The Rooster Bar Read Online Free PDF Page A

with a big firm. Couldn’t fit there so he hung out his own shingle with a few buddies, merged here and there, and now he owns or controls four law firms. As billionaires go, he’s rather shy and loves his privacy. Operates behind the veil of a lot of different companies. I’ve only tracked down a few but I’ve found enough.”
    Gordy was talking to the wall, his back to his audience. When he lifted his cup for more tequila, the indentions between his ribs were visible. His weight loss was astonishing. He spoke calmly now, as if spouting facts he alone had uncovered.
    “His main vehicle is Shiloh Square Financial, a private investment operation that also plays with leveraged buyouts and distressed debt and all the usual Wall Street games. Shiloh owns a chunk of Varanda Capital, how much we don’t know because their filings are bare-bones, everything about this guy is deceptive, and Varanda owns a chunk of Baytrium Group. As you might know, Baytrium owns, among many other companies, our dear Foggy Bottom Law School. Us and three others. What you don’t know is that Varanda also owns an outfit called Lacker Street Trust, out of Chicago, and Lacker Street owns four other for-profit law schools. That’s a total of eight.”
    On the right side of the wall in large squares were the names of Shiloh Square Financial, Varanda Capital, and Baytrium Group. Below them in a neat row were the names of eight law schools: Foggy Bottom, Midwest, Poseidon, Gulf Coast, Galveston, Bunker Hill, Central Arizona, and Staten Island. Below each name were numbers and words in print too small to read from across the room.
    Gordy stepped to the table and poured another measured serving of tequila. He took a sip, stepped back to the wall, and faced them. “Rackley began piecing together these schools about ten years ago, always, of course, hiding behind his many fronts. It’s not illegal to own a for-profit law school or college, but he wants to keep it under cover anyway. Guess he’s afraid someone will catch on to his dirty little scheme. I’ve caught him.” He took another sip and glared at them, his eyes wide and glowing. “In 2006, the bright people in Congress decided that every Tom, Dick, and Harry should be able to vastly improve their lives by getting more education, so the bright people said, basically, that anyone, including the four of us, could borrow as much as needed to pursue professional degrees. Loans for everyone, easy money. Tuition, books, even living expenses, regardless of how much, and of course all backed by the good word of the federal government.”
    Mark said, “This is well-known, Gordy.”
    “Oh, thank you, Mark. Now, if you’ll just sit there and be quiet I’ll do the talking.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “What’s not well-known is that once Rackley owned the law schools, all eight of them, they began expanding rapidly. In 2005, Foggy Bottom had four hundred students. By the time we arrived in 2011, enrollment was at a thousand, where it remains today. Same for his other schools, all have roughly a thousand students. The schools bought buildings, hired every half-assed professor they could find, paid big bucks to administrators with passable credentials, and, of course, marketed themselves like crazy. And why? Well, what’s not well-known are the economics of for-profit law schools.”
    He took another sip and moved to the far right of the wall, to a poster board covered with numbers and calculations. He said, “A bit of law school math. Take Foggy Bottom. They clip us for forty-five thousand a year in tuition, and everybody pays. There are no scholarships or grants, nothing real schools have to offer. That’s a gross of forty-five million. They pay the professors about a hundred grand a year, a far cry from the national average of two-twenty for good schools, but still a bonanza for some of the clowns who taught us. There is an endless supply of legal academics looking for work, so they’re lined up begging