Stanford sits on the territory of Huichin, the ancestral and unceded land of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, who are the successors of the historic and sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County. This land was and continues to be of great importance to native people. We recognize that every member of the community has benefitted – and continues to benefit – from the use and occupation of this land.

Consistent with our values of community and diversity, we have a responsibility to acknowledge and make visible the University’s relationship to Native people.

Torsten Andreas Kindt (LLM ‘21)

Dear Dean Martinez,
Dear faculty and staff of Stanford Law School,
Dear parents, spouses and partners, families and friends,
Dear classmates,

It is an honor and a pleasure to speak to you today on behalf of the advanced degree graduates. When my classmates and I applied to Stanford Law School, we sure knew that the Silicon Valley—and Stanford in particular—stand at the forefront of digitalization. But little did we know back then that even our very own graduation ceremony would be fully virtual! Yet, here we are, logging in from all parts of the U.S. and the world, be it in the morning, afternoon, evening, or at nighttime, to celebrate one cause: the class of 2021! Wherever—and I may add whenever—you are right now, welcome!

My dear classmates, congratulations! You have mastered a challenging academic program at one of the world’s best universities. You have read—or at least learned how to skillfully pretend to have read—thousands and thousands of pages, written countless exams and papers, fought real cases, edited law journal articles, volunteered in pro bono work and run student associations. This alone deserves praise and recognition. But as if the full law school menu was not enough, you also went the extra mile and had to adapt to circumstances far from ideal for having a happy-go-lucky student experience. You learned—more or less successfully—to mute and unmute yourself at the right time, to raise and lower blue hands (which later suddenly turned yellow), to navigate through breakout rooms and to endure shaky internet connections. Advanced degree students in particular, you even did some of that regularly in the middle of the night! If this is no cause for the conferral of an additional honorary “Zoom”-degree today, I do not know what is. To look on the bright sight, at least you will be able to tell your—or your friends’—children and grandchildren one day that back in your days, people were so laid-back that they went to law school comfortably in their pyjama pants.

But there is more that you will be able tell them, much more. You can tell them that you went to law school with fellow students who were as diverse in their backgrounds and origins, political views and professional interests, religious beliefs and sexual orientation as they were alike in their extraordinary intelligence and deep commitment. You can tell them that you went to a law school where you could learn more from the inspiring person sitting next to you—if only virtually—than from even the heaviest casebook on your bookshelf. You can tell them that you went to a law school that had professors who knew not only your names, but your stories, who opened the doors not only to their classrooms, but to their homes, and for whom teaching was not a nuisance, but a passion – whether they were in their early thirties or in their early nineties. You can tell them that you went to a law school where, when international students faced unexpected visa issues days before their planned arrival in the U.S., the Associate Dean for Advanced Degree Programs, together with the team of outstanding teaching fellows, came up with a creative solution literally within hours—and that in the middle of their well-deserved Christmas holidays. You can tell them that you went to a law school where the staff did not only competently took care of all your school related problems, but did so in a friendly and well-meaning manner that more than once made your day. In short, you can tell them that you went to Stanford Law School.

Of course, all of this comes at a cost. With that, I do not only mean the obvious: When a potential applicant from my home country, who knew Stanford only from pictures, recently asked me whether “the farm” is really as beautiful as a luxury hotel, my honest answer was that it is certainly as expensive as one. But with costs I also mean something else: With every day you stay at this amazing place, the emotional costs of leaving increase. Yet, it is today that we have to face these costs and say farewell—for now.

But while many of us leave with empty pockets, none us of leaves with empty hands. We take with us a sound knowledge of black letter law, but more importantly, the insight that law in books and law in action are often two very different animals. We take with us a sensitivity for the wider economic, political and social impacts of the seemingly technical details that we as lawyers will have to deal with in our day-to-day work. We take with us an awareness that civil rights, democracy and the rule of law are not set in stone, but fragile ideals that need to be defended and fought for every single day, at this university, in this country and elsewhere. We take with us the ability to ask the right questions and to stand to our convictions, however fierce the opposition might be. We take with us mentors and colleagues who will be not our competitors, but our collaborators. And more than anything, we take with us friends who will be there for us in the many situations to come in which we will realize that there is more to life than the law.

Class of 2021, whatever your destination will be: If it is not in California, don’t forget to bring a warm jacket! Seriously, whatever your destination will be, I wish you nothing but the very best. Thank you all for this shared once-in-a-lifetime experience, and again, congratulations!

Lisa K. Muloma (JD ‘21)

Dear Stanford Law School class of 2021, let’s think back to that first week of school.

After the campy feeling of orientation, the fountain hopping and popping of champagne, came the first week of actual class. We were the only ones in the law school since the upperclassmen hadn’t yet arrived.

So that meant our collective anxiety was able to expand and fill every nook and cranny of Crocker Garden and Neukom Terrace and Munger courtyard.

And we terrified each other. In those first weeks, there was definitely some sort of endurance competition in the library as we silently pressured each other to reread the cases just one more time. We didn’t know what we needed to know, so we just tried to know everything. We stayed sharp, we compared ourselves to one another, secretly convinced we were all imposters.

I wrote in my journal a couple of months into law school after a fed lit session:

And I quote,

This season of my life has been about speaking in front of groups for oral argument, freezing up and soaking in the incumbent shame, then getting up to speak again, doing it scared. I’ve been learning how to speak, full immersion in this strange country of people fluent in their own opinions, masters of their own vocabulary, quick to agree or disagree, adept at noticing the gaps in one another’s arguments, one another’s confidence.

Here, half of the language, half of the lexicon is located in the diaphragm, the chest – the forcefulness with which we lawyers-in-training speak. This bass in the voice that law students learn to acquire, a way of speaking that makes whatever we are saying feel declaratory, prescriptive, correct. Being a good lawyer is 50% saying the right thing, 50% making others feel as though they are wrong.

End quote.

I was moody, ok? And I know many of you were too. But then spring quarter came, and Property law was behind us, and it was sunnier, and the musical came and went, and couples started forming, and our life together began to look a lot more like community and a lot less like competition.

We’d gotten to a place where we could enjoy the ecosystem we made up together: crocker garden and the café buzzing, the library quiet and full, Neukom Terrace crowded with random undergrads, the ever-present sunshine. And on Thursday nights came gif-laden emails from the Bar Tsars and we’d get a little dressed up to go stand around at Alpine Inn or dance at the Patio.

I think that’s what we miss. Not the Patio necessarily but just life alongside one another, all of us creating something just by being together in this holding space. And that’s what this past year and a half stole from us.

I spent a lot of time trying to think about how to spin that loss so that it would seem hopeful or worthwhile, but I didn’t really land on anything super convincing. However, hopefully the several class gatherings you’ve attended over the past few weeks have reminded you not only how lovely we all are, but also how annoying and pompous we can be so that you don’t feel quite so bad about moving on.

2020 taught us to take the good with the bad, no matter how formidable the bad things may seem, no matter how small and fragile the good may seem. We receive all of it at once.

• There was an insurrection at the Capitol.
• Zach Winters writes really beautiful sonnets.
• Tech companies have gotten us addicted to our phones.
• Dan Irvin gives 100% on the dance floor every time.
• Black and brown men and women continue to die at the hands of law enforcement.
• Phil Wilkinson has hugged all of us at least twice.
• Our society is at a point where we cannot agree on the facts.
• Ari Andrews cold called our first ever black alumnus and brought her back to campus for a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Black Law Students Association.
• The moral arc of the universe might be bending towards justice, but she’s taking her time.
• Tara Ortman has the singing voice of an angel.
• A global pandemic happened and is happening.
• We’re graduating from the best law school in the world.

The future is here and it’s heavy and expansive and opaque. It’s an honor to walk forward into it with all of you – but especially Nick Wallace. I wish we could just be kids forever, but it looks like it’s almost time to start paying off these loans and maybe even doing some justice. Love you, and congratulations!

Sarah Loecher

Good Afternoon, as class president for the advanced degree students, I am honored to present the Staff Appreciation Award.

This Award is given to a person who has played an integral role in the lives of the graduating students. The Class of 2021 would like to grant this award to Anna Wang.

In her role as Executive Director of the John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law, Anna has helped countless students find their calling in public service careers.

The students expressed their deep appreciation for Anna’s literal and virtual open-door policy where she offered endless guidance and support.

Anna helped the students understand the different paths and opportunities within public interest, connect them with mentors and prepare them for interviews.

Students have described Anna as an ‘invaluable resource’ for leading their careers as public interest lawyers and recount meetings with her as changing their entire outlook and direction in life.

So without further ado, it is my great honor to present Anna with this well-deserved, Staff Appreciation Award. Congratulations Anna.

Anna Wang

First, congratulations to the class of 2021 on your graduation! I also want to congratulate Professor Rabia Belt and Lizy Trujillo on their awards as well.

Thank you so much for selecting me for this honor. I am thrilled to be recognized and accept this on behalf of our entire Levin Center team. I know our collective efforts have helped create a strong, supportive public interest community at SLS and beyond.

It has been a joy working with so many of you over the past three years, even if we spent half of it on Zoom. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me and other Levin Center staffers anytime. We don’t stop working with you just because you’ve graduated. I look forward to hearing about the exciting professional news you’ll have in the years to come and supporting you in those endeavors.

Congratulations again!

Rabia Belt, Associate Professor of Law

Good afternoon everyone. When I heard that I won the Hurlbut teaching award I had three thoughts. I first thought, “oh no, I’m going to have to make a speech!” From the folks that brought you Socratic method, the prize for winning the teaching award is public speaking! But then, the second thing I thought was “oo this gives me a captive audience! And time to talk about important issues such as the merits of Conan the Barbarian, do another criminal law hypo with those wacky characters Gwenyth and Beyonce, and finally talk Professor Ablavsky into adopting a chinchilla!” Greg, you know that Nacho the Chinchilla is waiting for you at the Menlo Park Chinchilla Rescue Society. But then the third thing I thought was [and all of these thoughts happened within a millisecond of each other, I swear!] was THANK YOU. THANK YOU. What an honor it is to win this award. I know how hard my colleagues work to teach you and that I am just a representative of the teachers you have encountered here over the past three years. And as this representative, I am charged with giving this speech, and I’m also charged with saying farewell.

It may feel as if you’ve already left SLS. In the middle of the winter term last year, we disappeared. We were no longer sitting in classrooms in Neukom or Crown, but instead we were faces on computer screens. I know it wasn’t easy, like many of you, my pets crashed my zoom class sessions, I agonized as family members contracted COVID, and I mourned loved ones who passed away. But, we made do. A special thank you to the staff members who worked night and day to scan class materials, move an entire university online, and reconfigure campus spaces. We created a community and you all rose to the challenge. You were as brilliant and insightful on zoom as you were in person. You put on The Munger Games musical, you competed in mock trial and moot court, you represented clients, you edited our prose and footnotes in your journals [sorry about that] you reminded us that black lives matter and that the world outside of law school needs a heavy dose of justice. You made this place your own and it won’t be the same because you were here.

As you are leaving Stanford Law School, I’d like to remind you of why you came in the first place, and the memories of the people you brought with you. For me, this includes people like my grandmother. Like many black women in the south, she worked as a domestic. Every so often, the matriarch of the family she worked for would give her cast-off clothes. One time, as she gave used children’s clothes to my grandmother, she remarked that she gave them because she wanted my mother, who was a child, to look good, because when my mother grew up, she would become the domestic for this woman’s child. As my grandmother digested this conversation, it hit home for her what the future might be, that she would work this job for the rest of her life, and it would be the same for HER children. So, she quit. And, she panicked, because she didn’t have a job, and she had six kids to feed. She discovered an opening for a government job to teach illiterate black adults to read. The one wrinkle though, was that the job required a driver’s license and my grandmother didn’t know how to drive. When she took the driving test anyway, and explained the job situation to the tester, he responded “I hope you get this job and please try not to hit anyone.” That job changed my grandmother’s life. She no longer had to work as a domestic. Her six kids all went to college, including my mother. And now I am here.

My grandmother never had the chance to go to a place like Stanford Law School, indeed, she would’ve never even dreamed of stepping foot in a place like this. Her memory reminds me that I need to fulfill all those unwritten dreams that the ancestors would’ve never contemplated, and to challenge the structures and practices that keep people from living their best lives and create the opportunities and resources to allow people to flourish.

As I’ve been here at Stanford Law School, I’ve added lessons I’ve learned from the people I’ve encountered here. They include people like our beloved late colleague Professor Deborah Rhode. Before she passed, she wrote a book about ambition. Ambition has generated some of the most crucial innovations in human history, and also catalyzed our darkest moments. Deborah worried about ambition as a selfish practice that drove people to compete and dominate everyone else, to elevate themselves over the community. She made me worry, and think. After all, neither I nor any of you would be where we are if we were not ambitious people, but I could remind myself of positive uses of ambition. The ambition my grandmother had to forge a new life for herself and her kids. The ambition of movement activists to link their fates with others. As I’m a historian, I’m reminded of the example of the black women’s club movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s. This time has been described as the nadir of black American history, where the promises of reconstruction had fallen away and black people were mired in Jim Crow and second-class citizenship. Yet these black club women didn’t give up. They formed mutual aid societies that pooled resources and knowledge and challenged racial subordination. Their mantra was “lifting as we climb.” It reminds me that we don’t just work for ourselves, but we also work for the service of others. That success means nothing if you don’t dismantle the barriers that prevent other people from succeeding.

It also reminds me of the importance of community. I have learned so much from you all. Chris Middleton, reminds me that having a strong backbone means learning, growing and changing your mind. Trip Henningson reminds me to stand up for my principles, even if it is costly, and look snazzy while doing it; Michelle Portillo reminds me to keep working and revising and not give up; Tara Ohrtman reminds me to pass on hard earned wisdom to others just starting the journey; Joseph Ingaro reminds me to be myself, because you never know when you’ll run into your crim professor on the first day of school with your swords and you can talk about sword fighting classes together. I could keep going, but I’ve been told to keep this speech short. I would be remiss in not saying, though, some of the times here have left marks that sting, but they are all reminders of why you MUST do the work. And sometimes these bittersweet experiences can age into useful insights that you can put into practice. Also, while some people have many positive supporters, and would have a crowd cheering them on from the audience if this was a normal commencement, that’s not the case for everyone. For those people especially, please hear this, we are your community, we are your cheerleaders, we know you and we will be here when you need us.

A non-lawyer once said, law is reason free from passion. A fictional lawyer corrected him that passion was important, along with courage of conviction, and a strong sense of self. Well, Aristotle and Elle Woods, I think you mostly got it right, but not entirely. Law is about reason, and passion, but it is also about hope. Law binds together communities, it creates the conditions for interconnection, it allows people with very different interests and aspirations to live together with respect and trust. That hope keeps me going. The hope in all of you. As you go out from this place to become lawyers, that you remember what you learned here, both inside and outside of the classroom, that you always work in the pursuit of justice, that you can adapt to inconceivable circumstances, that your success will be our victories. I miss you already but I can’t wait to see what you will do. On behalf of the Stanford Law School faculty,

Congratulations!

Jenny S. Martinez, Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Dean of Stanford Law School

Before you go, it is traditional here at Stanford Law School, as it is at many universities, for the Dean to conclude with a “charge to the graduating class”… a last piece of guidance from the school as you set out into the world as our alumni.

If you were to look in a dictionary, you would find several definitions of the term “charge.”  A charge is “an official instruction, especially one given by a judge to a jury regarding points of law.” It also means to “entrust (someone) with a task as a duty or responsibility.”

So here is my charge to you:  uphold the rule of law. As lawyers, it is your duty and responsibility to uphold the rule of law, and in so doing you fulfill a crucial role in society, for the rule of law is a vital though sometimes invisible thread that is woven through the fabric of society and gives it stability and strength.

I think we can all admit that lawyers are not always held in high esteem.  In Thomas More’s Utopia, they “have no lawyers among them.  For they esteem them a class, whose profession it is to disguise matters” In Shakepeare’s Henry the Sixth, Part II, the rebel Dick the Butcher asserts “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,” a line which drew laughs in Elizabethan England just as it does today.

But societies without lawyers are not utopian paradises.  The World Justice Project, founded by our own alum Bill Neukom, annually measures rule of law around the world in a Rule of Law Index.  The countries at the bottom of the Rule of Law Index (Venezuela, Cambodia and, the Democratic Republic of Congo last year) are deeply troubled societies.  In these places, by all kinds of measures society is in trouble: high infant mortality, weak economic growth, uncontrolled violence, corruption, abuse of government authority and power.  Researchers here at Stanford and other universities are engaged in important study of the mechanisms by which rule of law makes a difference in human lives, but at a rough cut, it is safe to say countries with weak rule of law are not places where ordinary people can flourish.

Last year, for the first time, the United States fell out of the top 20 countries.

In this moment, calling for upholding the rule of law can sound like a political statement.  But I don’t mean it in that way.  I mean it as a description of the professional responsibility of lawyers.

What is the role of lawyers in the rule of law?  Some months from now, after you pass the bar exam, I hope that many of you will return to campus to be sworn into the California Bar.  You will take the attorney’s oath:

“I solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of an attorney and counselor at law to the best of my knowledge and ability. As an officer of the court, I will strive to conduct myself at all times with dignity, courtesy and integrity.”

From then on, throughout your professional lives, it will be your sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.  If you plan not to practice in California, but in some other state, you will take a similar oath.  Lawyers play a special role in upholding the rule of law not just as a formal matter but in ways that create a culture of respect for the deepest values of our society… liberty, equality, due process of law.  When they tell a client the hard news that what they want to do is illegal; when they are honest and ground their arguments in facts and evidence, not wild speculation; when they help resolve disputes rather than create them. When through pro bono work and engagement with professional associations like the bar they help ensure that everyone has access to justice, and when they work to reform laws to make them better.

The rule of law is foundational to American society, and to societies around the world where people seek to live in peace and security.  In the every day, the rule of law depends on a thousand ordinary acts: someone following through on their promise because of a well-written contract; a prosecutor turning over exculpatory evidence; a judge deciding in favor of a less wealthy and less powerful litigant because the law is on their side; a legislative aide carefully drafting a new statute to fix a problem with the old one.  At certain moments, protecting the rule of law can require extraordinary courage: speaking truth to power and personal sacrifice to uphold long term principles over short-term interests.

By calling for the rule of law, I do not mean to invoke an empty formalism, but rather a respect for the enduring structures and safeguards that societies have put in place to ensure that rules and decisions are made in a fair and transparent way and applied evenly to all.  The late Judge Patricia Wald, who was the first woman on the D.C. Circuit and later a judge on the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, explained that law is the “way to translate our most fundamental aspirations and goals for an open and orderly society that treats all people in the community with respect.”  Without the rule of law, those aspirations remain out of reach.

I therefore charge you, the graduates of Stanford Law School class of 2021, with upholding the rule of law.  The world needs you, and I know you are up to the challenge.

Performed by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for this ceremony.