Do you demand the highest paid professionals?

I've never understood the students whose goal is to make six-figure salaries straight out of law school, and who elevate that goal above other job-related factors. Don't get me wrong, I like financial stability and being able to have things that are nice (but not too lavish). But there must be a lot of those for whom money makes all the difference, or at least the firm Buchanan Ingersoll seems to think so.

In his post "When your only tool's a $115k hammer...", Andy Havens takes umbrage at Buchanan Ingersoll's justification for increasing its starting salary for associates from $105,000 to $115,000. Andy quotes Howard Scher, the manager of that firm's Philadelphia office:

We have clients who want first-class legal representation, so we have to compete for the best people. While I don't think that $5,000 or $10,000 should be the basis for making a career decision, it is for people at that stage of their careers. So we hope this shows law students that Buchanan Ingersoll is a first-class firm.

Andy criticizes the quote for a few reasons, among them the fact that no client is thinking,

"I should check and make sure that my surgeon (dentist, mechanic, kids' teacher, banker, insurance agent) is the HIGHEST PAID PROFESSIONAL IN HIS INDUSTRY!!..."

I'll point you to his article here for the rest.