Remarks of Dean Patrick E. Hobbs
Seton Hall Law School Graduation, Class of 2015
Friday, May 22, 2015, 10:00 a.m.
Prudential Center
Newark, New Jersey
President Esteban, Dr. Robinson, Monsignor Sheeran, Regents, Members of the Law School Board of
Visitors, Faculty, Administration and Staff, Distinguished Guests, friends and family and members of
the Class of 2015 – fellow members of the Class of 2015. Let me first say thank you for asking me to
be your Commencement Speaker. It is without doubt the highest honor I have received in my
professional life, to be asked by you, the last graduating Class for whom I will serve as Dean, to
address you and to receive a degree with you today.
I also want to take this moment to publicly thank Monsignor Sheeran for selecting me sixteen years
ago to be Dean of our great law school. As I shared at a recent event, I wasn’t the first choice of the
Provost who was serving at that time, but I was yours. It has been a privilege and a great ride and I
will be forever grateful to you for the opportunity.
Let me take a moment to congratulate all the parents and loved ones here today. In many ways this
is an even better day for you because you watched it all as their biggest fans…and you don’t have to
take the bar exam, they do.
I have been nervous about this address since Tyler [Sims] told me that the Class had selected me.
Could I do this great honor justice? I have been thinking long and hard about what words of wisdom
I might offer and how might I make this memorable. So I thought, why not think back through the
twenty-five Law School Commencement addresses I’ve sat through since joining the faculty in 1990,
sixteen as Dean and nine as a member of the faculty, and hopefully some themes would emerge.
But a problem surfaced almost immediately. I was having trouble remembering anything anyone
said.
Now, for those that I sat through as a member of the faculty, there is an explanation – I wasn’t
listening. I was sitting in the back row up here reading a good novel. This was pre-Kindle and phone
app days so I’d copy about three hours of reading, trim the pages to fit in the program, and voilá! No
boredom.
But for the last fifteen years I’ve sat up here in the front row, so reading was not really possible. But
folks, that is a great seat, your mind drifts as you sit there, you find yourself just scanning faces in
the audience to see who you might know – sort of your own personal “Where’s Waldo?” But come
on Hobbs, I said to myself, there must be one speech you remember. There were some really
excellent ones.
And then one did come to me, not because it was great but because it was so bad. It was given by
the grand-nephew of Gandhi. He told us that in his youth he had sought out Gandhi at his ashram
and asked him how he might discover the meaning of life. Gandhi pondered his question for some
time and then told his grand-nephew that he would discover the meaning of life by cleaning the
Remarks of Dean Patrick E. Hobbs, Seton Hall Law School Graduation, Class of 2015
toilets. Yes, cleaning the toilets. And for the next twenty minutes he described in detail how he
went about cleaning toilets during his stay with Gandhi. Some of us wanted to head to the toilets.
Failing to find a memorable Seton Hall Law School Commencement address, I thought back to my
own graduations. And there was a memorable one, my own law school graduation from Chapel Hill.
It was given by Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina. Now, most of you are unfamiliar with
Senator Hollings, but he spoke in a classic deep Southern drawl, really quite pleasant to the ear but
for someone from New Jersey, almost incomprehensible. It was like listening to French when you
don’t speak French. Nettoyer les toilettes – Clean the toilets!
So, sitting there in the searing ninety degree heat of Carmichael Auditorium, I leaned forward to
listen, intent on catching Senator Hollings’ pearls of wisdom. But rather than inspire us to do great
things with our law degrees, Senator Hollings chose instead to speak for forty-five minutes on how
we might fix our Social Security system. We kept looking at each other asking, is he serious? Clearly
he had either left Washington with the wrong speech, one he had given on the floor earlier in the
week, or he had a very warped sense of what we might want to hear as law school graduates.
But notice a pattern: I remembered awful speeches.
So I turned to my colleagues on the faculty to see if they could remember any great Commencement
speeches. Oh, of course, they would immediately answer. Ah, excellent! And then as I waited, a
confused look would come over them and then a sense of dejection. In many cases, not only could
they not recall a word that was said, they couldn’t even recall who the speaker was. Unless that is,
the speech was truly awful.
So I stand here before you, having conducted enough empirical research to know that if I do an
adequate job, perhaps even an excellent job, a few months from now most likely you won’t
remember a single word I’ve said. But if I am truly awful, there’s a good chance you will remember
this the rest of your life. Right now I’m leaning toward bathrooms and Social Security reform.
But wait a minute. This is the age of the Internet! We Google things. Well, if you Google “best
commencement speeches,” the first site that comes up is one created by NPR that reads, “The 300
Best Commencement Speeches of All Time.” It then proceeds to list 316 of them. They date back to
1774 but most are more recent. The full address of each is available and in some cases you can also
access a video of the speech. So if you find my words inadequate, or if, like the faculty in the back
row, you are currently reading something on your Kindle app, or if you’re sitting there mindlessly
scanning faces in the crowd, worry not, you can go home tonight and read or watch one of the 300
best! But I warn you, there is not one law school Commencement address among them. So I have
that going for me.
If you do go to the site, let me recommend four of them: Jon Stewart’s 2004 address at William &
Mary, Ali G’s address at Harvard, Conan O’Brien’s 2011 address at Dartmouth and Stephen Colbert’s
2013 address at UVA, not because they are full of wisdom but because they are all laugh-out-loud
funny. But these are talk show hosts and comedians with an army of writers at their disposal.
What about the great intellectuals of our society? Where do their Commencement remarks rank?
Well, if you search the Internet you will find that as the intellectual and academic reputation of the
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Remarks of Dean Patrick E. Hobbs, Seton Hall Law School Graduation, Class of 2015
speaker increases, the worse the speech gets, and the longer. Fortunately for you I’m neither
brilliant nor a noted academic. Unfortunately for you, I’m not Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart. I’m a
Dean, and only for a few more weeks. But I’m free.
So after all this research I couldn’t decide whether I should urge you to save the world or save
yourself, to offer you a modern version of Polonius’s speech in Hamlet to his son, Laertes (you know,
“Neither borrower or lender be. But above all else, to thine own self be true”) or should I just read to
you from Dr. Seuss, Oh the Places You’ll Go. I’ve even been closely scrutinizing bumper stickers and
billboards. There’s one you see everywhere around Newark, it reads “Thinking about graduate
school. Think Seton Hall.” But then you’ve already done that, so I took that off the list.
But then I thought to myself, there are some things you can never hear often enough. So here goes:
1. Come up with your own definition for success in life. Twenty-five years ago I walked away
from the promise of partnership to take a job at half the pay and the result has been an
extraordinary career at Seton Hall, including this incredible moment I’m experiencing right now.
2. Karol Corbin Walker said it yesterday. There is still no substitute for hard work. Despite the
many innovations we have today, the magic bullets for everything from sexual dysfunction to
hair loss, your success depends on hard work. Do not fear it, I’ve done it my whole life and I
don’t regret it.
3. Find time for family and friends. I tell you that not because I’ve been successful on that front
but because I’ve often failed at it and I regret it. I’ve missed a lot but I will strive to be better on
that front in the years ahead.
4. In everything you do – be kind. I have never seen anyone get ahead for very long by being
mean or arrogant. But I have seen some amazingly talented people held back for the single
reason that people considered them to be monumental jerks. I know someone who graduated
Law School almost ten years ago who still hasn’t been admitted for that sole reason.
5. Thank people. Two simple words you don’t hear often enough – thank you. You should be
doing that all day every day, but especially today. I know I will. And you should make a special
effort to thank the people who most appreciate it but don’t hear it enough, like our security staff
back at the Law School. Shake their hands, it will mean even more. Or even better, hug people
when you thank them.
6. The flip side of that – I’m sorry – it’s remarkable how few people today are capable of a
simple apology. Sometimes you need to say it even when YOU ARE NOT WRONG, but especially
when you are, which is more often than you think.
7. Take care of your soul. That’s right, take care of your soul. Pray, even the most committed
atheist does it in hard times. And they’re always shocked it works.
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Remarks of Dean Patrick E. Hobbs, Seton Hall Law School Graduation, Class of 2015
8. Take care of your body. Others have said this to be funny but it’s worth repeating – you only
get one. Exercise and wear sunscreen. There are countless members of the audience who will
agree with me on that one.
9. The last two are my own personal pet peeves. When communicating with others, always do
it face to face when possible and work backward from there. This is a phone, I know many
of you don’t realize that. You think it’s a handheld computer, a way we communicate by thumbs
and a device for taking pictures and listening to music. But the human voice is a beautiful thing
full of nuance, emotion and intelligence. Watch. (Dean Hobbs called his daughter, Ali).
10. Your generation is far better than mine at following the rule “Don’t Drink and Drive.” But in a
study released just this week it found:
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61% of drivers age 16 to 65 text while driving
27% use Facebook
14% use Twitter
17% take selfies
10% use video chat
Put your phones away. Just as surely as you can ruin your life and others by drinking and
driving, you can ruin them by combining this and a car. And while you’re at it, stop bringing
them to the dinner table and into restaurants.
One final thought: don’t ever for a moment think there is a limit to what you can accomplish
with your Seton Hall Law degree.
I’ll close with one Seton Hall story. It’s about a guy I’ve known since he was a little kid. He was never
sure what he wanted to be when he grew up. In college he switched majors more than once. He
even switched colleges. He came to Seton Hall Law School and like 90 percent of you, and me by the
way, he did not graduate in the top ten percent of his class.
After graduating he took a low-paying job at a small firm and he really didn’t care for it. But he
worked hard, he was nice to people, he said “thank you.” He never hesitated to apologize when
needed. He was at all times professional. He got noticed by opposing counsel. One eventually hired
him.
His hard work got noticed again, this time by the General Counsel of Chubb. He hired him and
eventually he became Vice President and Associate General Counsel there. Today he is Deputy
General Counsel of Liberty Mutual Insurance and General Counsel and Senior VP of Liberty Mutual
Global Specialty. He handles matters ranging from the Malaysian airplane shot down over the
Ukraine to the risks associated with climate change. He’s a great dad and husband and I’m pretty
sure he’s met his definition of success in life. He’s met a lot of people’s definition of success. He
graduated from Seton Hall Law and he has never for one minute thought there was a limit to what
he could achieve. I know his story so well because he’s my brother, Joe, and he’s in the audience
today. Joe, thank you for being a great example to the Class of 2015 and one of my heroes.
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Remarks of Dean Patrick E. Hobbs, Seton Hall Law School Graduation, Class of 2015
I have no idea how I’m doing but I hope this hasn’t been awful. And for those of you who think it has
been, I am rewarded with the knowledge that it’s been memorable.
Class of 2015, this is one of the great days in your life. I do want it to be memorable. I really do. In
the hope of achieving that I’m going to ask you to do something now. No, not clean the bathrooms.
Under your seat you will find a large envelope. Please pull it out but don’t open it.
Now before you open the envelope, a few instructions. Inside you will find three envelopes marked
One, Two and Three. Do not open them until I tell you. Open the envelope and take out the three
envelopes now.
Okay, this is one of the happiest days in your life. So I thought back to other happy days in our lives
and thought maybe there was one we could sort of share together again, albeit asynchronously.
Remember your first Happy Meal. Remember this!
Please open envelope Number One. In your hands you have a gift card for a McDonald’s Happy
Meal. Sometime this week I want you to go to a McDonald’s near you and buy a Happy Meal on me.
There is one down the road on Route 21 and one in Penn Station, but I hope your folks have
something better planned for today. So go later this week.
What’s the greatest thing about a Happy Meal? The toy. I want you to take that toy and keep it in
your office on your desk and every time you look at it, or someone asks you why in the world do you
have a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy in your office, you will be reminded of this happy day.
Okay, now earlier I said you need to come up with your own definition of success, that there is no
substitute for hard work, that all the rewards of life will be the result of your applying yourself and
putting in the hard hours of a lawyer. Please open envelope Number Two. In your hands you hold a
Mega Millions ticket for tonight worth $194 million dollars. I have just one request, if you win, it
would be nice if you threw eight or nine million my way, and eight or nine million to your alma mater,
Seton Hall Law School. It’s called tithing.
Oh, look who is paying attention now! No one is reading their Kindle app now. I think the people up
here on the dais are a little jealous? Do you want a Happy Meal and lottery ticket? Okay, okay, reach
under your seats, I didn’t forget you.
But they only get the first two envelopes because this day is about you. One more to go, and this is
more serious. Class of 2015, today marks the culmination of years of effort on your part and
sacrifice by you and many others. You have spent thousands of hours studying the law and in most
cases, thousands of dollars acquiring this degree. The saddest stories I read in the Law Journal are
the ones of lawyers being disbarred for doing something stupid. Just last week a judge was indicted
here in New Jersey for helping her boyfriend avoid a warrant for his arrest, and not for an incredibly
serious offense. She has lost everything. Every year someone loses their license for dipping into
their attorney trust account, even for just a day, or because they hid some document from opposing
counsel, just to keep a client. Don’t ever jeopardize what you’ve achieved today.
Open the third envelope. In your hand you hold a 2015 quarter painted red, in a plastic case. It’s a
symbol. Red means danger. I want you to put it on your desk in your office, next to your Happy
Meal toy. The toy is for laughs and to remind you of this day. The quarter is to remind you that in
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Remarks of Dean Patrick E. Hobbs, Seton Hall Law School Graduation, Class of 2015
times of trouble, or doubt, or jeopardy, I want you to call me. I gave you my cell phone number the
first day of law school. Call me. I’ll get you through that moment.
Class of 2015, I hope you fulfill your definition of success. I love you, congratulations and best of
luck.
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