Consulting Jobs

[Number81]

Yeah, so lately I've been exploring lots of career paths.  I have been following up with all the suggestions you dudes have made and I applied (and am applying) to pretty much everything.  It seems like all the other thousands of lawyers and law students are doing the same thing.  Despite a huge time investment thus far, I'm putting the likelihood of landing a real paying law job at "pretty damn low" for next summer.

Anyway, next on the plate is Consulting.

This is something that is super, super appealing to me.  I really wish I pursued this instead of law school (especially now...although I do like research, writing, in-court advocacy, etc.), and don't know how the hell I didn't look into this more.

So, can someone answer some questions?  I tried finding a Consulting forum for this, but there really are not any active ones that I saw.  Feel free to mix and match or just give general answers.  I'm lacking lots of knowledge here.

(1) How high up can I start?(i.e. would I be considered an "analyst" or "associate" after I finished school?)
(2) How early do people start applying for summer positions?  What are they called?(i.e. Summer Associate positions?)  Are they generally paid, and if so, how much?
(3) How much do the not-top-3-firms typically pay for entry level?
(4) Is there anything I can do to make myself more marketable? Is there anything that might not make me more marketable, but that I should do to learn useful stuff for consulting (i.e. read the WSJ)?
(5) How international is consulting? (i.e. do you travel overseas a lot, or generally just work with domestic companies?)
(6) How is the consulting industry doing in the recession?  Will I be able to get a job?
(7) Will I be able to start off doing work that I couldn't do when I was 14?  If not, when will I be able to do something that requires thinking and applying stuff I learn?
( How should I apply?  Should I just go to the career section and follow along, or should I do something special?
(9) Is a JD/MBA worth looking into?

And most importantly, (10) Am I qualified for any of the firms?  (33% at Emory, on transactional/business law path, interned for dept of commerce, don't have a business degree of any kind, but very good at business stuff)

[MacGyver316]

consulting = lots of experience in a particular field... If you are just coming out of LS i dont see how this could be an option. Maybe 10 years down the road?

[Number81]

I have a couple friends that are in undergrad (graduating in Dec) that have jobs in consulting firms.  They don't have credentials that are overly impressive and they are making decent enough money (more than I can make)...

[M_Cool]

I don't know a ton about it but I have a few friends from undergrad who went the consulting route.  Basically though you don't make that great of money (maybe 70k + bonus?) and you work just as much as big law.  They usually hire the top students out of top undergrads but I've heard of some law students who go into it.  I don't think a lot do though because generally if you have the stats for consulting you can get a big law job and get paid even more.  Also, consulting has been hit incredibly hard in this economy so it's probably very hard to get one of these jobs.  Beyond this I really have no clue.  Probably not that helpful:)

Try autoadmit.com and do a search for "consulting" or "MBB" and you will find some threads about it. 

[Number81]

$70k+bonus?!  That's huge!!
Although, I'm guessing that's what the top 3 firms give out.  They aren't nice enough to list all their associates, but it seems like the JD Associates are HYSCCNP types, and otherwise they have an MBA from a top-3 program or so.  (which is slightly awkward -- Emory law is about as hard to get in to as Harvard business if you look at the test scores & GPA ... but I guess an MBA is actually useful for business work and a JD is not)

[Number81]

Yeah, I'm not expecting to use my JD in any meaningful way at a consulting firm.  I just assume that since they take kids straight out of undergrad I can land something just because a JD from Emory should mean I'm smart enough to work for a consulting firm (that is not MBB).  I'll just have to learn the specifics as I go -- which is probably the same thing as an undergrad business degree analyst.

The fact that Consulting is hurting is something I didn't realize, though.  That really sucks.  I was under the assumption that it couldn't be that bad because I have a few friends at decent (not great) firms that simply did OK at top ~30 undergrads.  They're making more money in Consulting than it looks like I'll make in law next summer.