3Ls
v.
Graduation Requirements
75 U.Va. 20 (2023)
Kulkarni, J. delivers the opinion of the court.
I.
During this past term, this Court has dealt with issues that have divided its members, the student body, and interested parties. It is high time, then, that we return to our roots as a forum for adjudicating the disputes between the students of the University of Virginia School of Law and the administration of this institution. Throughout my three years on this Court, we have gotten lost in petty disputes over the reputations of our members, suits against parties outside our jurisdiction, and other nonsensical subjects. Oftentimes, I myself would be the one falling prey to such temptation. Here, however, we return again to an issue over procedure—a field that traditional appellate courts (which we claim to be a part of) deal with most frequently. Today, we are faced with a complaint from 3Ls at the Law School who brought suit against the administration for the numerous burdens placed in their path to graduation. The burdens alleged in the complaint are three-fold: (1) having to care about classes in their final semester; (2) the existence of required coursework after 1L; and (3) the sheer amount of administrative tasks that must be completed prior to graduation.
II.
The first prong of the complaint is easy to comprehend. These 3Ls are trying to exercise their right to relax, as embodied in the vaunted legal term “3LOL.” As countless students have in the past, these students seek to enjoy their remaining six weeks of semi-childhood before being forced to face the elements of a “real job.” This claim, however, can be dismissed out of hand. There is no need to even discuss the rebuttal from the administration. There is a complete lack of standing for such a claim. Standing has three elements: (1) injury in fact; (2) causation; and (3) redressability.[1] There is no injury suffered here. No one is stopping the 3Ls from enjoying their last bit of joyful times but themselves. They need to simply have the self-awareness to admit that this is the end of law school and that no one is stopping them from taking it easy and smelling the roses. Grades don’t matter now—even SCOTUS clerkships have largely been decided. If we had the power, I would order any 3Ls not resting and relaxing to do so. Stressing out now does nothing to help anyone.
The second claim the 3Ls present is that the graduation requirements—particularly the number of skills credits required, total credits required, and the upper-level writing requirement—are especially cumbersome. Here, the students in question claim that they learned all that they needed in the first year with the standardized curriculum and should be able to graduate based on “vibes” alone. The administration responded by stating clearly that they are simply trying to comply with ABA requirements and doing their best to produce well-rounded graduates. The Court disagrees with both parties. Vibes alone are not enough. Even though law school doesn’t really teach you the content you need to work at a firm, the administration can fairly argue that 2L and 3L are intended to teach students how to deal with content they don’t care about and how to develop load-management skills—important components to success in the legal field. But the administration is also wrong that courses are the only way to develop well-rounded law students. Skills courses are great and all, but until they add a requirement to attend a certain number of social events (either school-sponsored or *wink, wink* school-sponsored) in order to graduate, this falls on deaf ears. As such, this claim is remanded to the lower courts to conduct a more detailed analysis on whether all students are truly developing the thinking and social/networking skills that are required for success in the legal field.
Finally, the most meritorious of the three claims comes at the end of the 3Ls’ complaint. They argue that with such requirements as the OPP graduation survey, random things from Dean Dugas, and who knows how many forms on SIS, there are simply too many administrative tasks for students to perform in order to graduate. Between attempts to 3LOL and half-hearted focusing on studies, such things can fall by the wayside. No student should be prevented from graduating because of a simple form. There is already so much stress, these 3Ls argue, with signing up for the Bar, the MPRE, and finding a place to live next year. More tasks create undue stress, in their words. I completely agree with these students.
III.
There is no doubt that the administration could take a cue from law firms on such subjects. In the first week, at least at my firm, summer associates are shown a number of videos, sit and fill out forms together, and participate in many activities, similar to college orientations. By the end of the first Friday on the job, these new recruits are ready for proper indoctrination I mean training. What stops the administration from taking a few days to sit the whole class down and do the same? Thus, the best solution is for the administration to reduce their own headache of tracking down delinquent students, putting all the 3Ls in Caplin Auditorium on the first day of the spring semester, and knocking this all out. For the sake of sanity, IT IS SO ORDERED.
J. Morse, writing in dissent.
There was a time in which an opinion from my esteemed colleague, J. Kulkarni, was sure to slap. But my goodness, 3LOL has hit hard. While I am fully in favor of this Court being openly biased, J. Kulkarni ought to remember that even though the First Petty Rule of Civil Procedure is “we do what we want,” we still need to do it in style. But, out of an abundance of respect and affection for my esteemed colleague, I will do my best to play along with J. Kulkarni’s “full send” of a majority opinion.
As I understand it, the harms alleged by the 3L class consist generally of the “numerous burdens placed in their path to graduation.” So, the harms are…graduation requirements? While I could just stop here and note that if there were no requirements to graduate law school, the credibility of our profession would be obliterated, and the practice of law would be exposed as an elaborate façade designed to insulate people who can’t do math, have limited social skills, and an inability to do manual labor, from having to face the broader job market…but that would be too revealing. Since the majority opinion appears to falsely conflate pettiness (the primary virtue of any successful litigant before this Court) with abject laziness, I respectfully dissent. I will address each of the claims which J. Kulkarni did not dismiss outright, in turn.
The second claim is the most laughable on its face: namely, that the Class of 2024 doesn’t think there should be any requirements for total credit-hours, upper-level writing requirements, or professional skills courses, to graduate. Look, I’m just as disillusioned as anyone about what an extractive industry law school (and higher education in general) has become. But, even for the Court of Petty Appeals, this is a stretch. Furthermore, the remedy ordered by the Court, further discovery to determine whether students are “truly developing” the skills “required for success in the legal field”, sounds like a TON of work. If the 3L class wants to avoid doing more work, and the Court of Petty Appeals DEFINITELY wants to avoid doing further work, this surely must be the worst of all possible outcomes.
The third claim attacks “such requirements as the OPP graduation survey, random things from Dean Dugas, and who knows how many forms on SIS.” I have to sigh. I mean, I’m sure you can all imagine me sighing, and heck, maybe you are sighing audibly yourself, but it is important to me that you know that my contempt has physically manifested itself. So, just so we are all absolutely clear: the 3Ls’ third claim is that they shouldn’t have to fill out forms, because…it’s kind of hard? The only profession that I can think of for which filling out boring forms is a core competency is that of tax accountants, and not by a significant margin. Accordingly, the only form of relief this Court should be willing to grant petitioners is an offer of an LL.M in Tax Law. Anything else is more than this Court should be willing to dispense.
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omk6cg@virginia.edu
cpg9jy@virginiaedu
[1] I truly have no idea what to cite here. Leg Reg? Con Law? Civ Pro? Admin? Who even knows where I picked this up. All I can say is that it is proof that I learned something in law school.