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From a macroscopic view, Mitchell was everything Barbara Snyder could want in a law school dean hired during the great law-school market crash.

Shortly after arriving, he did meet-and-greets with faculty members — something previous deans had never done. He personally visited big law firms that had hired Case graduates, introducing himself and lobbying partners to give his grads a shot. He helped Case tally a record fundraising year at the law school.

Mitchell consciously cut class sizes. His first year, 190 new students enrolled. In 2012, that became 165. Last fall, 104. But fewer students didn't mean less money. The dean established strong connections to institutions in China, which brought in students who would pay the full annual tuition (currently $46,000 for J.D. students), whereas in-country candidates rarely pay full price.

He helped reverse CWRU's previously tumbling place in the U.S. News rankings. While the system is almost universally panned as arbitrary, a school's rankings can have dire consequences and significant rewards, and Mitchell knew how to game the system. One important factor: the peer assessment rankings, which might be why Mitchell penned a widely discussed Nov. 2012 New York Times op-ed entitled, "Law School is Worth the Money," in which he chastised those who argued against the lofty tuition tag for an education in a struggling industry. Journalists might have roundly panned it, but those people don't contribute to the peer assessment rankings in the U.S. News report. It worked: CWRU climbed to No. 64 last year, up four spots from 2012.

He also developed a new curriculum that will be installed this fall, and which was widely praised by the law community, emphasizing practical experience for the Case law students.

From the top down, Mitchell's rein looked to be off to auspicious beginnings. He was working long hours, traveling and putting in the effort previous deans had not, sources said. But that wasn't the full picture.

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The law students who will walk across the stage of Severance Hall next week to receive their diplomas have the most colorful stories about Lawrence Mitchell. A lot of them come from the days before classes even started during their first years together.

"During orientation week that first year, the school had organized events at various bars downtown to kind of get to know everyone in the class," says a third-year law student. "There was this one at Pickwick and Frolic, and the dean had come to mingle with the students, and within an hour he was really drunk, pounding on the bar, screaming at the bartenders. It looked like he was about to puke all over the bar and lose it."

Another student remembers the same drunken display: "He apparently just flew in from some sort of trip. He got sloshed at this thing, telling us the only way he got through law school was his friend Jack Daniels, or something like that. And this is the first time ever meeting the students, the first impression. Already, it's like OK, this guy is kind of weird."

Students present at the function tell Scene Mitchell propositioned a female law student for a threesome that evening, making the offer as people were leaving the East Fourth Street bar while offering the young woman a ride home. Sources at the university say students had informed some faculty soon after orientation week that Mitchell had propositioned them for a threesome as well.

Those first interactions with Mitchell still resonate with the soon-to-be graduating law class. "During the first weeks of school, everybody was talking about how the dean was out, drinking various things, doing various stuff," says another student. "Maybe you've heard this, but one person even has a picture of him making out with this girl. There was this first year orientation event and the dean just shows up with this young chick; he doesn't even have a pretense, he's smashed and he's making out with her."

Two third-year students independently reported to Scene that a picture of Mitchell making out with a college-age woman during an orientation week event in Coventry was circulating on Facebook in the fall of 2011.

Over three years, Mitchell developed that reputation and more. For this year's graduating class, if they haven't experienced it firsthand, they know someone who has, and many of those incidents happened at booze-fueled parties at his home. There would be regular get-togethers with a full bar and plenty of beer, and Mitchell would tell particular female students just where to find the good stuff.

"You'll just hear from female students who went to these dean's dinners, that he was very — I guess the word would be 'lecherous,'" says one student.

"To be quite frank, it would not be inaccurate to describe him as a dirty old man, but that said, there's nothing wrong with being a dirty old man as long as you are able to keep that in an appropriate setting," says a third-year student who also explained that Mitchell was much more personable than other administrators they had interacted with. "Where I think the error of judgment occurred is being more relaxed in settings where he was with his staff and colleagues and students and not trying to tone down that part of his personality. If you're living in New York City or D.C., you can go out to bars and you're anonymous, just a guy at a bar. But Cleveland is a small town, and an even smaller legal community, so you really have to be vigilant about what you say and who could possibly be listening. Unfortunately he didn't do a very good job of that."

Another female law student remembers bumping into Mitchell with a young girl at a Cleveland Heights grocery store near campus: "I was like, 'Oh, cute he's with his daughter.' But then he starts making out with her in the meat section."

Another said Mitchell overtly hit on a gay law student.

Another relayed what she saw one evening last spring when she was walking past the law building after dark. The lights in Mitchell's corner office were on. There was a young woman on his lap, open for all walking by to see. "I just kind of stopped for a second and thought, 'Oh my god, I cannot believe he's doing this,'" she says.

He did that and more for more than two years under the consenting eye of CWRU leadership.

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Raymond Ku, a tenured Case law professor since 2003, is an Internet law and privacy law expert who was named the school's professor of the year in 2009. In 2010, under Bob Rawson, he was named the law school's associate dean for academic affairs. He was also co-director of both the Center for Law, Technology & the Arts, and the Cyberspace Law & Policy Office.

Ku, the son of two Chinese immigrants, is also ambitious. In 2006, he ran for state representative as a Democrat in the Republican-leaning district around his Bainbridge Township home in Geauga County. After an uncontested primary, he lost to incumbent Matt Dolan, the Republican son of Indians owner Larry Dolan (and also a Case Western law school grad), with 43 percent of the vote. Ku also apparently wanted to be considered for the then-vacant Case law school dean job, the one that Mitchell ended up scoring.

In October of 2013, Ku filed a lawsuit against Mitchell and Case Western alleging sexual harassment and retaliation from Mitchell when Ku confronted school administrators and the dean about the allegations.

The complaint outlines the same type of behavior that multiple students had witnessed for years; Ku's tales begin with Mitchell's first semester in Cleveland.

"From the time Dean Mitchell became dean, he made comments to professor Ku regarding his Chinese heritage," the complaint reads. "Upon learning that Professor Ku was about to convert to Judaism, Dean Mitchell remarked that Professor Ku was in two of Dean Mitchell's favorite groups, Asian and Jewish. Dean Mitchell asked Professor Ku about being circumcised."

Ku's genitals were brought up again on August 28, 2011, during a faculty party hosted by Mitchell. He again prodded Ku about the status of his penis, this time in front of Ku's wife. (Mitchell's response, per court records: "Dean Mitchell also admits there was a brief discussion as to a 'Bris.'")

Later that evening, as Ku and his wife were leaving for the night, he saw Mitchell "run his hand up the back" of an assistant dean, who was wearing a "summer dress." It was "inappropriate physical contact — which is best described as a caress of his colleague's exposed skin — and found it to be sexually inappropriate as well as unnerving and creepy."