. That's a really bad job market, but you shouldn't extrapolate from that to if you aren't in the top 10 "you won't get a job at all". Bad odds doesn't equate to no odds.

Most of my information comes from law websites, not here, although it still may not be accurate. It's certainly not entirely up to date. ( eg top-law-schools.com, above the law, to name two ) Perhaps I could have elaborated more, and perhaps your comments are closer to the truth, but how about this: To be confident of getting a "big law" salary of $160,000 straight out of law school, you need to have graduated from a T14 school, or at least a T20 school, and probably not be in the bottom 1/4 or 1/3 of your class. If you graduate from a lower ranked school, unless you are in a very insular school ( eg a city with a local school and a local market ) you may not get get a job requiring a legal degree at all. I don't want to search for all the statistics now ( I don't care enough ) but I believe that lots of schools have up to half of their graduates without legal employment, and there's ample evidence that a lot of those employment statistics are fabricated or manipulated ( ie schools reporting "employment", not "legal employment", or employing students themselves, or outright lying ), so it's fair to say that as bad as the statistics are, reality is worse, but how much worse we can't say. Enrollment in the worst schools has plummeted (eg Cooley) and how many of their former students have real jobs is anyone's guess. Meanwhile, students will owe 3 years of tuition and living expenses, and last I looked, the average salary of an employed attorney was about 65k, but that only includes law graduates working as attorneys. Further, it's my understanding that making partner isn't what it used to be, as now there's the equity partner track vs employee partner track. Anyway, both you and I have jobs, and OP seems to have decided against a dual degree, so at least for this thread, it's moot.

 

[Law2Doc]

Most of my information comes from law websites, not here, although it still may not be accurate. It's certainly not entirely up to date. ( eg top-law-schools.com, above the law, to name two ) Perhaps I could have elaborated more, and perhaps your comments are closer to the truth, but how about this: To be confident of getting a "big law" salary of $160,000 straight out of law school, you need to have graduated from a T14 school, or at least a T20 school, and probably not be in the bottom 1/4 or 1/3 of your class. If you graduate from a lower ranked school, unless you are in a very insular school ( eg a city with a local school and a local market ) you may not get get a job requiring a legal degree at all. I don't want to search for all the statistics now ( I don't care enough ) but I believe that lots of schools have up to half of their graduates without legal employment, and there's ample evidence that a lot of those employment statistics are fabricated or manipulated ( ie schools reporting "employment", not "legal employment", or employing students themselves, or outright lying ), so it's fair to say that as bad as the statistics are, reality is worse, but how much worse we can't say. Enrollment in the worst schools has plummeted (eg Cooley) and how many of their former students have real jobs is anyone's guess. Meanwhile, students will owe 3 years of tuition and living expenses, and last I looked, the average salary of an employed attorney was about 65k, but that only includes law graduates working as attorneys. Further, it's my understanding that making partner isn't what it used to be, as now there's the equity partner track vs employee partner track. Anyway, both you and I have jobs, and OP seems to have decided against a dual degree, so at least for this thread, it's moot.

Even during the best market, the BigLaw firms preferentially hired the top 10-20 law school grads, plus the top grads from law review at regional law schools. This hasn't changed much -- you had to be a superstar to get into BigLaw then, and you still do now. What has changed is that law schools across the board have seen their placement percentages drop. Used to be that at a good (but not top 20) law school, 95% would get decent jobs. Now it's more like 60-70%. That's a very big deal, but people are exaggerating when they say odds are zero. Don't buy the hype. It's just a really bad market with a lot of people playing things up as worse than they are. Yet those of us plugged into this world know people who continue to find work. Of course if you end up at the bottom of your class in a relatively average school, you probably won't be working at a law firm.

 

[GrapesofRath]

I'll also add that people need to keep in mind the difference in admission standards for lower tier MD programs and lower tier JD programs. Its a world of difference.

1) The pool of people taking the LSAT vs those taking the MCAT is vastly different. It's not even close. Lower tier MD programs will have median MCAT scores in the 30-32 range. That's basically 80th+ percentile. For law schools, there are plenty of lower tiers with median LSATs in the 150's which equates to around 60th percentile. 60th percentile for perspective on the MCAT is around a 27; no MD program outside of HBMC's and Puerto Rican schools has a median score that low. And this says nothing of how different the test taking sample is for both.
2) As for GPA. Your typical pre-law UG courseload vs pre med courseload.......no comparison. And yet, you'll still find hoards of lower tier law schools where a 3.3 is plenty sufficient as a pre-law. Again a world of difference between the two and yet lower tier MD students still have to achieve a clearly high standard when their coursework is by and large clearly more rigorous.

I add all of this just to provide perspective on what it really means to be in the bottom 30-40% of your law school at a lower tier school. We're talking about people in UG who were resoundingly mediocre and in many cases had below national average LSAT scores. Likewise, even at top law schools, there is a huge difference between a 3.75 in typical pre-law coursework and pre-med coursework and hitting 90+th percentile on the LSAT and hitting 95+th percentile on the MCAT. What is considered being below average in a med school class rank is a far different standard than being considered below average for a law school class rank.

I say all of this completely agreeing the law job market is pretty bad right now. But as was said above, perspective is everything. It's really not unreasonable to think that a large number of MD matriculants even at lower tier schools could be very competitive candidates for Top 14 Law Schools.

I can also say from having taken both the LSAT and MCAT, there is absolutely no comparison. Not even close.

 

[Lucca]

@Affiche ?????