Last week, an article about alternative careers for out-of-work lawyers by a legal headhunter struck a nerve in the legal community.

Katherine Frink-Hamlett's article in the New York Law Journal wasn't revolutionary – she suggested that the jobless consider careers in procurement, compliance and law firm administration – but it was practical and sobering.

Implicit in Frink-Hamlett's piece was a message that many do not want to hear: stop dreaming about that associate or junior lawyer position and get a job – any job – where your law degree might be an asset, so that you can start paying off those law school loans. "No one wants to say that some jobs just aren't coming back," she says.

So why did she focus on those three fields for lawyers to consider? She explains that procurement (managing the way a corporation purchases service and goods) and compliance (overseeing a company's compliance with local and federal rules and regulations) keeps aspiring lawyers in the legal waters – though you don't need a legal background to do those jobs. "Procurement is essentially contract work," she says. "Compliance used to be the bottom of the legal food chain, but in recent years, it's a necessity [for advancement in a corporation]."

Of the three fields, administrative work in a law firm, such as human resources, recruiting, or marketing, might not help your legal career. "But if you have an employment law background, it will help you get a human resources job," she says.

I asked why Frink-Hamlett omitted another obvious alternative: paralegal. But she says firms have no interest in people with law degrees for those positions. "We've been told by big firms, 'No lawyers [for paralegal spots].'" The reason, she adds, is that it's awkward to have someone who just spent large amounts of money on their legal education working alongside a recent graduate.

The careers that Frink-Hamlett suggested are pretty dull. Stamping procurement contracts, sorting out tedious compliance rules, and working in human resources in a law firm all sound somewhat mind-numbing. Of course, being a junior associate at a law firm can be dreary too. The difference is that dreariness as a newly-qualified lawyer is significantly better paid dreariness.

Still, there's no question that Frink-Hamlett is onto something – that recent law graduates have to be flexible and realistic. And shouldn't law school career placement offices use more imagination in what they propose as career options?

The conflict, says Frink-Hamlett, is that law schools have a brand to protect, and the brand becomes compromised when graduates can't land legal jobs: "Law schools have to be careful not to dilute the value of their law degree."

But what's the brand worth when law students aren't getting jobs anyway?

This article first appeared on The Careerist, a blog by the American Lawyer Media Group.