On Aug. 5, 2022, the convocation for our small inaugural class of law students fit snugly into the Duval County Courthouse ceremonial courtroom with then Chief Judge Mark Mahon presiding.
On May 2, after three years of impressive accomplishments, the graduation ceremony for this remarkable inaugural class was welcomed by our host, Chief Judge Lance Day, and family, friends, academics, judges and other government, legal and community leaders that filled the Daniel Webster Perkins Jury Assembly Room in the same courthouse.
Addressing the graduates and guests, I took some time to reflect upon the first three years in the history of Jacksonville University College of Law.
The graduates began their studies in an introductory class with me. In that initial class we examined the meaning and power of words, by reading out loud and interpreting several lines from the first scene in Hamlet.
That is an intentional nod to all the drama of Shakespearean proportions that engulfs so many facets of our daily life.
After all, our freshly minted lawyers begin their careers at a time when law and lawyers need to be front and center solving epic problems, bridging chasms of seemingly intractable disagreements, designing new rules for unprecedented, continuously accelerating technological changes.
Their life’s work as lawyers on matters small or big, routine or novel, may be boiled down to just this:
They will be responsible for the procedures and rules that, because of our rights to be different and disagreeable, enable us to live together in harmony, peace and prosperity with equal justice for all.
Their law school’s successful launch and accomplishments were in very real senses as much in their hands as in ours. For that reason, and because their example is an encouraging beacon for others in our great city, throughout Northeast Florida and beyond, they will always be remembered in a special way.
Although the curtain is falling on the academic stage of their lives, they will continuously be tested in real life.
They will need to adapt and adjust and be ready for not only a job, or to attack a problem, but be qualified to tackle new jobs and challenges, including ones we do not yet know about or do not even exist yet.
They can do this for two reasons:
First, it is in the DNA of our inaugural students who shrewdly decided to be part of a successful educational startup.
Second, throughout the curriculum we consciously prioritized honing the skills needed for them to cope with change.
Now a few words about the long-established responsibility of American lawyers to voluntarily perform free legal services for the public good, that is “pro bono publico” in Latin; a commitment that is emblematic of all that is good and honorable about our graduates’ chosen profession.
Pro bono work was a fitting subject on the day our demonstrably talented cadre of new legal guardians were gowned, hooded and received their hard-earned juris doctor degrees because of the real pro bono work they already have done for the people of Jacksonville.
That effort included providing many hours of free legal services to less advantaged people during school vacations and weekends.
Trust me on this, sticking with the good habit of selfless volunteer work will be meaningful, gratifying and necessary as their careers unfold. No lawyer in history on their deathbed ever wished, “If only I had more billable hours.”
We are counting on our law graduates to decide to be in the company of all the competent, ethical lawyers who understand what pro bono publico means.
That is one of many excellent reasons we should wish the great Class of 2025 Godspeed, with justifiable hope that our profession will continue to work to improve access to affordable, quality legal services for all, especially the less advantaged and underserved.
Later that day, after the commencement ceremony was concluded, in a case relating to the nature and purpose of pro bono work, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in the District of Columbia ruled that the presidential executive order targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions was unconstitutional and could not be enforced.
In the first paragraph of the 102-page order, Howell quoted Shakespeare and Justice John Paul Stevens when asserting that:
“Eliminating lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law removes a major impediment to the path to more power”… that is, “disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government.”