Background Information on Suits: Mike, Harvey, and Other Relevant Characters

Introduction

Suits is a legal drama TV show that aired on USA Network. The Universal Cable Productions produced it. The show's creator/writer is Aaron Korsh. Suit premiered on June 23, 2011, and its finale aired on September 25, 2019. As a result, it became the longest-running show, in terms of the number of episodes and seasons, to ever air on USA Network. The series revolves around a fictitious New York City law firm, Pearson Hardman, which changes its name throughout the show due to numerous resignations, promotions, dissolutions, restructuring, and hostile takeovers that arise from the never-ending power plays and partisan intrigues among the senior partners. However, throughout the show, both the protagonists and antagonists in the series keep referring to the firm as Pearson Specter. As a result, this paper will use Pearson Specter as the name of the firm to avoid confusion, for consistency, and the reason that Jessica Pearson and Harvey Specter are among the long-serving individuals whom the audience interacts with for the majority of the series running time.

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The show focus on one of the best Pearson Specter's lawyers, Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht), and his unconventional associate, Mike Ross, in their daily triumphs and struggles as they navigate through the highly-competitive NYC legal practice profession. Harvey, a newly-appointed senior partner, requires assistance with his growing workload. Though the firm directs that its senior partners must have an associate attorney to assist them, the firm has a policy that restricts the choice to an exclusive group of Harvard graduates in the firm. However, Harvey finds the available associates gullible, hence unsuitable for him. As a result, he convinces Jessica, the managing partner, and his boss, that the Harvard alumni in the firm "lack the spontaneous, creative aggression as he possesses" (Bathurst). In turn, Jessica directs him to hire someone like himself. Harvey promptly commences a recruitment exercise with the help of his instinctive secretary Donna, involving interviewing external candidates, but, still, ones from Harvard Law School.

During the interviewing process, Harvey fails to identify a suitable candidate. He concludes that "each [one of the Harvard-trained interviewees is] boring and conventional," lacking "some vital elements" that even the ivy-league education Harvard bestowed to them could not have been able to impart to them. Harvey finds that none of the Harvard graduates attempts to "go beyond their narrow education," meaning they lack flair. Thus, he keeps rejecting each of the candidates that he sees.

As the interview goes on, an unlikely contender, Mike Ross, accidentally walks into the interview room. Remarkably, Mike has never attended law school, leave alone attempt an application to the Harvard Law School. His appearance before Harvey is not even connected remotely to the ongoing interview. Suffice to say that the encounter occurred because Mike intuitively decided to enter the interview room as he saw it as the best route to escape from the undercover police officers pursuing him through the same hotel that Harvey's exercise was taking place.

However, Mike is not a typical young man. He is intelligent, both in terms of book and street smarts, so much so that he regularly smokes marijuana to dim his brilliance. Mike's unrivaled intellect descends from his eidetic (also photographic) memory, which gives him a phenomenon ability to retain and recall information he has ever read. Interestingly, Mike is a college dropout. As a result, he earns a living by illegally taking the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) for other people, as well as by delivering parcels to corporate offices using a bicycle. However, by the end of the series Pilot, Mike has gone from being a fraudster to one of the associate attorneys at one of the most prestigious law firms in New York City, Pearson Specter.

Background Information: Events that Leads Mike to Harvey and the Dynamics that Make the Duo to Tick

The events that lead to the chance meeting between Mike and Harvey begin when Mike, who is desperate for money to pay for his grandmother's private nursing facility bill, agrees to deliver a briefcase full of marijuana for Trevor (his childhood friend) for $25,000. As he is taking the drugs to the dropping point, he spots undercover police officers waiting to accost him.

Immediately, Mike senses that the delivery was a set-up and, in the attempt to get away from those officers, finds himself entering a boardroom where one of New York City's best lawyers, Harvey, is interviewing a group of Harvard graduates in search of an associate attorney. Harvey is so good an attorney that he has earned the moniker "best-closer" among his New York City's peers. Mike instantly makes the astute decision to enter the interview and quickly impersonate the interviewee who is supposed to enter next, who did not show up. Mike seizes the chance and stumbles into the inner room, coming face to face with Harvey for the first time in his life.

After they exchange greetings, the case Mike is carrying opens and spill the caches of marijuana on the floor. The next scene with the two starts a fascinated Harvey. Mike must have told Harvey about his encounter with the undercover officers who were disguised as bellhop and patron in suit. Perplexed, he asks Mike how he knew that the two were officers. Mike replies that he read a novel in elementary school, which had the same setting "bellhop and a man in a suit." This answer further surprises who wonders how he could remember things read at elementary school in such details. Mike replies that he likes to read. Harvey proceeds to ask Mike had asked the officers the time, and Mike responds "To throw them off. What drug dealer asks a cop what time it is while he's carrying a briefcase full of pot?"

Mike's, rather subtle, ruse to evade the cops, stuns Harvey. He comments that the plot was both brave and clever, and that the firm should hire Mike and pay him the 25 grands he needed to pay for her grandmother to remain in the private nursing facility as a signing payout. But at this point, Harvey regrettably state that the firm only hire Harvard law graduates, adding Mike has not attended Harvard or any other law school for that matter.

Sensing an opportunity, Mike reveals to Harvey that he has a photographic memory that allows him to consume spectacular amount of knowledge and that he has passed the bar examination, which he took after someone bet that he could not pass it without going to law school. The two proceeds to test each other on legal principles. After a few questions, Harvey is left confounded by Mike's quick mind and knowledge of the law.

Mike further discloses that while he was in college, he dreamt of becoming a lawyer. Unfortunately, Mike lost his scholar when his grandmother required some money and Trevor convinced Mike to memorize a math test and sell it to raise the cash. The buyer turned out to be the dean's daughter. As a result, the school cancelled his scholarship and expelled him. Reflectively, Mike confess the event led to his tribulations and he has been looking for a way back with no avail.

Spellbound by the potential that Mike possesses, Harvey disclose he had someone take a gamble on himself too. This revelation indicates Mike has impressed Harvey. However, before Harvey could confirm whether he will hire him, he warns him that the job called for commitment, implying one needs to put in long hours, involved intense pressure, and did not have room for slacking. He hints that Mike should know taking the job means he will have to transform into an adult. Mike assures Harvey that if he got the job, he will work hard to be the best attorney Harvey has ever known and show the Harvard graduates were not as good as himself. Harvey sends an email to the firm indicating he has found the next associate.

Hypothesis

Although Mike starts practicing law illegally, due to the lack of requisite credentials that include holding a college and law degree, he always has had a good heart. Also, he has a brilliant mind that could have made his progression through law school a straightforward exercise. However, some misfortunes and poor choices disrupted his dream to go into law and become the best lawyer ever to practice law.

Despite the bad luck, Mike eventually gets the opportunity to fulfill his dream to become a lawyer when an accidental meeting with Harvey Specter lands Mike's considerable gifts at Pearson Specter, which is one of the top law firms in New York, as Harvey's associate. As a result, Mike manages to put his life back on tract under the guidance of the best-closer in New York, Harvey. Harvey decides to hire Mike because of his unrivaled intelligence, perceptiveness, and courage, which instantaneously persuades him as to Mike's untapped potential. Once Mike gets into the firm and manages to weather the any beginner's reservations he might have had, he quickly gain traction as a respected legal practitioner, whose absolute devotion and commitment to law and the legal system and the willingness to make personal sacrifices by putting in extra hours (sometimes overnight looking for clues in a case) as well as abandoning his previous life and friends (Trevor and) endear him more to Harvey and garner him support of the likes of Jessica.

Additionally, Mike Ross is not the typical "new guy at work." As a result, he does shy away from walking up to Harvey, whom the rest of the Pearson Specter's personnel (including Jessica, the managing partner) tends to overindulge, rebuking him regarding a client or case and correcting Harvey when he sees fit. Harvey, who has a considerable ego, surprisingly enjoys and appreciates Mike's courage to speak out, a trait he highly values, as opposed to clumsily following orders. In Mike, Harvey sees himself - a leader, not a follower. This mutual characteristic and repeated cooperative, but adversarial whenever circumstances calls for it, behavior between Mike and Harvey create a dynamic system of co-leadership, which acts as the building blocks for Mike's success and transformation into a leader, giving him the flair he needs to succeed as an attorney wherever his career takes him. More importantly, Mike's ethical conviction, self-confidence, perceptiveness, and shrewdness allows him to chart his leadership pathway away from that of Harvey whenever he deems suitable, making him the most comprehensive leader at Pearson Specter.

The inspiration and reason Mike had in turning into a legal counselor, was for the sole reason to help the oppressed. At the point when Mike was a kid, both of his folks were lamentably executed in a fender bender by an alcoholic driver. Mike recollects this time clearly and explicitly recollects the greatest inspiration, all things considered, which drove him to seek after law. This inspiration was the point at which a legal counselor shielding the alcoholic driver visited Mike's grandma, his lawful watchman. The legal advisor sat them both down in the lounge room, clarified the lawful issues, and with no feeling or compassion, offered a measly numerical figure to settle the case. Mike's grandma, totally lost and broken at the time, with no activity because of her age nor financial worth - acknowledged the installment for Mike's future. This scene in Mike's life is the thing that persuaded him to seek after law and even all the more in this way, work under Harvey Specter to help individuals encountering a comparative circumstance to his.

The first and likely most significant factor about Mike that drove him to his prosperity is his photographic memory. As far as he can recall, when Mike comprehended...