Update: Law Firm Branding as a Recruiting Tool

When I last looked at the question of law firm branding as a recruiting tool – my conclusion was that our clients had a lot of work to do in making an attractive and compelling connection between their corporate branding efforts and their recruiting efforts - and it goes without saying that potential hires will look at a firms corporate brand when considering a change of employers.

Since then, our friends at Bingham McCutchen used yesterday’s Wall Street Journal to introduce us to a man-baby cuddling grizzly bear. (A scan of this ad– together with a couple of others – is found here and below.) While I am all for more candor and frankness in law firm recruiting – does Bingham really want law school graduates and laterals to associate their employment at Bingham with utter helplessness in the arms of a feral beast? Or is this precisely the kind of "new candor" - following in the footsteps of Howrey's summer "boot camp" - that hiring campaigns should be emulating?