David M. Schizer
Dean and the Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law
ongratulations, everyone. Today is a day
C
you will always remember. Your family
and friends are so very proud of you, and
rightly so.You now join a community of remarkably
talented people—the graduates of Columbia Law
School. Members of the Class of 1962, who are
celebrating their 50th reunion this year, have joined
us today to march with you and to welcome you
into our alumni community. Please join me in
thanking them for being with us.
I know you have a sense of how much you have
learned during your time at Columbia. Think
about your favorite classes, and how much you
enjoyed engaging with the professor, the material,
and your classmates.
You also spent many pleasant hours with your classmates outside
of class. You debated the merits of derivative suits and of
Downton Abbey.You shared callbacks, the Barrister’s Ball, and late
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Inspiration, Routine, and Your Final Assignment from Columbia Law School
nights in Drapkin Lounge.You ate a shocking amount of pizza.
In all of this, you formed friendships that will last a lifetime. In
the coming years, you will take special pride in the
accomplishments of your classmates, and you will constantly run
into each other as your careers evolve.
You have joined a profession that is dedicated to one of
humanity’s greatest achievements—the rule of law. A just and
efficient legal system is the bedrock of freedom. It depends on
wise and determined stewardship from the legal profession, an
honor and a burden that now falls on each of you. Dedicating
yourself to the rule of law is an inspiring goal.
But I realize that the day-to-day rhythm of your life as a law
student was not inspiring at every moment. After all, the exams
weren’t particularly fun. No one feels nostalgia for hours spent
preparing a résumé. And it is not easy to look for a job in a
challenging market.
Even though your life at Columbia has had many high moments,
then, there were a few less-than-inspiring ones as well. This is
important to remember as you move on to the next phase in your
careers. In the next few years, your intellectual and personal
growth will continue at a rapid pace.You will learn a tremendous
amount in a short period of time. Sometimes, you will have so
much fun that it won’t feel like work. Yet along with the
satisfaction—even exhilaration—that comes with developing
new expertise, you will also experience moments of exhaustion,
boredom, and stress.
This is to be expected. The most worthwhile things in life are
not pleasant all of the time. After all, even the greatest of
vacations involve time spent on airport security lines.
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Inspiration, Routine, and Your Final Assignment from Columbia Law School
Another example is raising children, something many of you are
already experiencing and I hope others will experience someday
as well. Being a parent is one of life’s greatest privileges.You help
launch a new generation, you laugh with them, and you see
yourself in them. But the details are not always glamorous.When
the children are young, you change diapers, pay bills, and get up
in the middle of the night. As the children grow older, you try
to communicate through the fog of adolescent rebellion, pay
more bills, and worry about their futures. Raising children can
provide the most satisfying moments in our lives. Just ask your
parents how they are feeling today. But even so, not every
moment is equally fulfilling.
Likewise, the life of a young lawyer is a mix of inspiration and
routine. Navigating the learning curve in our profession can be
satisfying and even exciting. At the same time, there is truth in
the cliché,“no pain, no gain.” If you are having a difficult stretch
in your job, the answer sometimes is,“This is to be expected, and
it’s worth it.”
But remember that pain does not necessarily lead to gain. In some
cases, if you feel unhappy, you should think about moving on.
How do we know the difference? How do we know whether
stress or unhappiness is just a cost of an otherwise positive
experience, or is evidence that we need a change? Forgive me,
but it’s customary to give advice at Commencement. So in the
rest of my time with you today, I will offer four thoughts about
making this sort of judgment in the years ahead.
First, how much are you learning in your job? With each passing
month, are you developing insights and skills that make you
more effective? Are you forging professional ties that will be of
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Inspiration, Routine, and Your Final Assignment from Columbia Law School
value to you? Or is the work stale, so that you don’t feel
challenged? Keep in mind that this test applies not only to your
first job out of Columbia, but to every one you ever have. If you
aren’t growing, it’s time to move on.
Second, do you enjoy the company of your colleagues? Are they
as impressive and entertaining as your friends here at Columbia?
If the answer is “yes,” that is a significant advantage. If the answer
is “no,” that’s a cautionary signal.
Third, do your colleagues play by the rules? There is an old
saying that it takes a lifetime to build a reputation, and five
minutes to throw it away.You should stand for the proposition
that excellence and the highest ethical standards go hand in
hand.They are inseparable.You will invest a great deal of yourself
in your work.You should be able to take pride in your successes.
You should be confident that your work advances your values
and ideals.This feeling is better than fame and money.
That brings me to my final point. You need to commit your
professional life to a goal that is broader than yourself alone. If
you dedicate your talents and energies solely to your own
comfort, you will not be fulfilled.At the end of the day, you will
regret pursuing the wrong dreams.
I never thought I would quote the Talking Heads at
Commencement (and I’m not sure you are old enough to know
who they are). But they wrote a song more than 30 years ago
called “Once in a Lifetime,” which makes a similar point. Don’t
worry—I won’t sing it—but here’s what they say:
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large
automobile. And you may find yourself in a beautiful
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Inspiration, Routine, and Your Final Assignment from Columbia Law School
house . . . And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I
get here?” . . . And you may tell yourself, “This is not
my beautiful house!”. . . My God! What have I done?
In other words, this is not what I aspired to achieve in life or the
person I meant to become.
A more elegant articulation of this point can be found in
Ecclesiastes (or Kohelet in Hebrew). The author, King Solomon,
was reputed to be the wisest man of his time. He built the Jewish
Temple in Jerusalem and brought his kingdom to new heights of
power and prosperity.
Yet in Ecclesiastes, Solomon is cynical and even jaded about his
accomplishments. “All is vanity,” he writes:
What profit has man in all his toil that he toils under
the sun? . . .All things are wearisome. . . .What has been
is what will be, and what has been done is what will be
done, and there is nothing new under the sun.
Solomon experiments with material pleasures as a way to seek
happiness, but finds them wanting. Instead, he offers us three ways
to be fulfilled.The first is the satisfaction from being good at what
we do:“There is nothing better,” he says,“than that a man should
rejoice in his works.”The second is being trusted:“A good name,”
he says, “is better than precious oil.” Third, he urges us to be
committed to those principles that we hold paramount, so that
we organize our lives around what we believe.
Well, lawyers who are true to their beliefs and committed to
making the world a better place will always be busy and
challenged. As Gandhi said, “The best way to find yourself is to
lose yourself in the service of others.”
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Inspiration, Routine, and Your Final Assignment from Columbia Law School
The world desperately needs your talents.We live in a time of so
much promise. For example, the technological marvels available
to us now could hardly have been imagined when the Class of
1962 sat where you sit now. In many ways, humanity’s progress
in the past few decades is miraculous.
Yet we also are grappling with grave problems: economic
stagnation, fiscal overcommitment, political instability, global
terror, and nuclear proliferation, to name just a few. Meanwhile,
key institutions in both the public and private sector are at risk
of buckling under the weight of these challenges. Just as the
most magnificent monuments can crumble from neglect, the
same is true of these institutions. We need talented and publicspirited people to dedicate themselves to addressing these
daunting challenges.
This means that your moment has arrived. In the coming
decades, the world can either get a lot better, or a lot worse.With
your talent, energy, and commitment, you can make a real
difference. I believe you will. So consider that your final
assignment from Columbia Law School. Congratulations, Class
of 2012.We expect great things from you.Thank you very much.
6| Graduation Address to the Class of 2012
Dean Schizer with the Graduation 2012 keynote speaker, U.S. Solicitor
General Donald B.Verrilli Jr. ’83.