The Law Weekly
v.
Professor Mitchell
75 U.Va 3 (2022)
Lake, C.J., delivers the opinion of the court.
The case before us is brought by the Virginia Law Weekly, a publication of great renown and extensive readership,[1]against University of Virginia Law School Professor Greg Mitchell. The Law Weekly has long been enjoined from using quotes arising from Professor Mitchell in the much beloved “Professor Quotes” roundup,[2] and has brought this action to demand an end to the prohibition.
The District Court of Petty Complaints dismissed this case on the grounds that it is neither impartial nor “legal” to have a decision rendered by the same body bringing the complaint. As the Editor-in-Chief of the paper bringing this case, the Chief Justice of the Court of Petty Appeals, and—most importantly—a student of Professor Mitchell, I don’t see any reason why this case should not be heard. I am capable of being fair when I feel like it, and moreover, there is nothing anyone can do to stop me.
Facts
First, Professor Mitchell is known for his enjoyable and, as Plaintiff emphasizes, quotable instructional style. As a proud Arkansan with a PhD from Berkeley, Professor Mitchell has a rich background to fuel his sometimes meandering, occasionally profane, but always entertaining stories and asides.
Second, this semester alone, Professor Mitchell is teaching courses in Civil Procedure, Law and Social Science, and Professional Responsibility. There are 143 students across these three courses who are subjected to Professor Mitchell’s unique and award winning[3] teaching style. That is thousands of students through the years that have been restricted in their right to submit his quotes for publication, robbing countless students of the satisfaction of telling their friends, “Oh, that’s a quote I sent in!”
Third, Defendant, when served with this suit, did not recall asking the Law Weekly to stop publishing his quotes.[4]Furthermore, since class recordings have been offered by the Law School, Professor Mitchell has allowed his courses to be recorded and made available to students automatically.[5] Plaintiff contends that whatever concerns Professor Mitchell may have had in being put on the record are greatly compromised by his easily accessible recorded lectures.
Analysis
First, this Court has always been concerned with the incentives our rulings create.[6] In ruling in favor of Plaintiff, we run the risk of disincentivizing professors from spicing up their lectures at the risk of being reported to the newspaper. An over-emphasis on quotability may also create a culture of forced fun, where less entertaining professors feel compelled to compete for a spot on the coveted list. Furthermore, Professor Mitchell is sort of low-hanging fruit. A good quote from a rarer professor is far more impressive. Pure entertainment value is thus not a compelling enough force to find in favor of Plaintiff.
We can discuss the second and third points in combination because it will make it easier to use the metaphor I am trying to force. I haven’t learned much in PR so far (except for when I’m allowed to sleep with my clients), but there was an assigned reading on forming the attorney-client relationship I assume 2Ls in the class did. What I’m thinking is, when a prospective client shares confidential information with an attorney, the Rules of Professional Conduct restrict how that attorney can engage with the case, even if they don’t end up getting hired. You can’t take that information and then share it with another party unless the prospective client consents. Is this doing anything? Do you see where I’m going here? By signing up for a class with Professor Mitchell this semester, those 143 students have formed a relationship built on mutual trust. Access to the recorded lectures does not lessen Professor Mitchell’s right to confidentiality any more than when a client discloses to you the massive amounts of fraud they have been committing.[7] As Defendant mumbled in a sort of embarrassed manner to the process server, “It’s a bit more special when the class is just between us. Also, I hate talking about it with Setear every week.”[8]
Conclusion
Against our best and most fervent wishes, this Court must uphold the injunction barring Professor Mitchell quotes from publication. If you want to know what you’re missing, you’ll just have to take a class with him.[9]
Walsh, J., concurring.
I agree wholeheartedly with the Court’s decision and write only to elaborate on my own personal reasons for supporting the injunction barring Mitchell quotes from being published in the “Professor Quotes” section of the Law Weekly.[10]
Ultimately, while I care about the student body and its ability to enjoy the fleeting moments of entertainment that legal education offers, I care about myself more. Like the Chief Justice, I am also a student of Professor Mitchell’s, and the bottom line is that if I’m going to be dragging myself out of bed and into the Law School by 8:30 a.m. every Thursday and Friday for an entire semester (as a 3L, no less), I’d better be getting something out of it. Because of the injunction, I do: the satisfaction of knowing that I get to hear Mitchell’s quotes and the students in Professor Sachs’ PR class don’t. Every time someone from that class gives me a pitying look and tells me how they could never take an 8:30 Friday class,[11] I just think about how much Mitchell content they’re missing, and that thought alone is enough to garner my support for today’s decision.
Peterson, J., dissenting.
Guys, this is some constitutional shit we are messing with here. I’m talking freedom of the press, First Amendment stuff: come on. The stuff that’s so basic, you don’t even learn it in Constitutional Law. Which is why I am so appalled today by the court’s ruling.
I think it goes without saying that the Law Weekly is, despite all appearances, a part of the press. And, while the defendant’s right to privacy is certainly also a constitutional right,[12] such a petty right, one which finds its locus in the penumbras of our Constitution, cannot rise to the same level of importance as the goal of maintaining a free and vigorous press.
Am I the only judge bound by the law left on this Court? Have petty appeals become so petty that we must now abandon the sacred directives passed down to us from the text itself? Can I really not publish quotes of Mitchell, even if I really, really want to?
The answer to this last question is, of course, in the negative. I may do as I please whether legal or not—it is simply that the law sanctions certain behavior while sanctioning other behavior.[13] Furthermore, as this is the Court of Petty Appeals, we judges are empowered to make the law wholecloth at will. Which is why it is so alarming that a rogue court of nine unrepresentative and unelected idiots[14] today make a new law grounded in nothing but sheer selfishness and cowardry.
Let the School revel in Mitchell’s comedy, I say. Fears of “sound[ing] like an oversexed hillbilly”[15] neither should nor do constitute a cognizable legal harm. This is not to say that fears of being poorly represented are baseless, just that fears of sounding like an oversexed hillbilly are not harmful, because the Court has binding precedent that such insults do not, as a matter of law, debase an individual, and instead operate more like a misunderstood compliment.[16]
Based on the prior reasoning, it seems preeminently clear that Mitchell’s quotes should be released to the School immediately, unless we wish to risk being overturned by a future Court of Petty Appeals with more spine, an insult that this Court has not suffered in all of my years on its staff. Accordingly, I dissent.
---
dl9uh@virginia.edu
saw8rc@virginia.edu
jtp4bw@virginia.edu
[1] We even have our own Wikipedia page.
[2] See below, bottom right of this page.
[3] Professor Mitchell received the UVA All-University Teaching Award in 2016.
[4] “You guys actually have a rule about that?” Defendant was heard to say.
[5] Something every professor is greatly encouraged to do.
[6] What kind of incentive does consistently ruling against 1Ls create? We aren’t allowed to use the word “hazing” for liability reasons…
[7] I don’t own the textbook, so I can’t fact check this claim, unfortunately.
[8] As quoted in a 2018 interview with former Chief Justice VanderMeulen ’19: “The last person I want to get grief from is Professor Setear.”
[9] He teaches Evidence in the Spring.
[10] I recognize that it is perhaps unfair for me to decide this case on the basis of my own personal feelings, but—unlike the Chief Justice—I am not fair, nor have I ever claimed to be.
[11] I GET IT; you can stop.
[12] But see Any Clarence Thomas Opinion.
[13] I’m using sanction in both senses of the word here because isn’t it just a funny little word?
[14] Myself included.
[15] Jansen VanderMeulen, Lunch with Professor Mitchell: “It All Started with a Redhead,” Va. L. Wkly., Sept. 11, 2018.
[16] See Lone Star Lawyers v. Cool Kids of UVA Law, 53 U.Va. 6 (2000).