At the Jacksonville University College of Law, we don’t waste any time getting our students into the courtroom. Each year, we celebrate our convocation ceremony in the Duval County Courthouse, where our first-year students take their Oath of Professionalism alongside their classmates, and in front of proud family, friends, faculty, staff and university leadership.
During convocation, I address our 1L students as they prepare to embark on their law school journey. Here is an excerpt from my words to our Forty Foursyths at this year’s convocation:
To begin, I have a question for you to think about.
Where do you see justice?
Do not get used to it, law school is not like this, but on this big day I will go easy on you and give you a good answer to my question.
Look around you at your classmates. That is where you can see and will find justice. That is where I can, and others will see justice. We see and know it is in your minds, hearts, and spirit because you have decided to learn how to use the most powerful tool humans have ever known, a legally trained mind.
As the oath you will take in a few moments underscores, you have decided to join the honorable profession. That choice will not only enable you to do well but to do good. The privileges and respect you deservedly will earn come with responsibilities to serve the public good.
So, we thank you for making law your life’s work.
At present in America, we the people have arrived at an inflection point where we cannot take for granted our established democratic institutions, norms, liberties, safety, and even our very existence.
By upholding the rule of law, practitioners, legal educators, and you, future lawyers can play a critical role, making both history and the future. You can help us prevent the story of our long-standing democratic republic coming to a tragic end, remain on the right side of history, and keep on track for better tomorrows.
That is the essence of what lawyers do by remaining true to themselves and the people they serve while reconciling disagreements and solving problems. They do so as teachers, exemplars, and advocates for the shared values of our Constitutional democracy in pursuit of effective limited self-government, equal justice, and the well-being of all people and the world we share.
Understandably, engulfed by disheartening worrisome news coming at us from all directions, it may be hard for any of us to focus and keep working through the daily grind.
It is tempting to ask: “What’s the point? The world seems to be crumbling like there will be no tomorrow and the tough predicaments of our time seem hopeless. Why bother?”
It helps to realize that the world never has been perfect, and it never will be. It also helps to remember the purpose of your studies.
Remember that what you are studying can make the world a different, better place and contribute to history’s steady slow rising arc of progress.
Maintaining our democratic republic, when the nation is made up of people with stubbornly heartfelt, legitimate, deep differences in needs, wants and beliefs, is a tough job.
Keeping the U.S. in good working order requires constant effort, patience and time to build consensus through negotiation and coalition building as well as intentional public discourse about civic responsibilities and virtues.
Lawyers know, and students in law schools are learning, how to make a positive difference in the service of public interests.
They will be equipped to midwife the rebirth of participatory democracy and informed self-government with their hallmark professional tools of civility, collaboration and cooperation.
Lawyers press the great lever of progress through their daily work on matters small and large, private and public, for rich and poor, while promoting access to quality affordable legal services including spending a significant amount of time working for free.
They facilitate the essential informed consent of the governed to be governed by fulfilling their professional responsibility to educate the public about the rule of law, and about how our brilliant cantilevered self-correcting system of constitutional government and justice is supposed to work. You will be teachers who will be living that mouthful of words.
Lawyers also can help broker desperately needed reconciliations even among the most hostile divided adversaries. They set examples for people to emulate about how to disagree agreeably. And they can promote greater understanding about the benefit of outcomes where all interested parties gain by giving away some of what they wanted.
It is not easy work and is not for everyone. Yet for those who have the ability, creativity and dedication to become lawyers, it can be an extremely satisfying career, a wonderful life.
Remember, you do not have to do it alone. Rely on your classmates and our upper class students to help you, work together, be kind and be supportive of each other.
And your world class faculty, our outstanding senior administrators and staff want you to succeed. Help them help you by asking them questions and seeking their assistance.
The law is neither a light nor an instrument of any kind to be used to gain an advantage for any person or group.
In the words attributed to a great lawyer for all seasons, Sir Thomas More: “The law is a causeway upon which, so long as he keeps to it, a citizen may walk safely.”
Lawyers are the guardians of the guardrails for that refuge, in tough times a safe bridge over troubled waters to a better world. You 44 will become the new guardians, serving your neighbors, our community and the world beyond.
We are looking forward to all the times in the future that you will make us at least as proud of you as we are today.