If a law school had to descend into a Kafkaesque experience, you’d expect The Trial or Before the Law, not Metamorphosis.
In the grand tradition of American legal education, where asbestos and lead paint commingle with pizza parties and regret, the University of Kentucky College of Law has introduced fresh nightmare fuel for law students: cockroach infestation!
Not metaphorical roaches like the Federalist Society kids, but the actual six-legged, antennae-wiggling variety staging their own moot court inside the walls. According to a memo from the Senior Assistant Dean of Community Engagement (and pest control czar, apparently), the bugs have returned to, or even exceeded “historical levels.” This likely won’t make it into next year’s recruiting brochure.
This isn’t some isolated incident of a stray critter scuttling across the floor. We’re talking so many bugs that the school had to set up a roach log, adding a bureaucratic dimension to the terror. The goal of this insect surveillance state is to keep Orkin apprised of the incursion as it slowly overwhelms the humans in this slow motion Starship Troopers.
We were initially able to call in every sighting to request Orkin, UK’s pest control contractor, to respond. Orkin was responding several times a week, sometimes daily, for us. Orkin is no longer to able to come at that frequency…
That’s the beginning of a horror movie. Thankfully, the sentence concludes by explaining that Orkin will replace its monthly preventative treatments with weekly visits, but for anyone following the bouncing ball, this memo certainly led the reader to believe the venerable Orkin Man had gone full Private Hudson screaming “GAME OVER, MAN! GAME OVER!” as his truck slowly yet methodically beeped in reverse out of the parking lot.
And let’s pause here to appreciate that the law school foresaw this. The dean’s email notes they were “told to expect their return” after the 2019 rebuild, like a Victorian ghost, haunting the halls of Kentucky ever since she failed Torts. As an aside, Kentucky law professor Richard Underwood writes about Southern murder ballads… so if there is an apparition roaming the halls, he would know. Still, imagine cutting the ribbon on your shiny multimillion-dollar building and announcing: “Yes, it comes with Wi-Fi, smartboards, and a prophecy that that the bugs shall rise again!”
While the cockroaches attempt to take the building by adverse possession, students and faculty are advised to vigilantly populate the roach log. Or maybe that’s not the best name…
This log identifies the rooms and areas where the roaches, along with any other bugs (e.g., ants), have been reported.
“Other bugs.” Pray for our friends at Kentucky.
(Memo text reproduced on the next page…)
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
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