Osler's Razor

Yeah, there is a lot going on out there, huh? And I will get to that tomorrow. But for today, I am going to revert to profiling my classmates in the Yale Law Class of 1990.

David Flattum was part of a small coterie of Californians who came East to be a part of the Yale Law class of 1990. He had just graduated from USC.

After law school, he went to work for Latham and Watkins, where he made partner. In 2001, he jumped over to Allianz Asset Management, where he was a Managing Director, COO, and General Counsel (which seems like a lot of jobs to have!).  Currently, he works for PIMCO, a ginormous asset management firm, as Managing Director and Global General Counsel.  It's an impressive career.

Boy, I am not doing justice to this guy's accomplishments. So, yeah, I'm not feeling it this week. Sorry, David Flattum. It's not your fault. I'm just feeling kind of overwhelmed by the failure of our society to adequately address racism, and unless I am missing something there really is no internet-obvious nexus between that and your career. And, frankly, not enough of a nexus between solving that problem and my own career. We left law school with the potential to do so much-- and in fact, as this series has shown, we have done a lot. But much of it was directed towards our own financial security or political ambitions or personal interests, rather than the yawning abyss of need in our country. I look at us, and see a lot of people who are financially comfortable, secure, happy in most senses-- and I am one of those people. But I wish I could look at the broad scope of our work, including my own, and say that we made any kind of dent in the mountain of legal problems in our country that were made very plain to us while we were in school. A few of us, like Cornell William Brooks, fought hard and well on the national stage (and continues to do so). Others made quieter but also important efforts. But I wish we who received all these advantages, as a whole, had led the way to a place where racial prejudice didn't drive us to the precipice we have arrived at. We always had a voice, and too often did not use it for what matters most.