Albany Law School Finally Catches Financial Break

As we all know, a life is judged on the size of an estate.  Morally, anyway, it's a fair approximation.  Economically, you'd have to consider the assets of the state, liquidity, expected rates of return, etc.  But the rule stands that a man with millions to flush down the toilet can be assumed to have done good, smart, upright things in life.

We know that most critics of the legal education system, by contrast, are morally bankrupt, and, I suspect, their finances fare little better.  They may live well, upper middle class perhaps given the lofty salaries of even government lawyers and contract compliance officers, but true elitist wealth surely remains elusive, the intangibles forces of such accretions sensing their cold, slime-coated hearts.

Albany Law receives some spittle from the latter, but this donation from one of the better class's members no doubt makes all that abacus booger flicking worthwhile:

Albany Law School has received $15 million, the largest gift in school history from an anonymous donor whose support will help the school continue providing free legal services.
...
Ouellette said the donation would be noticed around the world, though she conceded some people might wonder why a donor gave $15 million to a smaller upstate law school.

The well-read reader may recognize the circumstance - a mysterious benefactor issuing a head-scratching donation - as downright Dickensian in a way, and indeed Albany Law School is as good of a recipient for sudden pseudo-humanist largesse from an old coot as Bob Motherfuckin' Crachit.

Don't believe me?  Let's ask Dean Ouellette if her institution is worthy:

"We realized as we talked among ourselves that we are really one of the best-kept secrets in the Capital Region," Ouellette said, "and it makes perfect sense that someone would look at us as a place to leave a legacy gift like this."

She said the school was "reinventing legal education in order to meet societal need," and a "little bit of a unicorn" — an independent law school thriving at a time when similar institutions are failing.

Indeed!  Given the typical humility of law school programs - I recall the brochures being quite modest about opportunities when I applied, drastically undercutting the orgasmic pleasure and financial opportunities afforded by a legal education - it comes as no surprise that it would take a $15 million donation for administrators to sit around and talk amongst themselves about how amazing they are.

I'm reminded of my favorite passage in Great Expectations when Pip learns from the esteemed lawyer (!) Mr. Jaggers that he has just been dealt the rare and inexplicable (well, without a law degree!) "Social Class Upgrade" card:

“I am instructed to communicate to him,” said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his finger at me sideways, “that he will come into a handsome property. Further, that it is the desire of the present possessor of that property, that he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life and from this place, and be brought up as a gentleman,—in a word, as a young fellow of great expectations.”
My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality; Miss Havisham was going to make my fortune on a grand scale.  When I contemplated it, it made for perfect sense.  I was one of the best-kept secrets within a gentle carriage ride of London's orbit, a 'little bit of a unicorn'  myself, combining the greater virtues of the lesser and superior classes with the prodigious butter-churn of a Vulcanized Adonis; by God, were I to come into sufficient bank notes and credit, I could effortlessly mold Victorian England towards the justice of the purest-hearted monarchs, a hundred pupils at a thousand quid a head, no matter how dim their candles flicker!  Hie, great legal stallions!  Fear not the debtor's prison, for you can discharge your indentures with liberty and service to the crown!  Oh, my apologies...

As much as Dickens gets flack for being stodgy and prone to antiquated, reductionist moral lessons dressed in purplish prose, he was damned prescient.

What the fuck is a little bit of a unicorn?  Isn't that a pony?  Congratulations, Albany.  You've earned it.