Kim Kardashian. Photo: Shutterstock.

What happens when a famous reality star sings your praises on Instagram?

If you're University of Washington law professor Steve Calandrillo, former students and colleagues flood your inbox and blow up your phone with texts of congratulations.

Steve Calandrillo.

The past 24 hours have been a whirlwind for Calandrillo, after superstar Kim Kardashian on Monday posted three times on Instagram with photos showing her watching Calandrillo's BarBri video on contracts for first-year law students. In one post, Kardashian wrote of Calandrillo, "I love this guy! LOL He is seriously helpful."

Kardashian is more than a year into her legal studies, which she is pursuing under California's apprenticeship program. That program allows students to bypass law school and instead study under a licensed attorney for four years before taking the bar exam.

Law.com caught up with Calandrillo Tuesday to find out how he feels about the celebrity praise and what it has been like to be thrust into Kardashian's orbit. His answers have been edited for length and clarity.

When and how did you find out that Kim Kardashian had been talking you up on Instagram? I got the email last night from a former student. Since then, I've received dozens and dozens of emails from former students and colleagues. This is actually the second time that Kim has talked about the BarBri videos. She had sent out an Instagram or tweet on Labor Day saying that she was studying the BarBri videos while everyone was out at the Labor Day barbecues. In the background, you could see she had her contracts notebook out, and I recognized that she was watching my BarBri video. But last night was when I heard from my student, saying "You're famous now." I'll take my 15 minutes however they come.

So you didn't start following her on Instagram her after the Labor Day post? I actually just created an Instagram account to follow her last night. But I'm not nearly as socially media savvy as she is—or anyone in this generation, for that matter. I think I follow a grand total of two people now.

How many people have come out of the woodwork to contact you? Has it been a crazy day? It really has. It has been kind of exciting, actually. I've had, probably, thousands of students over the past couple decades. I'd say a few dozen have emailed or texted me. Which is kind of nice—to reconnect with my former students. I follow them with vicarious joy and it's always nice to get back in touch.

How long have you been doing BarBri videos? I've been doing BarBri work for about 18 years now. But those videos that Kim Kardashian is studying are the 1L mastery videos. I think I only filmed those about four years ago, and they are aimed at 1Ls, not graduates.

Is it nice to know people find the videos helpful? I think it's really awesome to get these basic, coherent frameworks of the law, including on the 1L subjects. A lot of 1Ls spend their first year of law school struggling—including myself—with not knowing how this all fits together. You're supposed to put together these outlines and you have no idea what you're doing. You're panicking that everyone else is smarter than you. I think these are good resources to help people get a clear framework of what the law is in these key subjects, and can give you the confidence to go on.

Kim is obviously taking a nontraditional path to a J.D. Any advice for her? I think it's great that she's taking the apprenticeship route. Only a few states allow it. I think it's great that she's following her passion. Clearly she has a passion for criminal justice reform. She's taken a fair amount of criticism for it, but I think it's a great thing she's doing. I think we should praise people who follow their passion and not criticize them for it. I wish her the best of luck on contracts, on crim law, on all her subjects.

So if she needs some one-on-one tutoring, are you available? I suppose so.