[MRM]

Given your comments so far, it sounds to me like your best route would be an MBA. I caution everyone considering law school that the only reason they should go to law school is if they can't stand the idea of having a career as anything other than being a lawyer. A law degree will not advance your current career; it qualifies you for an entirely different career. One which you will start over at the bottom with 26 year olds who will be your competition for positions and will be your peers when you join a firm.

With an engineering undergraduate degree you could probably get into IP, but you would probably be stuck prosecuting patents for many years. If that turns you on, you can make good money at it, but maybe not more right away than you are making now, but more eventually. Most people hatethat kind of work, which is why there is always a demand for people who qualify for the patent bar to do it.

Law school is three years full time. It is possible, but insanely difficult to do law school part time over four years and keep your day job. I know people who have done it. I still don't know how they survived. Tuition for law school is much higher than business school.

An MBA will enhance your current career. You will not have to start over at the bottom and compete with new MBAs the way you would if you became a lawyer. Business school is 18 months full time, as short as two years doing it part time. Executive MBA programs are widely available and are designed for people with full time jobs. You go to class every other weekend all day Saturday and Sunday and you graduate in two years lockstep with everyone else in the class and you receive the same MBA as the regular day program. Tuition for business school is probably cheaper. You might get your employer to pay for business school.

If you are interested in Six Sigma and process management, your interests probably lie more in the area of a business degree rather than an advanced engineering degree or law degree.

If you are interested in moving up the corporate ladder in a large company, an MBA is your passport. If you want to work on more challenging engineering problems, the MS is the route to go. If you want to do something completely different, where your current skills will enhance your new carrer, law school is the way to go.

By way of disclosure, I am a lawyer with undergraduate degrees in business and economics. I went straight through to law school and have worked for the government as a prosecutor, a big firm, a large insurer, and now have own my own firm. My wife has an MBA with a marketing undergraduate degree. She is a business manager for a large multinational in Minnesota that has something to do with Mining and Manufacturing. She has managed engineers and nontechnical staff and is currently some sort of Six Sigma Black Belt. We are both well suited to what we do. I would probably destroy the business unit if I was the MBA, she would probably jump out a window if she had to do law stuff. Talk to people in the positions you are considering and go with the route that interests you the most. If you enjoy what you do you will do it well and you will make good money at it. So the moral of the story is to pick the route that interests you most.