At just 24 years old, Garrett Mitchell is proof that there's vastly more money in influencing people on social media than in the court room.
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A native of Omaha, Nebraska, Mr Mitchell was 18 months into his law degree when his side business of being an car culture influencer and social media phenomenon took off and he's never looked back.
Four years ago he invented the pseudonym of Cleetus McFarland "on the fly", and a friend filmed him in character one night as he provided an commentary about a Chevrolet Camaro.
The one-minute video, shot with a beer in his hand, no script and in a dimly lit carpark, was rough cut, uploaded to YouTube and went viral.
"By the time I woke up the next day, the video had almost a million views," he said.
From that spontaneous joke video which now has five million views and rising, Cleetus McFarland generated a social media momentum which couldn't be stopped and has made the former law school student and self-admitted car nut a wealthy young man.
He now lives in Tampa, Florida, and travels around the country, shooting videos - he now has 550 online - selling merchandise and visiting car shows where his adoring public are often tongue-tied and can't wait to be in a selfie.
"It's been a wild ride," he admitted. "But I don't think you can call me an overnight success. I've been working at this for about four years now."
He says there's no real tricks to reveal about his rocketship rise to social media success, except to "keep it real".
"I think once we had Cleetus and people obviously liked him, we then had to figure out where to take him.
"I think there was this void in the drag and street car racing and building market; there was a lot of boring stuff online that was all the same.
"So we built things from scratch, made some mistakes and learned a lot of stuff along the way. People like that."
He's a genuinely quick and brave drag racer and has built two very fast drag cars including his latest one curiously called Toast.
"Everywhere I go I try to post something about what I'm doing. I want to qualify in Toast for the burnout masters but I have to tell you, the competition here is super tough."