Why would they want to hire an ambulance chaser at all? News flash: Cliff’s ad was an ambulance chaser.
Is the arrangement Kim proposes with Jimmy a common one for lawyers?
They are building a class action suit. Some advertising is required. Jimmy was shameless about it, Cliff was as conservative as possible.
I believe that it’s common for all sorts of professionals. They would rent a space together, share utilities and an assistant. It’s a way to save money. My dentist does this with another dentist. Two separate practices but they shared an X-ray machine and a receptionist and other things as well.
Jimmy’s ad had lower production values, he had some film students who didn’t even have a dolly and did the voice-over himself (Cliff specifically commented on that). Cliff’s swirly background ad gave some information in a simple, informative way, Jimmy’s ad deliberately goes for emotional manipulation. There is a huge gulf between Jimmy’s off-the-cuff, fairly sleazy ad and Cliff’s professional, dull, but not manipulative ad, and if you can’t see the difference I’m unlikely to change your mind by typing.
Further, Cliff clearly believes that the ad will damage his firm in the show, and even states some reasons why. So even if you think that a high-class firm will not be damaged if they start to run low-budget ‘Sandpiper stole my savings and now I’m going out in the cold’ ads, it’s clear that Cliff and his law firm, plus HHM and Kim, and really everyone but Jimmy, believe that the ad is wildly inappropriate.
The difference is figuratively night and day. Jacoby & Meyers puts out classier ads than Jimmy’s.
I thought I recalled Kim being impressed with Jimmy’s ad. Sure he lied and told her it had been approved when she asked, but she seemed pretty enthusiastic about it. If it was as ambulance-chasey as it’s being claimed here, I think she would have had a different opinion.
She’s made out to be pretty straight laced and conservative as far as legal practice goes so I think her reaction speaks to the ad being okay.
Cliff may never have signed off on it if it wasn’t his style, but it’s a far cry from what you actually see on television like the guy standing on top of a truck screaming “Have you been injured a truck accident! I fought for my client and put $235,000 in her pocket. Call me…”.
I believe Kim’s exact quote while watching the commercial was “I can’t believe they approved this.”
I’ll take your word on what exactly she said, but the tone of the scene to me was such that she didn’t see anything wrong with it.
Not Cliff’s style up until then - sure.
But something embarrassing or unethical? I didn’t get that feeling at all.
It seemed like a happy scene to me (other than the phone call from Cliff that she wasn’t privy to).
I take the remark you quoted as her being impressed that Jimmy was shaking things up there and getting things done so soon after being hired rather than disbelief that the firm had sunk to sleazy ambulance chasing.
I’m not the only one who is under the impression that Kim liked the commercial, even if she was surprised that Cliff “approved” it.
It was a great ad and had great production values on a meagre budget. The chair lift as camera dolly was genius! Ads use actors all the time to pull in your heart strings; nothing dishonest there. Maybe edging towards tacky, but I know we’ve all seen worse. Thing is, Jimmy knows his audience, which is why he is successful. People are enchanted by the story, not by the prospect of the hassles of legal action, and certainly not by the dry presentation methods of Davis and Main. Jimmy is tight to leave. His talents are underappreciated by the suits and the pencil pushers like Erin. He needs to blossom. And now he has a Cocobolo desk to begin his solo journey.
I hate his ties and the pastel suits, but does anybody else prefer his colorful shirts and the less-loud loud-suits to his conservative wear? It suits him better.
But that’s easily remedied… just change the narration to give the phone number to call without naming the law firm, or create a wholly owned subsidiary to front for this class action or something. But it’s hard to argue, given what we’ve seen, that Jimmy’s ad isn’t going to generate far more phone calls, and far more clients, than the “official” ad. And fundamentally Davis and Main is a corporation trying to maximize its profits, which it at least arguably failed to do by rejecting Jimmy’s approach out of hand.
That said, it’s probably an entirely realistic response for someone like Cliff to have.
As I said before and am done repeating, it’s going to generate phone calls on one short term, decent-value case. It’s not going to get far more of the clients that Davis and Main want and rely on for their long-term success. It’s easy to argue that a low-production values ambulance chaser ad is not actually helping them with their primary business, and easy to argue that damaging your primary business for a one-off case is a bad strategy.
Also, they didn’t reject Jimmy’s approach in the sense of running an ad out of hand - Cliff was completely willing to give Jimmy’s approach a fair try. What they did reject was Jimmy’s approach of making a sleazy ad on a low budget (not even using a real voice actor) and running it without letting any of the partners so much as look at the ad first.
Again, if you go out into the real world and get a company that isn’t a crazy startup, you WILL GET FIRED if you slap together an ad, put the company’s name on it, and run it with no approval from anyone higher up. This isn’t some weird Jimmy persecution thing, this is really basic working world stuff.
She was indeed impressed by the ad, but not for the reason you think. The scene made a point that she was impressed Jimmy got approval for it. As she’s saying this, the camera is on Jimmy’s face, who looks uncomfortable and guilty. This signals to us viewers that no, he didn’t have approval for it.
Her being impressed is evidence that the ad was low rent and ambulance chase-y, not that it wasn’t.
Unfortunately I can’t find the complete scene, only the commercial itself, but Kim’s reaction isn’t exactly “wow this is great” while watching it:
Here she is immediately after that being impressed by Jimmy’s lie that Cliff loved it:
Kim is impressed with Jimmy doing well, not the commercial itself.
Once again, I differ from many of you - thought the suit montage went on way too long. Really made me wonder if they hadn’t written enough script to fill out the ep.
I’ve never worked for or heard of a law firm that had a written dress code, only the understanding that, if you want to get ahead, dress like your superiors.
So was it kosher for Mike and Jimmy to simply say it wasn’t Tuco’s gun? I thought the deal was to say it was Mike’s gun. And I’m really disliking Mike’s DiL.
Yeah, that seems to be the case. Chuck doesn’t want to see his dad as a fool taken by every grifter who came by, he’d rather see Jimmy as the bad guy.
I think a big reason that Kim had been hesitant before was because of the loyalty she felt, and then would just say the law school loans as another reason. It can be hard for people to change things from their current comfortable circumstances, so sometimes they come up with reasons that don’t entirely make sense if fully thought through, that’s what I figured was going on here.
Maybe it’s like pleading the fifth? But it does make it more obvious to the prosecutors that Mike had been threatened and/or bribed compared to if he had some story about how he didn’t want to say it was his gun.
And I’m not sure what to think about his DiL. I started off wanting to give her the benefit of the doubt, and I was thinking that she legitimately thought she had heard gunshots at her old house because of stress and everything. But asking for that nice expensive house, and she has to know that Mike isn’t getting his money in legitimate ways. Maybe she knows that she’s using him and he’s getting his money in shady ways, but doesn’t know how dangerous the things he’s doing are.
Maybe she still blames Mike for the death of her husband, whether consciously or subconsciously she feels vindicated by using him to get what she wants.
I am not so sure it is kosher. That might explain why Mike was staking out the Taco place - he knows there’ll be trouble coming down for this. ISTM, the cops would suspect bribery or extortion even if he HAD said the gun was his but actively claiming the gun and simply refusing to testify that the gun was Tuco’s are not at all equivalent.