The shady economics of law school

Back at George Washington I had a law professor named Lawrence E. Mitchell. He was my corporate finance professor. And we learned an awful lot about corporate finance.  The real takeaway from the class, however, was Professor Mitchell's teachings about dicey corporate accounting practices.

This was in the mid-90s, years before Enron and all of those other book-cooking corporations crumbled under the weight of their Alice in Wonderland balance sheets.  Professor Mitchell was WAY ahead of the game on this stuff, though, noting how rampant and wrong it was that corporations were valuing things as assets when they really were costs, setting themselves as virtual ponzi schemes designed to pay executives now and screw investors later and the like.

I found all of that incredibly useful as a lawyer. Indeed, I remember and use the concepts from that class more than any other class I took at GW. And not just in legal practice -- when all of the corporate scandals began in the early 2000s, I knew exactly what was going on thanks to Professor Mitchell. The man, quite literally, wrote the book on corporate irresponsibility and I am a much smarter and well-informed person because of him.

Flash forward to today and I read an editorial in the New York Times from one Lawrence E. Mitchell.  I had lost track of him over the years, but he is now the dean of Case Western Reserve Law school in Cleveland.  His editorial is about how, contrary to the growing sentiment over the past few years, law school is a good investment:

For at least two years, the popular press, bloggers and a few sensationalist law professors have turned American law schools into the new investment banks. We entice bright young students into our academic clutches. Succubus-like, when we’ve taken what we want from them, we return them to the mean and barren streets to fend for themselves.

The hysteria has masked some important realities and created an environment in which some of the brightest potential lawyers are, largely irrationally, forgoing the possibility of a rich, rewarding and, yes, profitable, career.

I realize a dean of a law school has to say such things, but the cold hard reality is that, unlike it was for me and my friends back in the 1990s, law school is no longer a good investment for most people. It's a piss-poor one, actually, and unless you (a) have rich parents or already have the money saved to pay the exorbitant tuition; or (b) have a great chance of getting a well-paying job due to family or personal connections in private practice, law school is a sucker's bet.

If you choose to go to law school, you will go into outrageous amounts of debt and you will come out facing a job market that no longer hands out jobs with six-figure salaries as if they were samples of Genral Tso's chicken at the food court.  It's brutal out there, and new graduates are killing each other for increasingly scarce and increasingly lower-paying jobs, all the while law schools -- which are used by universities as profit centers -- belch thousands of new graduates into the job market each May.

To be fair, later in the editorial, Dean Mitchell notes that the market is rough and that it may be wrong to focus on that first job out of law school. Look beyond that first job out of law school, he says, to the rewards that will come later.

There is some truth to that part. Indeed, I'm the living embodiment of a law school education helping one do things other than practice law. But as I have noted quite often, the road I traveled is not an easily replicable one. Indeed, if it wasn't for sheer dumb luck and the unexpected and possibly undeserved generosity of other people at a couple of key times in my journey, I never would have made it. Oh, and I also had the benefit of 11 well-paid years in private practice before that -- with jobs obtained in a radically different legal job market than the one exists today -- to help me along the way and to give me the comfort to take the sorts of risks I took to get to where I am.

So as I sit here this afternoon, I am more than a little dumbfounded. Dumbfounded that the man who taught me everything I know about financial mismanagement, shady accounting and corporate ponzi schemes -- the man who, more than anything else, warned me against anyone who would classify something as an asset when it truly represents a cost -- is in the New York Times advocating that students continue to go into crazy law school debt and defending what has become, in essence, an educational ponzi scheme, all because he believes this thing that is literally bankrupting students is truly an asset.

But hey, I bet there will be more applications for Case Western as a result.

Talking Head

When I was a teenager and people asked me what I wanted to be someday, I'd jokingly say "An expert."

When they asked me what I meant, I'd say "You know, those guys on CNN who they beam in via satellite. The ones you only see from the waist up, in front of some fake backdrop of a city?  Those guys who, somehow, just happen to know everything there is to know about whatever random topic just happens to hit the news that day?

"Man, where do they find these people? Do they just sit around, knowing their one little subject and nothing else, hoping that someone would call and ask their opinion?"

Oh ... wait:

On the road again

Just over a year ago the wheels came off. In order to avert a head-on collision I steered into a ditch. As soon as I stopped skidding the engine blew up. No matter how good it looks in the garage, and no matter how hard you try to fight the rust, old wheels always stand a good chance of betraying you.

I started talking to Allison right after I crashed and burned. Talk turned to friendship, friendship turned to affection and affection turned to love. It's been close to a year now, and it's still wonderful. We just get each other and give other what we need without even thinking about it. Who knew things could be so easy?

It has not been totally easy, of course. We've had to work through some of my stuff, some of her stuff and a bunch of other stuff. But most of all distance. Distance is a bitch. We talk and, thanks to the Internet, see each other every day, but that's a pale substitute. We've visited each other often, but because of their rarity, our visits are imbued with a certain weight, as though we have to pack three or four weeks of a relationship into a long weekend. We've managed as best as we can to keep having fun and to keep living in the moments we have. We've managed to not get bogged down too much by stormy pasts, uncertain futures and those damnable, damnable trips to the airport which send us off on our separate ways. But it's hard. About as hard as something that you can still call happy gets. No one is meant to fly so much. It's such an uncivilized way to travel.

The future always remains at least a little bit uncertain and there is still stuff to be worked through, but we're about to eliminate a good bit of that uncertainty and all of those damnable drives to the airport.  In late December I'm flying to San Antonio on a one-way ticket. The next day Allison and I are taking off in her car and we're driving back to Ohio. She's moving up here for good.

Because of the kids and all of the changes and adjustments in the offing we're not setting up housekeeping just yet. But it is an important step. And an exciting one. For the first time we'll be able to get on like most folks get on. To hang out, go out and be together without all of that weight and distance getting in the way. Without having to worry that, if we pick the wrong restaurant, we won't be able to make up for it for another month. Most of all we're both creatures of habit and routine and it will be awful nice to fall into some comfortable ones with each other at long last.

I'm really looking forward to that. I'm especially looking forward to the drive back from San Antonio. It's been a while since I've been on the road. It will be nice to cruise down the highway again, confident that the ride will be smooth and steady.

Drugs, illness, the pro-PED doctor and other fun things in San Francisco

I posted this at HardballTalk, but it's mostly personal rambling anyway, so why not here too?

I had some aches, a mild fever and a cough over the weekend. It felt better by Monday night and I felt as right as rain on Tuesday, so I figured I had shaken whatever crud I was harboring. It came roaring back at me during the game last night, however, and as I stumbled back to my hotel room, I nearly dropped, my body wracked with violent coughing and awfulness.  I took a shot from my Batman flask — yes, that’s it in the picture — and hoped that frontier medicine and a night’s sleep would do the trick. Alas, it did not, so at midnight I called the front desk to see if there was an urgent care in the area. Instead, they hooked me up with a doctor they keep on call and we talked.

Doc: What are you in town for?

Me: Covering the World Series.

Doc: Hey, I was at the game tonight! Great stuff, wasn’t it?

Me: I suppose so. So, here’s what’s –

Doc: Three home runs! How about that Panda! [and many more minutes of baseball talk as I neared death]

We talked about my symptoms, he gave me a couple of things I could do in the meantime, and then said the best bet would be for me to come by his office in the morning.

“Is it walking distance from the hotel?” I asked

“Depends how sick you are,” he said.

I tried to sleep but did a poor job of it. When I finally woke up my fever seemed to have spiked and my cough had gotten so bad that I was tasting blood. If this were a 19th century novel there would be “telltale flecks of crimson on his handkerchief, his consumptive doom foretold!”  As it was, I sent emails to all of the NBC people I could find to tell them how useless I’d be today and/or what my last wishes were if I died before I was able to talk to them again.

The only thing that had made me feel moderately better the night before was a little warm food, so I sought out breakfast. I walked towards Dottie’s True Blue Cafe, which is a couple blocks south of where I’m staying and which many have recommended. There was a line of people out the door so I moved on — I’ll get it next time – turning the wrong way down Market Street where things start to get a bit sketchy. There I witnessed a deranged woman in her late 40s wildly swinging two garbage bags full of what looked to be pillows at another women while yelling at her to commit anatomical impossibilities. The other woman, who looked a bit less troubled, was dodging the blows but wouldn’t retreat. Instead, she kept trying to take pictures of her attacker with her cell phone. Not sure who was crazier.

Realizing I was heading the wrong way, I turned around and walked back north on Market. I walked by a group of three guys, one of which asked me if I wanted to buy some pot.  I have been on this Earth for over 39 years and, at one time, knew a lot of people who partook in such things. But never have I literally had a stranger bark out a sales pitch like that. I wanted to look around for cameras to see if it was some kind of joke, but I kept walking.

I found a little cafe where I ordered some coffee and some eggs. An older couple sat down at the table near me and I heard the husband ask the wife if she happened to see the score of the game last night. When she said she didn’t know I said “8-3.” They thanked me and asked me if I went to the game. I said yep. They asked me if I’m going again tonight. I said yep. Then they asked me if I’d be willing to sell my tickets. I explained my situation and the man said “Oh well. I can’t find a pair for under $500 so I’m asking anyone I can.”

After I ate I made it up to the doctor’s office. It’s just off Union Square.  I had a minute so I walked around the Square a bit because “The Conversation” may be my favorite movie of all time. I pretended that Cindy Williams and I were planning Robert Duvall’s murder, that Gene Hackman was listening to us and then I hummed a few bars of “When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob Bobbing Along.” There were no mimes to be seen.

It turns out that the whole practice is devoted to hotel guests and tourists and stuff, which is something that makes sense in such a hotel-and-tourist-heavy area, but is the sort of thing I never considered. Seems like something they’d invent in a Charlie Kaufman film. The doctor saw me right away. He’s a short Chinese-American guy, probably in his late 40s or early 50s, but dressed like he’s 25. A smile on his face at all times. I instantly liked him. Even when he creeped me out a bit by saying that he Googled me before I came in and was happy to see that I had lost some weight in the past few years based on older pictures. That’s … not weird.

Most of the visit was spent with him asking me baseball questions — he was really concerned about Bruce Bochy’s bullpen choices last night despite the victory because he thinks that an 8-0 Giants win would have “sent a stronger message.” Then we talked about PEDs at his prompting. Let the record reflect that if this guy had his way everything would be legal, blood spinning with added HGH would be mandatory and Barry Bonds would be canonized. “Just wait ten years and see what they have available,” he said. “The stuff everyone frets about now will seem like throat lozenges.”  Did I mention I really like this guy?

But it wasn’t all juice-talk. Another huge chunk of the visit was him giving me a vaguely new-agey lecture about balance — this included him taking pictures of my face with his iPhone to show me how I was “unbalanced on [my] right side” — and him explaining the need to excrete all of the bad things from our bodies lest we have no room for the good.  He then demonstrated the proper way to clear one’s sinuses and to inhale hot steam in the shower — it’s all about being upside down — and it all sounded rather like Annie telling Nuke how to breathe through his eyelids.

That was all nice, but what I was really there for was some weapons-grade pharmaceuticals. Thankfully the Good Doctor had the hookup. After the new age talk ended, he told me I either had a severe sinus infection or strep and that there was no use doing the strep test because either way he’s giving me the same treatment.  He had his nurse inject me with an antibiotic/anti-inflammatory cocktail (although based on the earlier conversation it may have also had some HGH and metabolites of Stanozolol), and then he loaded up a bag full of all manner of drugs for me to take with me.  Come to San Francisco: EVERYONE will give you drugs if you want them.

I took a big swig of the codeine cough syrup and walked down the street past Union Square. As I passed the Westin Hotel I saw a crowd of people with cameras and baseballs surrounding the entrance. Tigers outfielder Quintin Berry was standing there with an attractive young woman. He stopped to sign autographs.  The only question for him that came to mind was “why on Earth are they starting Delmon Young in left when your legs aren’t broken?” but I didn’t think I could ask it with the nuance it required what with the cough syrup and all, so I moved along and eventually back to my hotel room.

Here I sit. The game starts in about three and a half hours, but (a) I still feel like utter garbage; and (b) I have this feeling that my Baseball Writers Association of America application will meet with strong resistance this winter if I cough up blood and mucus all over the membership in the cramped confines of the press facilities at AT&T Park tonight.  Doctor Feelgood told that it would be about 24 hours of taking the antibiotics and stuff before I’d really be OK be active and not, you know, be Typhoid Mary. As such, I’m leaning strongly toward bagging tonight and coming back strong for Game 3 in Detroit on Saturday.

If that is what I ultimately decide to do, I will still be posting and tweeting and generally covering World Series business this evening from the comfort of my sick/deathbed, and of course Matthew and D.J. will have all kinds of coverage tonight as well.

See what happens when you leave your mother’s basement? Bad things.

Welcome to Texas

My many trips to Texas this year have given me a new appreciation for Texas.

Most of the stereotypes can be found if you look hard enough, of course, for all stereotypes have at least some basis in truth. But my overarching takeaway is that (a) Texans really love Texas; and (b) Texans simply don't give a fuck what you think about Texas. They're too busy really loving Texas, you see, to worry about why you don't.

This is a good thing.  Because while I don't ever see myself living in Texas, I would love to one day live someplace people really love to be and in which folks really take pride.  Ohio has its particular charms, but pride of place is not one of them. We'll tell you why Ohio isn't as bad as you think it might be, but at the end of the day the biggest thing it has going for it is its basic convenience and efficiency. People don't tend to put that kind of thing on coffee mugs and beer koozies.

And the Ohio hotel continental breakfast bars certainly don't have waffle irons like the one I encountered here in Dallas this morning:

Yee ha.

Doowutchyalike

Kinda simple, but undeniably true.

Beef Tenderloin, Bitches

I'm continuing to cook things. The other day Allison sent me a recipe for beef tenderloin so I figured why the hell not?

Step 1: Spend way too damn much money for a 2.3 pound beef tenderloin at Weiland's. Don't care, because Weiland's is the best.

Step 2:  Look at raw beef on counter with daughter. Have daughter ask if the red stuff is blood. When you reply "yes, that's blood," have daughter say "ew, gross," and leave you on your own. Thanks for the help, Anna:

Step 3: Tie the sucker up:

Step 4: Get your garlic and rosemary on:

Step 5: Let the beef, garlic, rosemary and some oil hang out for a while:

Step 6: Brown the sucker in the cast iron skillet you stole from your dad. Realize that you never really lived life until you had a nicely seasoned cast iron skillet.  Let the house turn into a wondrous land of good smelling searing meat:

Step 7: Throw that stuff in the oven, in the skillet for about a half hour. Surprise the hell out of yourself that, at a half hour, it was at the exact temperature you wanted. Because, really, you were obsessing and were convinced that it was gonna take longer than that and you were just checking it early because of said obsessing.  Consider buying lottery ticket:

Step 8:  Eat with the potatoes and asparagus you somehow managed not to screw up while your were obsessing on the meat:

Sit back awfully damn proud of yourself for acing beef tenderloin the first time you ever tried it. Realize there's pretty much nothing you can't do because you're awesome.

Stanford or Berkeley, a play in one act, with a surprise ending

Bath time, about 25 minutes ago. Anna is soaking in bubbles, almost up to her nose. I am cleaning the bathroom counter.

Anna: Where did you go to college?

Me: You know where I went to college.

Anna: Ohio State?

Me: Yes.

Anna: Are there colleges in San Diego?

Me: A couple, sure.

Anna: Are they good colleges to go to?

Me: [trying not to be that guy, but failing]: There are some better ones up near San Francisco.

Anna: Which ones?

Me: U.C. Berkeley. It's part of the University of California. Most people call it "Berkeley."  And Stanford.

Anna: Which one is better?

Me: It depends, I guess. One is probably better for some things, one is probably better for others. A lot of people who went to one say that it was better than the other one and vice-versa.

Anna: Do you know people who went to those colleges?

Me: I have a few friends who went to Berkeley.

Anna: Which of those colleges is better for being a rock star?

Me [a beat]: Probably neither. If you want to be a rock star, you probably don't need to go to Stanford or Berkeley. Probably shouldn't, actually.

Anna: Which one is better if you want to be a teacher?

Me: Um, I don't know. I suppose I could look it up. There are a lot of colleges you can go to if you want to be a teacher.

Anna: But I want to go to college in California.

Me: OK, we'll figure it out by then. We have nearly ten years.

Anna: I want to teach elementary school.

Me: OK.

Anna: Aren't you going to ask me why I want to teach elementary school?

Me: Why do you want to teach elementary school.

Anna: Because middle school kids STINK.

Me:  Yes, I suppose they do.

Anna: [farts in tub, bubbles come up, Anna dies laughing]

Fin

"The things that are the worst to undergo are the best to remember"

I just read some pretty damn good insight from Ted Hughes, writing to his son Nicholas back in the 1980s.

The central idea: our only real selves are the people we were as children, when we felt and processed everything without regard to how we presented ourselves to the outside world. And that since childhood, our lives are mostly a function of us creating and strengthening that outer shell -- armor, he calls it -- that is adulthood.  Our public, professional and social personalities. The stuff that makes us grownups.

However, we still only truly feel things with our childish selves, and that's where life happens:

That’s the paradox: the only time most people feel alive is when they’re suffering, when something overwhelms their ordinary, careful armour, and the naked child is flung out onto the world. That’s why the things that are worst to undergo are best to remember. But when that child gets buried away under their adaptive and protective shells—he becomes one of the walking dead, a monster. So when you realise you’ve gone a few weeks and haven’t felt that awful struggle of your childish self — struggling to lift itself out of its inadequacy and incompetence — you’ll know you’ve gone some weeks without meeting new challenge, and without growing, and that you’ve gone some weeks towards losing touch with yourself.

This resonates pretty strongly with me these days.  It's nothing I had considered consciously before reading that this morning, but it definitely explains my past year an awful lot.  In some ways it was the worst year of my life. In other ways, however, it has been the best.  Because whatever else has been happening, I've definitely been feeling and experiencing things this past year, after so many years in a superficially happy but ultimately numbing protective shell in which my job, my marriage and all of that armor defined me.

Now, obviously, one cannot only court suffering as a means of accessing and stimulating that true inner self.  if you did, you'd probably end up like poor Nick Hughes and his mother. But there are other ways to do it.

Like letting yourself actually experience things -- even the goofiest things imaginable -- without forced ironic distance and too-cool-for-school posturing that is so common among people my age.  Not assuming that your life has to go in the direction inertia sends it is another. Finding love and actually appreciating it as something new and something special is probably the most rewarding way.

Ultimately we need that armor to function in a world full of people who, understandably, prefer to deal with armor-clad adults and not emotional children. I mean, work has to get done and anyone who has kids knows that children are the greatest impediment to efficiency in the known universe.

But when you're home? When you're thinking about your life and processing all of the things going on around you?  Do it naked. It's the only way to truly live.

Dear Fartyfart

I am in Connecticut doing NBC SportsTalk this week.  Today, twenty minutes before I went on the air on live television, I received an email from Anna, which I present to you now. For the record, I do not have heart tighty whiteys, nor do I drink cappuccino.  But I'm glad Anna has a vivid fantasy life and wants me to be my best on television.

From: Anna Calcaterra 
Date: Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 5:41 PM
Subject: meep
To: Craig Calcaterra

DEAR FARTYFART, ARE YOU READING THIS, CAUSE IF YOU ARE WE WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT WE HOPE WITH ALL OUR HEARTS THAT YOU DO NOT FART OR BURP WHEN YOU ARE  DOING LIVE TV.

WE ARE ALSO SENDING YOUR PRIZED HEART TIGHTY WHITEYS.  BY THE WAY WE ARE ALSO SENDING YOUR CAPPUCCINO THAT YOU LEFT AT HOME.


BYEBYE TATA SO LONG