Be handsome. Be attractive. And, don't be unaTTTractive

Hartford Business Journal, which normally doesn't attract much attention outside its locale, recently got plenty with an article about lawyer debt reaching an all-time high.

From 2001 to 2010, the average amount borrowed annually by law students for their three-year degrees increased 50 percent, according to the American Bar Association. This past academic year, law students borrowed an average of $68,827 for public educations and $106,249 for private educations.

That would be on top of any undergrad debt.

Law school debt increases the cost of legal services. As lawyers repay loans, firms must compensate to meet their loan and cost-of-living demands. Law school debt essentially means a lawyer must make $200,000 or more above what the holder of a bachelor’s degree will make over a lifetime, to have the investment break even.

Other than the numbers themselves, there is little new, here. The piece shills for T2 UConn as a cost-effective public law school whose in-state tuition is half the price of the private Connecticut schools. My guess is most of its students didn't cross-shop Yale. I'm also guessing that Connecticut taxpayers don't mind subsidizing a law school in the supersaturated New England market.

The $200,000 number was pulled out of someone's ass; it omits both opportunity cost and the time value of money. It's possible to lose that much in salary alone during the three years of school. Speaking of salary,

“You end up being a little less selective,” said Jonathan Shapiro, partner at Middletown’s Shapiro Law Offices LLC and vice-chairman of the CBA Young Lawyers Section. “You end up going down a path that you might not have wanted to.”

Hellooooooooooo, shitlaw! Turns out Shapiro is a UConn grad who made biglaw and then landed on both feet at mommy and daddy's firm.

As the media is wont to do, it takes a solid story then throws a curveball by including an atypical subject who overshadows it. The NY Times did this with the groundbreaking Is Law School a Losing Game? by profiling a clueless Thomas Jefferson School of Law graduate. Here, HBJ featured a photogenic blonde UConn alumnus who got a job with Day Pitney the same way we all do, by inviting a partner to lunch. I was dumbfounded when I read this and I suspect that the article wouldn't have received much attention at all but for her.

One of Day Pitney's predecessors was Pitney Hardin, an NJ biglaw that might as well have been Cravath in being a reach for me. And, most other applicants.

Here's the takeaway. Want a soft-IP biglaw job? Just send an e-mail. Oh, and make sure you're attractive. And, very important, don't be unattractive. The clip below is tongue-in-cheek and set in a different context, but also 100% accurate.

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Blogger had a system error and deleted my original post. J-Dog had left the comment below by then. I'm wondering what the scale is, myself. Also, you younger guys should invite Ms. Cantor to lunch.

The whole "invite a partner out to lunch" and get a job offer a week later cracked me up.

Maybe there's a scale based on how attractive you are, competence factors being equal, for what you have to buy a partner to get a job offer:

Attractive ur minority: soda
Attractive female: lunch
Attractive male: dinner
Average ur minority: pro sports tickets
Average female: round of golf, elite course
Average male: furniture
Ugly ur minority: high-class electronic gadgets
Ugly female: nice car (> Honda)
Ugly male: vacation home