3Ls v. Administration
74 U.Va 15 (2022)
Tonseth, J. delivered the opinion of the Court.
Facts
Picture this. You’re a spring semester 3L. You didn’t learn until this past August that you’d need to take Professional Responsibility and the MPRE before graduation, let alone 6 practical skills credits. Luckily, you accidentally signed up for a course that filled the writing requirement as a 2L and the gunner you befriended out of sympathy as a 1L told you about the PR/MPRE requirement before it was too late. Coast is clear to graduate, right? In this sense, yes, without any help from the Administration. However, the claim brought today against the Administration is not for failing to properly notify students of graduation requirements. No, it is far more vile and hits too close to home.
To the simpleton, law school should teach someone how to sue someone else and how to become a lawyer. As nobody on this esteemed Court has learned the first, it is not surprising that today’s claim arises from the second factor. Namely, the plaintiffs allege that the Administration conducted and continues to conduct a grievous breach of contract for failing to properly educate 3Ls on how to become legitimate lawyers. The 3Ls allege that through detrimental reliance, many are just now learning (including by reading this opinion) that deadlines to apply to take the Bar, to submit their applications to pass Character and Fitness, and to complete the required pre-Bar courses[1] actually exist and happen before the 3Ls will graduate.
This complaint is not solely limited to Student Affairs, whose entire existence is to advance and protect the welfare of students. Nor does the buck stop at the Registrar’s office, whose failure to properly warn 3Ls of graduation requirements is only the tip of the iceberg. This complaint, and the defendants comprising the Administration, also include the Office of Private Practice (OPP) and the Public Service Center (PSC).[2] The 3Ls aim to take down the entire system, to which this Court is happy to oblige.
Analysis
The Court’s analysis of the class action complaint is rooted in the law of contracts. The analysis from the plaintiffs is as follows. For a hefty and rising annual tuition fee, the 3Ls are trusting the Administration to prepare them to become future lawyers. In this view, the 3Ls view their tuition as consideration for a contract with the Administration, which the Administration has been greedily happy to accept. In return for this consideration, the Administration generally provides the required courses in accordance with ABA standards so that 3Ls can attain a degree.
In their lengthy amicus, defendants argued strenuously against this logical sequencing. First, they claim that tuition is in no way consideration. This argument is as whimsical and flimsy as the ban on drinking and eating unless a student is in ScoCo. Even if this Court were to find that there was no consideration, the 3Ls have posited a valid alternative. Under the caretaking doctrine, the Administration is tied to the success of each 3L becoming a valid lawyer by promissory estoppel. In either case, the 3Ls have detrimentally relied on the Administration to prepare them to become lawyers. The Administration further argues that their duty to prepare the plaintiffs to become a lawyer stops at graduation. The Court is receptive to this line of reasoning, almost. If the Administration wasn’t quick to tout its clerkship numbers, frequently highlight UVA Law Grads, and solicit donations from alumni as soon as (or before) they get their first check all after these alumni become qualified lawyers, the outcome of this case would be different. The buck stops here.
As the Administration has shown a penchant for piggybacking off of the success of its students post-graduation, this Court holds that their duty to prepare 3Ls to become legitimate lawyers extends until the 3Ls are officially sworn into the bar.
Remedy
The Administration has shown a clear and continuous breach of contract with the class of 3Ls. 3Ls have for too long detrimentally relied on the Administration to prepare them to become official lawyers, to no avail. The fact that 3Ls have learned more about what they need to do to become qualified from Themis, Barbri, or Kaplan bar prep programs is a stain on the Administration that cannot be wiped away. Yet, the remedy is simple. Lawyers and law students alike love checklists. Most 3Ls will either be barred in D.C. or New York.[3] Therefore, this Court orders any of the named Administrators to create a checklist with the timelines for these two localities for the 3Ls. List what each 3L needs to accomplish to be qualified. The date and time of the bar in July (or January), the date to submit the Character and Fitness application, and how the Administration could help. With the amount of tuition the 3Ls have paid, there’s plenty of money to go around to make this someone’s full time job.
It is so ordered.
Brown J., dissenting.
The Court’s complaints about the lack of guidance from the Law School about how one actually becomes a lawyer are based on a fundamentally flawed understanding of what law school is meant to do. We are not put through the rigor of doctrinal classes, awkward section events, unclear COVID restrictions, and exhausting Zoom networking events in order to learn “how” to be a lawyer, we do so to learn how to “think like a lawyer.”
As with any worthwhile dissent, this is based on the original public meaning of “law school.” Early legal programs were not meant to instruct students on how to be lawyers, they were just meant to supplement a legal apprenticeship. When Judge Tapping Reeve established the Litchfield Law School in 1784, he did so to provide laypeople a chance to understand the law and to provide entertainment for his apprentices.[4] Law school then was understood to not be something meant to give practical skills, and that original meaning remains the case today.
Imagine what would happen if law schools actually tried to prepare all of us for a career in the law by building skills instead of telling us to go play softball. LRW would be graded, assignments would come periodically with little warning, and we might actually get told what a transactional lawyer does. This nightmarish world the majority hopes to bring in would push law school away from being an excuse to avoid getting a real job for three years into a trade school where we would learn practical skills.
The legal world has been intentionally designed to be unintuitive and difficult to navigate for lay people. Law school is not exempt from this reality, nor should it be. As we are about to enter a profession known for its complexity, we should not be coddled by the administration in any way even if it would make the lives of students measurably better with minimal cost to the institution.
For these reasons I respectfully dissent.
Birch J., dissenting.
The majority’s opinion in this case completely misses the mark and I vehemently dissent. I join in my colleague’s dissent but must write my own as well for two reasons. First, to remain relevant. Second, the duty claimed by the injured party is not a duty that exists, nor has ever existed.
The “contractual relationship” that is claimed can be boiled down to a simple exchange: a fancy piece of paper with your name on it in exchange for crippling student debt. Money for paper, that’s it. There are fringe benefits to having that particular paper, but that paper is what you are buying. To imply that the administration should be obligated to do a single thing more than this would upend the contract. Students have to put up with anything the administration does in the three-year vesting period, but softball has been provided to drown out the sorrow.
The claim of “detrimental reliance” is even less substantial than the contract claim. Simply put, if a student relies on the administration or any of its subsidiaries, then they have dug their own grave. Much like going on a diet or trusting your ex when they say, “it won’t happen again,” reliance on something famously unreliable provides no basis for a claim. The students in question have been fooled once, twice, and 3L is the charm. You’d think they would have learned by now, but learning is not what law school is for.
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pjt5hm@virginia.edu
jwb4bb@virginia.edu
sfb9yu@virginia.edu
[1] Looking at you, New York, and your required pro bono hours.
[2] Personally, I’d give the PSC a break. It’s hard enough to find PI students jobs, let alone tell them the requirements to pass the Bar in whatever state they’re lucky enough to find a job in. PSC can only do so much good for this world.
[3] While this opinion isn’t about the death spiral that is OPP and BigLaw funneling junior associates to these two tax heavy major markets, just to burn them out, this Court abhors BigLaw, save the new matching salaries.
[4] Attending a legal lecture as a form of entertainment may strike some as odd, a sign of how far our glorious profession has fallen.