Brest honored at Law
School early graduation
BY KEVIN COOL
A hip-hop send-off by the
class president and a final message from outgoing Dean
Paul Brest highlighted graduation ceremonies at Stanford
Law School on Sunday, May 16. It marked the first time
that the Law School conducted a formal graduation
exercise prior to the university-wide event June 13.
President Gerhard Casper permitted the change in response
to students' requests.
Associate Professor George
Fisher, selected by the Class of '99 to receive the John
Bingham Hurlbut Award for Excellence in Teaching, gave
the commencement address. A former prosecutor, Fisher
described the difficulty inherent in making decisions in
situations with no clear resolution.
"By having a law
degree and by virtue of having passed the bar exam, you
suddenly will have the power to make decisions that will
change people's lives," Fisher told the graduates.
"And you will learn, as I have, that the one option
you will never have is not to decide. You may have a
cheap desk in a bad office with six levels of hierarchy
over your head, but it will still be true that beginning
with the first decision, every decision will be your own.
"I'm sure you have
observed by now that the law does not supply all of the
rules of life. Beyond law there are the rules of decency,
compassion, courage we have not taught you these. But
then, we did not need to. Because if we chose well when
we chose you three years ago, then you came here with
those things already. We have not taught you to make good
decisions as lawyers. Because, as the Good Witch said,
'You have had the power all along.'
"So take the law that
we have tried to teach you, and take your fundamental
integrity that you came here with and go out there and
make good decisions. You will have the power and the duty
to decide. Own your decisions, make them well, and make
us proud," Fisher said.
Class president Junichi
Semitsu described his Stanford Law experience as a
combination of "inspiration, admiration and
perspiration" after overcoming the
"intellectual intimidation" he felt as a
first-year student. He entertained the audience with a
self-composed hip-hop song that Dean-designate Kathleen
Sullivan later called "the best performance since Bulworth,"
referring to a song performed in that movie by actor
Warren Beatty.
In her remarks, Sullivan
reviewed the accomplishments of the 12-year tenure of
Dean Paul Brest, who will step down as dean August 31.
She called Brest's deanship "service of historical
proportions."
"Behind that modest
manner, behind that Clark Kent demeanor, was a remarkable
set of ambitions," Sullivan said. "He wanted
you as students and us as faculty to be, simply, the best
we could be.
"Law school
curriculums have remained remarkably stable, continuing
for the most part to follow a template laid down over a
century ago," Sullivan added. "In keeping,
though, with Stanford Law School's generally
unencumbered, innovative frontier style, Dean Brest has
done more than any other law school dean in the country
to press the possibility of curricular reform and the
revivification of the profession on the eve of the 21st
century."
Brest's charge to the
class focused on learning from experience. He encouraged
graduates not to rationalize their errors or to be
defensive in the face of criticism, but to use their
mistakes to improve themselves as people and as lawyers.
"Learning from experience requires having
experience," he said. "Take some chances that
may lead to rewards for you and others. Go for it."
The decision to move the
Law School's graduation ceremonies to the weekend
following final exams was made in response to student
concerns about the inconvenience created by the school's
semester schedule, which ends classes in mid-May, and the
quarter system of the university, which concludes study
in mid-June. Historically, law students have had to wait
five or six weeks for their commencement, according to
Associate Dean for Student Affairs Julie Lythcott-Haims,
and they recently have clamored for a ceremony
commensurate with their own study schedule. "When we
in the administration heard these concerns, we thought,
'that's not unreasonable,' so we tried to find a way to
make the change," Lythcott-Haims said. "It was
a very positive event; students loved it. The second-year
students can't wait to do it again next year."
Nevertheless, a
significant number of law students plan to return for the
university's commencement. "There are many students
who still want to be part of that larger ceremony, for
whom being recognized as part of the Stanford family is
very important," said Julia Erwin-Weiner, associate
director of alumni relations and special events. SR
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