March 2001

Proud to Be a Lawyer

The following text is taken from the commencement address to the graduating class of Seattle University School of Law, December 16, 2000.

When you climb in deep snow, the leader kicks steps up the mountain. Anyone who leads knows that this is exhausting work, so turns are taken. You trudge up the mountain, committed to the task, head down, and most of the time you are looking at the ground in front of you or just ahead of you — mostly at your boots. And then, when you pause for a moment, you find yourself in a high, open clearing, and you look back and gaze down through the low-lying clouds at the world you left behind. In this rare moment you take inventory before you begin to climb again. Sometimes you can see forever. More often you can make out some of the trail ahead along the ridge, but the summit itself is hidden in mist and cloud.

This is such a moment.

Many of you have worked and saved and aspired to this moment. You have stretched and sacrificed; you have genuflected and reflected in churches, synagogues and libraries; you have overcome adversity and self-doubt. As the San tribesmen in their treks hide caches of water in hollowed-out ostrich eggs hidden in the trackless wasteland of the Kalahari, it is time to gather your self from what you have hidden away during your years of study, and in leaking hands, drink until you are restored. One place to start is to acknowledge the essential connectedness you have with people and communities. You have not done this alone — you have done it with the love and support of family, friends, colleagues and teachers.

You are now on a high clearing and you have a moment to look about you. Drink it in. But this is a commencement exercise, so we know that it is a beginning. What do you need to take with you for the summit? Where are you going? Why are we here?

The answer is not cruciferous vegetables. Broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, cabbage. When I turned 40 I had a revelation of mortality. I turned to broccoli. After six months, I decided it wasn't that you live longer, it just seems longer. The true key to immortality lies in this open secret: service to others.

You are at a rare moment of reflection and high achievement. I honor you. At the same time, you are at one of those rare life moments — a point of inflection where your freedom of choice is somewhat greater than at other times. I am aware of the responsibilities to family, friends, life partners, banks, mortgage companies, student loans. As the Pardoner in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales said: "My speche is one and evere was: Radix Malorum Est Cupiditas." My speech is one and ever was: The root of all evil is avarice. What is avarice? It is cleaving too closely to the things of this world. Recall the words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience."

You are already among the most powerful people on the planet — if you have a pair of shoes, a roof over your head, clothing; if you have eaten in the last day and have the prospect of another meal. The essential element of all ethics is this: Ought must be preceded by can. Before you can be morally obliged to do a thing, it must be something you can do. As the most powerful people in the world, you have the most cans and therefore the most oughts.

You are clothed and fed; you are living in one of the most prosperous regions of the world's one remaining superpower — the wealthiest, most powerful country in the history of the planet earth; for the most part you speak English, and now you have added to this incredible treasure trove of good fortune a legal education in a country invented by lawyers. How do I know this? Simple: 31 of 56 members of the Constitutional Convention were lawyers. Of the three great branches of government, half of the presidents, the majority of the Senate, and a huge proportion of the House have been lawyers. Virtually every member of the Supreme Court throughout its history has been a lawyer. Alexis de Toqueville said of America: "All political problems become legal problems." Reflecting on this past year, we can state that of this there can be little doubt. Lawyers invented America, and in recent weeks it sometimes appeared that we were about to take it back.

In truth, the rule of law requires lawyers to act as counselors, pilots and guides. The Constitution is not self-enforcing. Lawyers are needed to give it effect. Our Bill of Rights is a fragile raft of legal "technicalities." So is Leviticus. So, by the way, are the Ten Commandments. What does "honor your father and mother" mean, exactly?

You are educated in the switches and levers of power. You have worked hard and credit must be accepted. But more than that, you are blessed. The answer to the question of how to have a happy life cannot be "to raise myself from the 90th to the 95th percentile in terms of earnings." That cannot be it.

You may remember Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol, where Jacob Marley is told by Scrooge, "Jacob, you were always a good man of business." Do you remember Marley's reply?

"Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; Charity, Mercy, Forbearance, Benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the ocean of my business."

As we reflect on this high, clear place in your life, it is natural to wonder what to do now. Joseph Campbell, in his Hero with a Thousand Faces, wrote: "The hero's journey in the modern world is helping to bring men and women to full human maturity within the conditions of contemporary life." You are lawyers; you are heroes, perfectly situated to fulfill this hero's journey. That is what lawyers do.

The question of how to live has been addressed by the greatest minds of the ages. That is why I turn to the words of others. And since I am citing authority, I might as well start at the top.

Aristotle, in Rhetoric, spoke of three forms of artistic persuasion: ethos, logos and pathos. Law school teaches logos — reasoning through words; the public expects pathos — evoking emotion from others; I urge you to consider ethos — persuasion by character and personality. Make being a lawyer part of who you are; bring who you are into your service as a lawyer. This unity of self and purpose, of personal and professional integrity, will enrich your life and the lives of those around you. We are proud of you. We thank you for undertaking the hero's journey. We thank you for choosing a profession committed to service.

I have heard: "Lawyers' idea of listening is waiting for their turn to speak." I claim no exception for myself.

Theodore Roosevelt, who dropped out of Columbia Law School to enter politics, said:

It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena; whose faces are marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strive valiantly; who err and fall short again and again; who know the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spend themselves in a worthy cause; who at the best, know in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if they fail, at least fail while daring greatly; so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

Let me return you to the mountains once again with these words of W.H. Murray from The Scottish Himalayan Expedition:

Until one is committed there is hesistancy, the chance to draw back — always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues form the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."

Randolph I. Gordon is adjunct professor of law at Seattle University School of Law.

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