Truth

If I’m not mistaken, Mystal is a most unusual character. He’s one of the 7% or so among law school graduates who could not pass the bar exam, much less build a career in law. He’s been employed by MSDNC and Above the Law to cast aspersions on the rest of the world; I guess that’s one way of processing.

Years ago, I used to cross paths at the Hall of Justice in Rochester with a lawyer who’d been admitted to the bar a few years earlier. He was about my age, a bachelor living outside of downtown in walking distance from my place, involved in some sort of Big Brother / Big Sister voluntarism, and active in Republican politics (running for office a couple of times). In the intervening years he’s married and sired children, a couple of whom are in their young adult years. His wife’s a schoolteacher nearing retirement. He’s had a business the last 9 years run out of his home installing masonry on people’s property. Not sure what he did for the 19 years previous. Something I missed at the time is that he was suspended from the bar in 1994 for mishandling client funds and went into some other line of work; he never attempted to resurrect his law license and was struck from the roll 11 years later. No one outside his immediate circle has heard ah yes or boo from this man for nearly 30 years. That’s another way of processing.