Commencement Speech delivered At New England Law Boston on May 28, 2010 By Chief Justice John T. Broderick, Jr.

Transcription

1 Commencement Speech delivered At New England Law Boston on May 28, 2010 By Chief Justice John T. Broderick, Jr. Dean O Brien, members of the Board of Trustees, faculty, fellow honorary degree recipients, friends, families, and especially graduates, I was both delighted and honored when I was asked to speak to you on this very memorable day. As I stand here this morning, I am mindful of the advice former New York Governor Mario Cuomo received from his favorite priest at St. John s University before he delivered his first commencement address: Mario, he said, being a commencement speaker is a lot like being a body at an Irish wake. They need you to hold the party, but they really don t expect you to say very much. As an Irishman myself, I know the wisdom and truth of that advice so I will try to follow it. Being here on your special occasion floods me with memories of my own law school graduation many years past. On a beautiful spring day much like this thirty-eight years ago, I sat in the warming sun with hundreds of my classmates on wooden chairs stretched in precise rows across the Lawn at the University of Virginia. I remember soaking in the pomp and circumstance, listening to the speeches, or at least pretending to, and trying to imagine my life as a lawyer when I left Mr. Jefferson s University. I hoped that after my years of hard work and even more years of anticipation that I would like the practice of law and that it would like me back. I wondered whether committing my life to the law and to all its demands would really make a difference for me and, more importantly, for those who would soon enough put their trust in me. But on that gorgeous May morning, it all seemed a big undertaking with a lot of unknowns and a lot of expectations. I hoped I was ready. Some of you might have those same thoughts today. But ready or not, you will shortly take your place on the front lines as the face of the legal profession for the first half of the 21 ST century. I have no doubt that all of you are up to the task and have real contributions to make and that in your own way and in your own time you will make them. And remember, it will take you a lifetime to build your reputation so be both patient and vigilant with your progress. The good news is that you get to choose what your reputation will be. Be assured that there is nothing worth the loss of your professional license or your good name. Nothing. As Mark Twain once said, Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. I challenge all of you to be an annoyance.

2 The profession you have chosen is in many ways quite different than the one that greeted me. The profession I entered in 1972 was less demanding by today s standards. Legal jobs were more plentiful, salaries were less generous but life was less expensive, personal technology was almost non-existent, civility was fairly common, and the billable hour was more a way to establish time spent than an engine for profitability. Courts were more accessible and affordable for more people and jury trials were more plentiful. A lawyer s competition was usually on the same block or in the same city, lawyer advertising was rare and frowned upon, and lawyers had more time for civic and community involvement. But the world I entered that fall had too few women and minorities in law firms and law firm partnerships, too few women and minorities on the bench, too many glass ceilings, too much subtle intolerance for differing views and lifestyles, too much old boy network and too much blind acceptance of the status quo. There has been much progress in the ensuing decades, for which my generation of baby boomers can be rightly proud, but there remains much work yet to do and much progress still to be made. I challenge you to make that progress during your time at the bar. It s your generational duty and a legacy you will one day proudly embrace. Today is an extraordinary day for all of you. You worked very hard to be here and you are at the beginning of a journey that will fundamentally change your lives and, if traveled well, will profoundly and positively affect the lives of countless people you have yet to meet. You will help define the changing role of lawyers and meet the endless demands of the profession in an age unlike any other in recorded history. At the end of the day you get to write your own stories in these new times. I challenge you to make them interesting and, more importantly, to make them matter. As you know, your chosen profession is an unbroken continuum of scholarship, enduring principles and public trust. That s what all of you are being asked to assume and safeguard today. Its stewardship is a privilege of the highest order and its obligations are many. I challenge you to fulfill those obligations in a way that inspires others. All of you have benefited from the courage, dedication and selfless contributions of lawyers, judges and legal scholars throughout the long and storied history of American jurisprudence. I challenge you, in gratitude to those who have gone before you, to prepare your shoulders for the next generation of lawyers to stand on. It s part of your obligation to a profession older than the Constitution and essential to ordered liberty in a free society. As you leave this great law school today, diploma in hand, you are destined for unchartered territory where your predecessors have not gone. You will be the first generation of lawyers to practice law in a flat world and 2

3 despite rising costs, you will need to find new ways to remain affordable and accessible while maintaining the highest ethical and professional standards. You will help shape the very face of justice in America in an era of unprecedented change. You will cut and mark the trails, help write the rules and be expected to root out injustice and discrimination wherever their corrupting influence takes hold. You will also decide whether the practice of law remains a profession or whether business principles will in time consume its public importance and undermine its constitutional foundation. I hope you conclude that access to justice is not a commodity, a product to be packaged, promoted and sold, but rather a responsibility bestowed on you with near-sacred trust. Your generation of lawyers and judges will be called upon in many ways and in varied circumstances to decide whether state courts are truly open to all our people or whether they will serve only the wealthy and the well-to-do. A justice system, which pulls up the gangway on the poor and the middle class, is no justice system at all and will not long maintain public respect. I challenge you to stand watch over the constitutional guarantees of our system of justice that are only a birthright if you protect them. I urge you, particularly, to remember the disadvantaged, the left out, and the left behind. There is no higher calling for any lawyer than pro bono service and no purpose more important to our justice system that can only survive if it retains public trust and confidence. I challenge all of you to lend your voices and skills to the underserved. You will never derive greater professional or personal satisfaction as a lawyer. All of you have been given tools during your time here to shape the law and tailor it to the needs of an evolving society, in a world unimaginable when I sat where you are now sitting. I hope you use your tools to advocate for others, to eradicate continuing vestiges of social, political and economic injustice and to safeguard the rights and liberties of all in a world made both more invasive and more anonymous with each new development in internet technology. How wisely and how often you use your tools and talents will help shape your legacy as the freshman class of the 21 st century. A lot of people will be watching but even more will be counting on you. As you begin your legal career, please know that your chosen profession requires a lifetime of learning and adapting to change. You will always be in a state of becoming. The practice of law is a calling, not a destination. Indeed, the older I get the more I realize how much more there is to know and explore. The law is like that and with every question it answers, new questions appear. I challenge you to find the unanswered questions and to propose answers. I also encourage you to challenge convention when necessary to advance the rights of others even when it s unpopular, especially when it s unpopular. The status quo is never preordained and is often not the right answer. 3

4 In all my years as a lawyer and judge, I have come to appreciate that there is no inconsistency between being a staunch advocate and a civil one. The great lawyers are always remembered and admired for their wisdom, their courtesy and their character and not for sharp tongues or for cutting corners to seize momentary advantage. I challenge you to become great lawyers. I encourage you to constantly remind yourself of your fiduciary duty to the profession and to never lose sight of the fact that the law is a finely tuned instrument in the hands of the skilled lawyer. I challenge you to become one. I urge you to never lose your idealism. Some of the law s greatest moments and proudest history were made possible by idealists, often against great odds. White only signs might still exist in this country if it were not for the courage and conviction of idealists who saw wrong and tried to right it. Law will never reach its full potential without the vision an idealist offers. I challenge you to remain idealists and to consider public service either as a career or as a way to give back. It is never easy but it is always important. In the twenty-three years I practiced law no one, other than my first employer, ever asked me how I did in law school or even where I went to law school. My clients were properly focused on their own problems and how I might best help them. I have learned over my years of practice and judging that not all the best lawyers have the best transcripts. One of the lawyers who most influenced my growth apparently did not pass the bar exam on his first try. He was a great lawyer who remains a giant to me and had much to do with my standing here this morning as Chief Justice of New Hampshire. Character, integrity and sound judgment will have as much or more to do with your success as your final grade point average, probably more. No one will ever likely know or remember you for your class rank, whether high or low, but you may be remembered if you use your gifts for the benefit of others less gifted. I challenge you to be remembered. Before I close, I have one suggestion to offer. It s simple and painless and may illuminate your path in the years ahead. On my first day at work in 1972 at the Attorney General s office on Beacon Hill, just a short distance from where we are gathered, I wrote down on a piece of white-lined paper why I went to law school and how I wanted to be remembered by colleagues and friends when my career was through. Over the ensuing years, on difficult days or days when I got caught up in the rush and false urgency of the moment, I would find myself taking that folded piece of paper from my top desk drawer in the quiet and privacy of my office just to take stock. My notes allowed me to get in touch, once again, with that aspiring young lawyer from 1972 who was filled with idealism and hope and who had quite deliberately joined a noble profession for a purpose larger than himself. My notes have served as a 4

5 wonderful compass, both then and now. It is in that spirit that I challenge all of you to make your own notes and to make your dreams your career. Finally, let me say that as a proud native son of this great Commonwealth and borrowing from President Kennedy, as I leave here today I can say with pride that I now have the best of both worlds a Virginia education and a New England Law degree. 5