feature After two years at the law firm, I went out on my own, and I never looked back. So maybe you can see why I tell people that there is no such thing as an unemployed lawyer. If you are a member of a learned profession, you have knowledge and skill that have value in the market place.You never hear any talk about medical doctors or dentists being unemployed. If you can hang out a shingle, you can find work to do. It’s a funny thing. Everybody wants a job, but nobody wants a boss. If you have a profession, you can be your own boss. There are over 311 million people in the United States. Less than half of 1 percent of them are lawyers.That means there are over 250 potential clients for every lawyer. It ought to be some comfort to you graduates, as you sit here this afternoon to know that there are 250 people out there waiting to give you money to do what you learned to do in law school. Of course, first, you have to pass the bar exam.
I got an email a few weeks ago from a fellow named Jim, who graduated from Cooley about 25 years ago. I remember him well. He failed the bar exam three times. When he came to see me back then, I told him he didn’t have to be a licensed attorney to be successful. I suggested he talk to some of our alumni who were doing very well in business. He just smiled and said, “You’ll see.” And walked out of my office.Today, he is a Chief Assistant Prosecutor in New Jersey with eight younger lawyers working for him. Bar examinations aren’t easy. They’re not supposed to be. But your diploma entitles you to sit for the exam, and your education at Cooley has prepared you to pass it. I can assure you that if you really want it, you will have a license to practice law to hang alongside your diploma.
Of course, if you just want a job … if you want a boss, and a paycheck and a 401(k) and health care, and paid vacations and a chance to get promoted, I can tell you that the piece of paper you are going to get up here will be your boarding pass on the flight to security and success. Think about it.There is hardly a job description in the business world that you are not qualified — maybe even overqualified — to do.
Does a bank want to hire a loan officer? Does an insurance company want a claims adjuster? Does a manufacturer want a personnel officer? Who wouldn’t choose an applicant with a law degree over someone with a four-year college education? And consider this: Your law degree tells more about you than how much you know.
It testifies to your work ethic, to your commitment, to your dedication and perseverance. It tells an employer that you will show up. That you will be prepared. That you know how to get a job done.That you know how to meet a challenge with guts and grit and come out a winner.
So the first point is that after today, you will be a doctor. A doctor of laws.
Hon.Thomas E. Brennan greets graduates after the ceremony.
The American Bar Association tells us that medical doctors have their most productive years between their 12th and 20th years in practice. And lawyers have their best years between their 20th and their 40th years in practice. Of course, there are no guarantees in life, but my guess is that if you work as hard at your profession as you did at your education, you will make a decent living over the next 40 or 50 years. The second point I want to leave with you is this: Your diploma is a doctor of laws.
The law is the most interdisciplinary science. It touches on everything people do, on everything that happens in life. When Judge John Fitzgerald, God rest his soul, taught the first class at Cooley, he began by writing a quotation from Chaucer on the blackboard, “The life so short, the craft so long to learn.” One thing you surely understand by now is that nobody knows all the law. A lawyer is defined as a person who is learned in the law. To be a person learned in the law is to be a person who studies the law, reads the law, contemplates the law, discusses the law, knowing that the journey takes more than a single lifetime.
Your diploma says that you are learned in the law. It says that you are a lawyer. And it is a very BIG, impressive and credible document. It has the familiar Cooley logo prominently displayed. That logo features the crown of a pillar and the Latin motto, “In corde hominum est anima legis.” (continued on page 36)
BENCHMARK SPECIAL EDITION 40 YEARS 2013
35