Thanks to Abovethelaw for spotting this impressive and not so bijou Chicago residence, currently the property of one David Van Zandt, erstwhile dean of Northwestern Law (and not, as I initially presumed, the bald bandana-wearing Steve Van Zandt from The Sopranos and the E Street Band).

Dave has just picked up a new job in NYC, so is flogging his stately Chi-town pile for a whopping $4.7 million. It's a nice enough gaf, quite tasteful - minimalist, plain. The house of a deep-thinking legal scholar who has no truck with clutter and extraneous chattels. If I had $4.7 million spare - and fancied Chicago's freezing winters and the boiling summers - I might be tempted to snap it up. Although the outside does make it look like a crappy hall of residence at a mid-ranking provincial university.

So, to summarise. A university academic is selling his house for the fat end of $5 million. How is this possible? Most UK academic types can barely afford leather patches for their tweed jackets, let alone a suburban mansion. We need someone with whom to compare Dave Van Z - so how, for a start, does David compare with the wild man of UK legal education Nigel "Sauvage" Savage?

They're both - obviously - extremely well-paid men (although the exact address of Savage's carefully-benchmarked £440k p.a. lair is unknown). And Van Zandt always seems to be described as extremely well-liked, indeed loved. Savage...ummm...perhaps not so much. Truth is, both will surely be dining on swan sandwiches this Christmas, or perhaps lighting a roaring fire with a £50 note (or similar dead president). There really must be something in the water at these law schools.

Here are the bare statistics:

Students:

Northwestern Law - about 800 students (per year, I guess), so say 2,400 tops
The College of Law - About 6,000 (figures taken from the back of an envelope, several years ago)

Fees:

College of Law - top whack (London BPTC) = £14,670
Northwestern Law - $47,472 per year (that's about £30,000)

Kind of makes those UK prices seem pretty reasonable, really. Can anyone really imagine handing over $50,000 every year for the three years it takes to complete a JD? Especially when - in the light of this property revelation - you know that you're essentially paying into a real estate fund for the boss? Unbelievable. I'm guessing - given the calibre of their students and alumni - that they're not struggling to fill places, either. So you've got people queueing up to spend all that cash on a three year tedium-fest with no promise of a job at the end of it (hey, the CoL ain't exactly short of students either).

No wonder Davy was worth his wonga.