Texas Law Dean Resigns to Raise Emus ... Not Really
It’s an April Fool’s Day joke, of course. But in an e-mail sent to students at the University of Texas School of Law today, Dean Lawrence Sager announces that he plans to resign in order to raise emus.
And that’s just part of the joke: Although the e-mail sent to students and reprinted by Above the Law was highly humorous, “I can’t claim authorship,” says the dean, in an e-mail routed through an assistant in response to an ABA Journal request for comment. “I believe a talented student wrote it. I think it’s very funny.”
It was far from the only joke perpetrated by the legal community on the April 1 blogosphere, inspired by the traditional day of foolery.
Wired GC reports that Congress is considering a bailout plan for law firms struggling to stay afloat in the dismal economy. (Hat tip: Legal Blog Watch.)
Meanwhile, Legal BisNow “reports,” citing two unnamed U.S. Supreme Court sources, that one of the nine justices is negotiating to host a reality television show. Its focus will be a competition between 15 contestants to win one of the justice’s four clerkships.
The apparent student-authored missive purporting to be from Sager begins in standard style. But it soon disintegrates into an ever-more-outlandish send-up of a traditional departure announcement.
“Some of my finest hours have been spent cantering across the Texas plains on the back of an emu,” it recounts. “They are stately, resplendent, Brobdingnagian birds, capable of carrying a man at full gallop the length of 30 hectares on a single hogshead of millet seed.”
Readers, have we missed any particularly good April Fool’s jokes elsewhere? Please let us know in the comments!
Updated at 2:25 p.m. to include e-mailed comment from Sager and clarify that he is not the author of the e-mail purportedly sent by him.
