Not Mitch something, or something Mitch. Just Mitch.
Since 1997, Mitch is the man's legal name, even in the legal game.
"I'm on a first-name basis with everyone," he jokes, though he doesn't really think of Mitch as a first or a last name.
"It's like a unisex T-shirt. It's not male or female. It's both at the same time," Mitch said. "If I say it's both my first and last, if I give in to that at all, I get a ton of mail addressing me as Mitch Mitch. It's horrible to me. It sounds like a stutter."
For nearly two years, Mitch has been an instructor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. And he's the founder of Community Justice, a nonprofit law firm in Madison that provides legal representation to low-income people on housing, family, employment and other issues.
When I heard about Wisconsin's answer to Sting, Bono, Sinbad and Plato, I had to ask Mitch about his name.
"It's unfortunately not the happiest story," the 32-year-old said. "I was orphaned. My folks both passed away, my father when I was very young, and my mother when I was a young teenager."
On top of that, his father had reached adulthood before stumbling on the fact he was adopted.
"So the name - my birth name or given name - didn't go anywhere. I didn't feel a connection to it based on any sort of lineage that I could trace back anywhere," he said.
So after graduating from high school in Sparta and reaching adulthood, he went to court and changed his name to Mitch. He had to swear he wasn't doing so to commit fraud or run from the law. He even had his birth certificate changed.
I know Mitch's old name, but he said he would prefer if I didn't tell the world. One strong clue is that Mitch was a nickname based on his former surname. If you want to know more, you have to buy him a beer, he said.
"To me, it was about fit. Mitch fits, but not for some sort of stage presence. It's 100% of the time who I am."
The State Bar of Wisconsin has no record of any other lawyer practicing under a single name, though I've always been amused by those commercials for local personal injury attorney Barry Cymerman where he says, "My clients call me Barry."
Bar spokesman Tom Solberg said he skimmed through the list of 23,000 members. "Mitch certainly stood out when I came across his name," he said.
UW's expert guide referred to him as "Mitch (no last name)" Mitch didn't like the way that sounded, so now it says Mitch followed by a comma and an underscore because computers usually insist that both name fields are filled in. In parentheses it adds, "Full name is Mitch." Sometimes he goes by Mr. Mitch.
Unless you're a famous rapper, a single name can cause hassles when you, say, book a hotel room over the telephone. Once when ordering phone service, Mitch had to wait out the uncontrolled laughter of the representative on the other end of the line. When Mitch appeared as an attorney in a rural Wisconsin county, the judge was suspicious and made a formal record that he had examined Mitch's driver's license and Bar card and was satisfied that was his entire name.
"I only know one Mitch," said Dane County Circuit Judge Patrick Fiedler, who first met the law student when Mitch served as his clerk. The professor who sent him over wrote to the judge, "Yes, that's right, just one name."
"After that, it was no big deal," Fiedler said. "He was a very good intern."
It's rare that a student will ask about his name. Maybe they have enough to worry about just getting through law school.
If Mitch ever wanted to add a second name, he had an excellent opportunity when he married Leah Johnson in 2006. But he took a pass on becoming Mitch Johnson. If children come along, they will take Johnson as a last name.
He has a brother and a sister who have not changed their names. His brother still slips sometimes and calls him by his old first name.
Mitch said he has no regrets about taking a name to capture his inner Mitchiness. It helped him realize his own identity more fully, but didn't turn out exactly as he intended. I'll let him tell it.
"I've heard assumptions that you're hiding the name, or that your parents must hate you or you must hate your parents. Nothing could be further from the truth. They did a great job. Unfortunately, cancer took them both from me.
"When I changed my name, I foolishly thought as one of the motivations that I'd be able to avoid questions about family that I had lost and that was difficult to address at the time. I really didn't give much thought to the fact that just having one name would actually make people question me more.
"In a sense, it's sort of like getting a tattoo. It's a decision made when somebody is young and didn't necessarily think through all the consequences. It seems like absolutely the perfect thing.
"And I suppose like a tattoo, I could reverse it. But it would be painful."
