Debt: The Silent Killer

[sakky]

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Except that they can’t use it in precisely that way, since the only person with an HLS degree would be one associate who is not doing much work. Which, again, may run them into problems with attorney advertising laws and which will almost certainly upset clients who choose them specifically because of their Harvard credentials.

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<p>Why? The law firm is doing nothing illegal - they do indeed have a Harvard lawyer on staff. They never promised that that Harvard lawyer would be doing much work. </p>

<p>As far as having upset clients, hey, well, I’m upset when I’m roped into terrible movies that just happened to have had great trailers. I’m sure we’ve all had that happen to us. Yet at the end of the day, we, the movie-going audience, keep coming back to buy tickets for terrible movies such as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which earned hundreds of millions at the box office. </p>

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Why? You found no examples of this.

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<p>Again, because no firm is going to explicitly state that they’re doing so, similar to the fact that no firm is going to explicitly state their marketing strategy. Yet given all of the marketing schemes run by businesses every day that we all know happens behind the scenes, I’m amazed that anybody is naive enough to think that no law firm isn’t thinking of such a scheme. </p>

<p>As a simple case in point, we’re all surely highly familiar with celebrity endorsements. Peyton Manning endorses Sprint, which somehow convinces people to switch to Sprint. But, honestly, why? Is the logic that a successful quarterback like Peyton Manning makes lots of phone calls which therefore makes him an expert on telecommunications networks such that his endorsement of Sprint is a reliable mark of quality? Yet the undeniable truth is that Sprint paid Peyton Manning for his endorsement, which must mean that either people are indeed convinced to switch to Sprint because of his endorsement, or that Sprint is just stupid. Either way, Manning is millions of dollars richer. </p>

<p>Now obviously a Harvard graduate isn’t going to make millions of dollars from a brand-name endorsement. However, the logic is the same: for some reason, co-branding your company with another famous brand (such as the Peyton Manning brand) seems to work, or at least those companies think so. If Sprint, Mastercard, Sony, and Kraft all believe that associating themselves with the Peyton Manning brand will boost their profits, then it’s hard to believe that there isn’t a law firm somewhere out there that doesn’t think that associating themselves with the Harvard brand won’t boost their profits. </p>

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Again, it’s a huge leap to assume that, because some people will use a credential they already have in their advertising, others would be willing to pay thousands of dollars for it. And that leap is tougher to make when you see that many firms could advertise this way for free but choose not.

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<p>All you need is one. Like I said, maybe Visa or American Express didn’t think that associating themselves with Peyton Manning was worth anything. But Mastercard surely did. </p>

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Again, you’re betraying your ignorance of the legal market. People don’t choose these firms because they require less work. They choose them because they have no other options. Small insurance defense or personal injury firms often work their associates like dogs.

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<p>You’re now betraying your ignorance of the legal market. Some small firms may work their associates like dogs. But others don’t. Since there are many such small firms, you just have to find one that doesn’t. </p>

<p>Again, the fact that you’re a HLS graduate, rather than the average graduate from a no-name law school whom those law firms usually end up hiring works strongly in your favor, because you have superior bargaining leverage. Those law firms know (or at least think) that you have other options. They may work their regular associates like dogs because they know they can’t really leave: nobody else really wants to hire them, and they know it. But you, as the HLS grad, should be able to demand better working conditions. Or else, you can leave. </p>

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“Academic capability” is completely meaningless to some small-time ID firm. If anything, the fact that you’re likely to be extremely dissatisfied with the mindless work you have and have a lot more options when you (almost inevitably) want to leave will make them less likely to hire you. If the choice is between an HLS grad who wants to take it easy and a TTT grad who will kill himself working 80-hour weeks to stay employed, the HLS grad is unlikely to win out very often.

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<p>I think he’s likely to win out far more often than not. Again, keep in mind, you’re asking for a relatively low salary. The Southwestern University grad is asking for, on average, about $80k a year. You just want $40k. You are also (probably) more intellectually capable than the SW grad. I think it’s quite reasonable that the law firm would then not have you work long hours, even if they know that you will probably be around for only a year or two. $40k a year is not that much money. </p>

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Well, yeah, since that has been the entire subject of the debate.

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<p>Wrong. The debate has been about what other options you have as a HLS graduate if you truly can’t find a biglaw job that sufficiently pays your loans. As I’ve always said, if you can do that, you should do so. </p>

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No, but you haven’t even found a firm where this appears to be what they’re doing.

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<p>Let’s see: celebrity endorsements, guerilla marketing, astroturfing, product placement, the embedding of advertising into pop culture, and the list goes on regarding all of the various ways that companies try to cobrand themselves.</p>

<p>Again, no company is going to outright admit to doing this. Sprint is not going to tell you about all of the other celebrities who it may have tried to hire to endorse their services before it was able to land Manning. But we all know that Manning is indeed being paid a very handsome fee, although exactly how much is also undisclosed. Similarly, no fashion house is going to tell you that it actually pays (or at least gives away free items to) famous actresses to be photographed wearing their dresses and handbags at the Academy Awards, although I think we all know that that happens. </p>

<p>Frankly, I’m surprised that you would take this position, for I find it naive. The fact is, every day, companies are developing ever-more innovative ways to co-brand and co-promote themselves. None of us here were born yesterday - companies have been marketing to us since we were children, and by now, we surely know, or at least suspect, that companies will spare no expense in discovering more ways to promote their products to us . It would therefore be shocking if no law firms out there that weren’t thinking of boosting their marketing profile by associating themselves with the Harvard brand.</p>

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I’ve actually found an example of someone doing just that:</p>

<p>Debt: The Silent Killer</p>

<p>Check out the posts from “zaprowsdower”.

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<p>And I’ve found somebody who would assure that person that he should be able to leverage the marketing opportunities available to him. Check out the posts from “sakky”.</p>

<p>I would put it to zaprowsdower this way. The average college graduate from just an average school makes about $48k a year to start, working in an average job that doesn’t involve tremendously long hours. {Let’s face it, most average jobs are not particularly time-consuming}. Heck, even liberal arts graduates made an average starting salary of $35k. Yet you, as a HLS grad, can’t find a law job that pays only $40k? Really? Be honest - does that sound reasonable to anybody? </p>

<p><a href=“http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/09/pf/college/college_graduate_starting_salaries/index.htm[/url]”>http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/09/pf/college/college_graduate_starting_salaries/index.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>If you, as a HLS grad, truly are incapable of finding such a job, when even liberal arts grads are making $35k a year to start, then I truly feel sad for you.</p>