- Daniel Muessig, 31, said he hit a 'quarter life crisis' after working as a rapper and decided to become a lawyer
- He said rapping taught him how to be proficient at 'improvisational argument' and writing
- Muessig has created a self-promoting YouTube ad so that more criminals will hire him
- The tongue-in-cheek commercial features criminal impersonators thanking him for getting them off the hook before committing other crimes
- It has angered fellow attorneys, with a local bar association saying the ad undermines both lawyers and the law
By Daily Mail Reporter
|
0
View
comments
A Pittsburgh lawyer's online ad showing smiling robbers, drug dealers and prostitutes flashing thumbs up and thanking him for getting them off the hook has garnered tens of thousands of views and drawn fire from a local bar association.
One fictional criminal pauses while climbing out a window, carrying a laptop to say 'Thanks Dan,' to the camera, while a pair of men carrying handguns offer a similar message before pulling ski masks over their faces in the three-minute, 27-second ad posted on YouTube by criminal defense attorney Daniel Muessig.
Muessig, 31, was a freestyle rapper before getting a JD at the University of Pittsburgh Law School in 2012.
Scroll down to see ad
Freestylin': Daniel Muessig said he decided to make the subversive ad to extent his criminal client base
Youtube commercial features many fake thugs saying 'thanks Dan!' to the camera either before or after committing crimes
'Thanks Dan!': One of the men impersonating a criminal burglarizing a home talks to the camera
In an interview with Slate website on Friday, Muessig said he created the cheesy commercial because criminal defense law is 'stale' in terms of how clients find their lawyers.
At one point during his ad, he turns to the camera and says: 'Trust me, I may have a law degree, but I think like a criminal.'
The spot has been viewed more than 80,000 times since Muessig posted it on Thursday, and the attorney believes the tongue-in-cheek approach will extend his client base.
'I wanted to connect with my potential clients in a way that people from my generation could understand,' Muessig told Reuters on Friday.
'I wanted to give people something that would be memorable and entertaining.'
Tom Loftus, spokesman for the Allegheny County Bar Association, said he found the ad 'insulting to Pittsburgh lawyers and lawyers across the country, who take great pride in their profession'.
Muessig, a former rapper, said in an interview Friday that it is essential for lawyers to have street knowledge and hopes that will work in his favor
He said he worried that the video could be misinterpreted.
'There could be kids watching it, or people who don't even understand what tongue-in-cheek means, and what they'll see is: if you commit a crime this attorney will get you off without any explanation,' Loftus said.
Muessig defended the spot but said he would take it down if law enforcement or a legal professional organization asked him to.
'It's a send-up of the cartoonishly amoral Jewish criminal defense attorney,' he said.
Muessig said that rapping allowed him to become good at 'improvisational argument' and said he understands that people, particularly lawyers, will be angry over his ad
'The criminal justice system is broken, it creates a system where we are basically putting people on a conveyor belt to prison.
'If you want to get your ire up, get your ire up about that.'
0 comments:
Post a Comment