Debt: The Silent Killer

[sakky]

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And how many do? Considering many of the firms that could use this marketing tool for free don’t bother, it’s tough to imagine there’s really any demand for it.

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<p>Uh, no, if there truly is no demand for it at all, then no law firms would ever market their Harvard credentials. However, I have already demonstrated that some do.</p>

<p>Your point is not that there is no demand, but that the demand is variegated. Some firms desire the Harvard brand, while others don’t. The key then is to find those firms who do demand it. </p>

<p>To give you an analogy, many movie-goers, especially guys, have little demand for the Twilight movie series. Heck, I know some guys who would pay not to see those movies. But the fact remains that a fervent core base of fans exist who do demand those movies, and movie studios cater to that audience. You don’t have to serve the entire population. </p>

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The fact that you can’t find a single instance of a firm hiring somebody just to use the Harvard name doesn’t help, either.

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<p>Uh, no firm is actually going to say that they hiring somebody simply to leverage the Harvard name for marketing purposes. They will just do so quietly. See below.</p>

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How much of that is for the marketing and how much for the work? I hope these hypothetical firms have a stronger idea of how this is supposed to provide value to them.

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<p>I’ll put it to you this way. Fire in the phrase “Harvard lawyer” or “Harvard attorney” into Google, and note the sponsored link results that appear on the right-hand-side of the screen. Those are ads from law firms who purchased the keywords “Harvard lawyer/attorney”. But why did they purchase that term? They could have purchased the simple keyword of attorney or lawyer. Why did they also have to include the name Harvard? The only logical explanation is that they believe that Google users will be searching for the term “Harvard lawyer/attorney”, and they believe it is important to reach those users. </p>

<p>That clearly indicates that there is marketing value to the Harvard brand. </p>

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Well, considering you didn’t respond to the part of my last post where I explained why this is the case,

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<p>Because that part of your post seems to be false. Again, the Federal government has indicated that the median lawyer merely 9 months of experience made nearly $70k a year, and those in private practice made over $100k a year. These figures are aggregated across all law schools, of which HLS is superior to almost every one.</p>

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I certainly would. Low-paying entry-level law jobs are, by and large, not laid-back. Small insurance defense and personal injury firms are at generally at least as miserable as biglaw firms as places to work. People don’t take jobs there because they want a permanent vacation, they take them because they have no other options. And again, someone from HLS might actually have a weaker chance than a TTT grad.

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<p>Nobody is talking about a permanent vacation where you never do any work at all. Clearly you still have to do some work. </p>

<p>What I am saying is that if law firms are truly willing to pay a median of over $100k for lawyers with only 9 months of experience - as indicated by the BLS data - I don’t find it particularly outrageous for a HLS graduate to simply ask for a job that pays him only $40k in return for a relatively light workload. Heck, it was even stated explicitly by other posters on this thread that it’s not hard at all for graduates of top law schools to find low-paid document review positions. </p>

<p>The other route to take is to join academia by becoming a lecturer at some low-tier, or even unaccredited law school. It doesn’t seem to be particularly difficult for somebody with top-tier credentials to become a lecturer at unaccredited programs such as Western Sierra Law School or Central California College of Law, particularly as you’re not looking for a formal tenure-track position, but simply a lectureship. Academia is well-known for being more brand-name conscious than arguably any other industry. Academia is also notorious for its relatively laid-back lifestyle (if you’re not trying to obtain tenure); summers are usually off, as are winter breaks. </p>

<p>Again, I maintain that if the median lawyer with only 9 months of experience makes nearly $70k, and the median lawyer in private practice with that experience makes well over $100k, it’s hard to believe that you as a HLS grad can’t find a less stressful law position that pays only $40k. Now that is truly defeatist. </p>

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Especially if they make this marketing proposal during the interview.

One has to merely skim back to my previous posts where I listed some law firms that do tout their Harvard credentials, many in a rather tacky manner. That indicates that there are indeed law firms who probably wouldn’t mind having a tacky marketing idea proposed to them (for after all, they’re tackily marketing themselves to others). </p>

<p>But if you want to be more conservative, then you can simply not mention the marketing proposal at all, and let the law firm deduce it themselves. I agree that some won’t, but others will. Again, why do some law firms purchase the “Harvard lawyer/attorney” Google keyword search terms if it had no marketing value?</p>