Law Professors, Law Schools

Your Law Professor Is Out Of Office, And This Is What His Email Message Actually Means

You've *never* received an out-of-office message quite like this from a law professor -- or maybe you have...

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Email in InboxI’ve received a ton of out-of-office messages from fellow law professors. I’ve combined them all, and translated their real meaning, for your amusement.

Thank you for your inquiry into whether or not I check my email messages and care enough to respond.

I will be out of the office from 6/6/16 until 9/1/16 and will not have access to email, unless I need to send an article out in August.  Then I will be sure to have access to it.  My point is your e-mail will not rate.  However, if you are my publisher with a royalty check, I will get back to you immediately. If you are my publisher and I owe you a deliverable, I will get back to you as soon as Mercury is back retrograde.

The reason I will not have access to email is none of your business.  I want you to think I am in some place either so remote and luxurious or so war-torn and dangerous that basic wifi infrastructure does not exist.  In truth, I’ll be writing at a local coffee shop, and I’m too embarrassed to ask the servers for the password for the wifi.

Also, be warned that I receive 10 billion email messages a day. Using my soon-to-be-patented screening algorithm, chances are your message will end up in my trash, along with the other 10 billion. If by some miracle your message manages to avoid certain doom, I will reply to it some time after 9/1/16.  Also note that “some time after 9/1/16” denotes an infinite amount of space and time, from September 2, 2016, to decades later.  If I do not respond in this lifetime, there is still the chance I will reply in the afterlife.

For immediate assistance, please contact my secretary, Ms. Smith, at 1-800-NOT-HERE.  You may also email her and hope she does not have a similar out-of-office response.

If your email concerns your grade last semester, please understand that I have issues with the past.  I will be moving forward, not looking back.  I am currently playing “Rearviewmirror” by Pearl Jam to emphasize this point.

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This email auto-reply is confidential, intended only for the named recipient(s) above. It may contain information that is privileged, attorney work product, or exempt from disclosure under applicable law.  If you have received this message in error, or are not the named recipient(s), please notify me immediately, causing you to receive this message again and enter us into a perpetual loop of hopeless despair.  Regardless, this paragraph is just here to show you that I sometimes do consulting work and therefore am very cool.  Thank you.

LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top 100 law school. You can see more of his musings here and on Twitter. Email him at lawprofblawg@gmail.com.

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