The J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University is approved by the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar of the American Bar Association, 321 North Clark Street, Chicago, IL 60654, 312-988-6738.
n 1973, byu Law welcomed its first class of students. This class and other early classes took a leap of faith on the unaccredited new endeavor. In the intervening 50 years, byu Law has become one of the leading law schools in the nation and the world. The school’s more than 7,000 alumni have enjoyed professional success while blessing their families, communities, congregations, and nations. As byu Law celebrates 50 years of excellence, we reflect on the foundational commitments that set the Law School apart.
Among law schools, byu’s aims are unique. Our mission statement reads, “In striving to emulate [the] example [of Jesus Christ], we seek to be and develop people of integrity who combine faith and intellect in lifelong service to God and neighbor.”
With this unique mission, byu Law attracts students whose brightness is reflected both in their academic achievements and in their character. The class of 2026 entered with an average lsat score of 168 and an average gpa of 3.94. These credentials compare favorably with those of students at other distinguished law schools, but they tell only a segment of the story. byu Law students arrive with maturity, valuable life experience, and a strong work ethic. They exhibit integrity and compassion. More than two-thirds speak at least one foreign language. They bring talents and perspectives that prepare them for the global legal marketplace and for service to God’s children around the world.
byu Law welcomes these students not only as future lawyers but as whole people. byu Law faculty are influential scholars as well as engaged teachers. A small student body means faculty members are better able to take interest in individual students, serving as both professional and personal mentors. In class and through rigorous study, students learn the skills that are essential to legal practice, such as analytical reasoning, critical thinking, and oral and written communication. They develop practical skills through innovative experiential learning opportunities, including the byu Law Academies Program, which provides 1L students intensive, simulated practice experiences in cities around the nation and world. Yet a byu Law education extends beyond professional excellence. Students learn values of civility, peacemaking, and pro bono service. They learn to draw on their faith and to develop resilience. They learn to be leaders who follow the model of the Savior, Jesus Christ.
The result is a school that produces attorneys of exceptional skill and character—for the benefit of the one and for the benefit of the world. At its foundation, this is what byu Law is all about.
Marissa Barraza
david h. moore
Dean, byu Law School
1L STUDENTS
(left to right)
Natalie Gunn
Nathan Kaufusi
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by nazila ghanea
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Special Rapporteur for the United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner
This article is adapted from remarks delivered at the J. Reuben Clark Law School convocation on April 25, 2024.
Thank you, Dean Moore, for this wonderful invitation to the Law School on this special occasion. We don’t do graduation in quite the same way in the UK. It may be very irregular for someone from Oxford University to wish for more traditions, but this is a good one!
There are likely a number of reasons why you chose the law as your discipline— motivations both personal and vocational. Law is a calling and not just a vocation. Law serves the pursuit of justice. Never compromise the important conjoining of law with justice as the years pass by. Do not allow yourself to become jaded. Whether you continue along a traditional legal career path or divert into other fields, keep justice as your commitment and your guide. Your pursuit of justice will be critical professionally and in your personal lives. In the short term, you may be called upon to pay a high price for seeking justice and maintaining your commitment to fairness, yet in the long term, the effects of your resolve will be profound. You will build your character as a lawyer, contribute to the foundations of a healthy society, and strengthen humanity.
Justice, of course, does not stand alone and cannot singularly guide us along life’s path. The ends do not always justify the means—and the means of our pursuit of justice cannot run counter to our stated objective of justice.
TRUTHFULNESS must anchor our pursuit of justice. It is the foundation of all virtues. INDEPENDENCE is justice’s partner—the independence to see with our own eyes rather than through the eyes of others.
UNITY is justice’s ally since justice for a few at the expense of the whole proves fragile and short lived.
FAIRNESS is justice’s counterpart and often requires a lot of patience and trust. Fairness can and must embrace everyone everywhere; we should not allow it to be weaponized. It is almost always a work in progress.
We live in a world of spiraling, deepening polarization—polarization upon polarization, division garnering further division. Stand against the whirlpool of polarization and hate! If fairness is being pursued on a platform of deepening polarization and hate, can it succeed? Will it be sustainable? We need to be mindful of these questions and the effects of their answers in the world around us. We can do better than righteous indignation and performative activism. We can be wise to the destructive effects of polarization, othering, and hatred, and we can pursue justice in ways that persuade, educate, and assist societal cohesion. In whatever you do, seek to leave a trace of understanding and of hope. Seek to bind hearts along life’s journey and, where that becomes impossible, at least seek to do no harm and then move on.
You are graduating from a Law School committed to excellence and the full realization of human potential. Service is foundational to giving life meaning. It is not just a one- or two-year thing in our late teens or late career, though of course that is a precious experience that many of you have had. Service can be full-time or integrated within one’s career and family life. Keep the spirit of service as your polar star. Service keeps us humble. Humility is a human virtue that is less in vogue these days, but it’s also a virtue that allows us to keep learning and growing. Your education does not end with graduation from byu Law; rather, your education and learning transition into other forms.
This beautiful occasion has me reflecting back on my various graduations in the 1990s and on what was and was not foreseeable to me at that time. Certain core elements of my dreams and calling survived the changes and chances of life’s journey, and others did not. By the time I was graduating with my doctorate at the tail end of that decade, I’d had a short break from academia, worked abroad for a couple of years, and
Meeting with a delegate on the sidelines of the ipu Parliamentary Conference on Interfaith Dialogue in Marrakesh, June 2023
Passing Afghanistan during a country visit to Tajikistan, April 2023
started down an academic path as a graduate teaching assistant alongside doctoral studies. My fascination with international human rights law as a tool for the pursuit of justice had grown into commitment and was set to shape my career. My doctorate focused on the pursuit of redress for victims targeted purely because of their religion by an imperious state hellbent on scapegoating and on denying human rights. Religious freedom is a universal human right, which has been recognized internationally in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for 75 years as a birthright for one and all, without exception and without any condition, at least in principle and law if not yet in full realization.
Amongst the UN documentation and records that served as my primary sources for research on the Baha’is in Iran were the reports of United Nations special rapporteurs on freedom of religion or belief—independent, impartial experts appointed by the UN to champion freedom of religion or belief for all. I stand on the shoulders of giants—five prior mandateholders whose reports and contributions I’d analyzed for the doctorate and academic work and leveraged with others, including with your faculty, in the pursuit of justice. Life is full of surprises that challenge us to the core and can leave us in awe! I’m grateful to byu Law students and faculty for providing research for the first of my reports in the mandate. Thank you, Dean Moore, for offering that student support.
The mandate provides a wonderful opportunity to serve pro bono. The mandate, which began in 1986, has the remit of freedom of thought, conscience, religion, or belief for all, on an equal basis, in all 193 UN member states. The pursuit of justice for all drives the mandate. Acknowledgment that the ends don’t justify the means guides its tone, priority, and actions. Whilst freedom of religion or belief is not immune from being weaponized and polarized, we try our utmost to avoid these pitfalls because they end up undermining any initiative. We try to be guided by service and to seek the humility to be able to listen deeply, learn continuously, and stand to be corrected. The mandate issues UN communications, intervenes on behalf of those who report violations, reports regularly to the United Nations on themes related to freedom of religion or belief, and undertakes country visits to explore and then report on freedom of religion or belief in those countries. It allows for continuous engagement with a whole range of entities through a wide range of activities.
For decades, byu has supported, mentored, and encouraged the champions of freedom of religion or belief around the world through trainings, conferences, seminars, the Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, publications, and other tireless initiatives that are too numerous to elaborate. This is my main lens on your Law School and your university, and it is very impressive. Your administrative staff, event organizers, representatives at international organizations, editors, and academic staff are a very impressive bunch, and you should be proud of them, as they are of you!
The class of 2024—we are all so proud of what you have achieved and what you will achieve in the years and decades ahead. We are in awe of what you will give in the pursuit of justice. Warmest congratulations to you all! a
By Kevin J Worthen, ’82
HUGH W. COLTON PROFESSOR OF LAW AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF BYU
the to
This article is adapted from remarks delivered at the J. Reuben Clark Law Society Annual Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 23, 2024.
America has an anger problem.1 It manifests itself almost everywhere. There are angry outbursts on airplanes, on the playing field, in our schools and universities, in parking lots, in grocery stores, in our public meetings, sometimes even in our churches, and almost constantly on social media, where anger is encouraged, rewarded, and algorithmically reinforced.
Anger is an emotion that fuels hatred and revenge. Anger is not good for us as individuals or as a society. The adverse effects of excessive anger 2 on individual physical and mental health are becoming increasingly clear. Research shows that anger can harm our heart, our brain, our gut, our mental health, our relationships, and our sleep.3 But most important of all, as President Russell M. Nelson has recently reminded us, anger is harmful to our spiritual development and eternal progress. 4
Lawyers are not immune to either the phenomenon of anger or its adverse physical, mental, and spiritual consequences. Indeed, the adversarial process in which we are engaged often leads to anger and all its accompanying adverse consequences. As one psychologist observed, “Lawyers . . . work with people who are angry: clients who are volatile, co-workers who are frequently upset, opposing counsel who bully or demean, or partners who quickly fly off the handle over what seems like the smallest issue.”5
Advocating Without Anger
So, with that less-than-cheery prologue, what are lawyers to do? Can we avoid anger and its harmful effects while fully carrying out our responsibilities to represent clients in an adversarial process? If so, how?
Abraham Lincoln, in the most quoted lecture that may never have been given,6 famously advised lawyers to consider less contentious ways of advancing their clients’ interests. He wrote:
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser—in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good [person]. There will still be business enough.7
Over the last few decades, efforts to resolve disputes with less animosity and more consideration of win-win outcomes have made some aspects of the practice less contentious.8 In addition, advice and tools to help lawyers deal with anger at a personal level have proliferated. I commend us all to be involved in such efforts. But members of the J. Reuben Clark Society have an even better source of help. As members of a law society bound together by the assertion (and truth) that there is “strength brought to the law by a lawyer’s personal religious conviction,”9 we have access to, and a corresponding responsibility to act in accordance with, guidance provided by prophets, seers, and revelators whom God has chosen to give divine direction to the world in these latter days.
We need to take seriously President Nelson’s repeated invitation to be peacemakers and bridge builders in our church callings, home lives, and professional lives. President Nelson’s “Peacemakers Needed” address at the April 2023 general conference provides clear, prophetic directives to help us avoid anger and its undesirable consequences.10 First, note that he uses superlatives, including “never” and “always.” President Nelson is extremely careful with his word choices. He is not prone to hyperbole or exaggeration. That makes his use of those terms more noteworthy and more powerful. Second, notice that there is no
express or implied “lawyer exception” to his teachings—no suggestion that we are exempt from the full force of these prophetic directives because of our professional roles. As a result of these two factors, full application of the principles President Nelson outlines may be challenging, even counterculture, as prophetic teachings often are.
Lawyers as Peacemakers
With that in mind, let’s examine this threepart statement from President Nelson’s talk: “Anger never persuades. Hostility builds no one. Contention never leads to inspired solutions.”11 First, “Anger never persuades.” Do we as lawyers believe that? We are all familiar with the old advice, “If the law is against you, talk about the evidence. If the evidence is against you, talk about the law, and . . . if the law and the evidence are both against you, then pound on the table and yell.”12 I believe we can—and we should—persuade without anger.
Second, “Hostility builds no one.” Do we as lawyers believe that? When we treat someone with hostility, no one is built up. We can treat someone as a hostile witness without being hostile ourselves.
Third, “Contention never leads to inspired solutions.” “Never,” not just “usually doesn’t”? Isn’t contention the whole point of the adversarial system—to let each side contend against each other and to let truth and error grapple so that justice can prevail? As if to increase the stakes, President Nelson adds,
Make no mistake about it: contention is evil! . . .
Contention drives away the Spirit—every time. Contention reinforces the false notion that confrontation is the way to resolve differences; but it never is. Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice. You have your agency to choose contention or reconciliation. I urge you to choose to be a peacemaker, now and always.13
Some of you may now be wondering whether President Nelson really understands what he is asking of us as lawyers. Does he really know what lawyers do? Let me assure you that President Nelson knows plenty of lawyers, and he is familiar with how they think and how they approach problems. There are three—President Dallin H. Oaks, Elder D. Todd Christofferson, and Elder Quentin L. Cook—in the closest councils with whom he meets regularly. Yes, President Nelson knows what lawyers do and how they operate. But much more importantly, he knows and understands what God does and how God operates, and he understands the divine potential of each of God’s children, including those of us who are lawyers. He also knows that we must be stretched to reach that potential. Our prophet is asking us to stretch ourselves to become better disciples of Jesus Christ, to act “in a higher, holier way”14 and to practice law in a higher, holier way, a way that allows us to engage in a contentious
profession in an angry world without becoming contentious and angry ourselves.
President Nelson makes clear that we do not have to compromise our positions or even agree with others in order to be peacemakers. The key is how we treat others. He invites us to remember the Savior in situations that are highly charged and filled with contention, promising that “[a]s we follow the Prince of Peace, we will become His peacemakers.”15
President Nelson identifies one final principle, which ties all the others together and provides the key to practicing law in a higher and holier way that inclines us to be peacemakers in every situation:
Building bridges can help create the conditions for peace to exist.
Charity is the antidote to contention. . . . . . . The pure love of Christ allows us “to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things” (Mosiah 18:9)—especially in tense situations. Charity allows us to demonstrate how men and women of Christ speak and act—especially when under fire.16
This admonition is tailor-made for the world in which lawyers operate—“in tense situations . . . under fire.”
A Higher, Holier Practice of Law
Some might view as utopian the charge to love those with whom we interact, no matter how they act. They might question the viability of this teaching, especially at a time in which anger is so prevalent and in a profession where others may not respond in kind.
So, what does practicing law in a higher, holier way look like in an angry world and in a profession in which contention is seen by many as standard operating procedure?
Consider the example of a byu law graduate and member of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society whom I have long known and admired and whom I wrote about in Life in the Law:
He is a litigator—a very good one. As you know, litigation is often contentious [and anger-inducing]. On one occasion this lawyer found himself in a deposition involving several attorneys, one of whom repeatedly verbally abused one of the other lawyers, engaging in personal attacks and tirades. [The Clark Society lawyer], somewhat stunned, did little to intervene on behalf of the victim, in part because the issues which sparked the outbursts had nothing to do with his client. That evening, however, he felt terrible. . . . He resolved that he would never again allow that to happen to another attorney or witness when he was present, because he understood the deep truth that we are all sons and daughters of God with a divine nature and destiny.
. . . But the story does not end there. On further reflection [my friend] realized that the abusive attorney was also one of God’s children with the same divine nature and potential as everyone else. He concluded that the laws of God required him to be concerned about this overly zealous and somewhat flawed lawyer as well. . [He resolved to] pray for the well-being and happiness of that—and other—opposing counsel whose own unhappiness spilled out into the lives of others. . While it is not possible to measure the impact these heavenly importunings have had on the lives of his opposing counsel, this attorney[’s practice and life have undoubtedly been elevated by this higher, holier way of practicing law] 17
Other insights into how lawyers can be peacemakers may come from examples in nonlegal settings. Fortunately, lawyers are trained to apply general principles to specific situations and to analogize from one setting to another, so we should be adept at such adaptation. In that regard, you could think about how you might apply to the practice of law the example President
Nelson gave of how differences of opinion are handled among members of the First Presidency, who he reports “are exemplary in the way they express their feelings—especially when they may differ. . . . Neither suggests that he knows best and therefore must rigorously defend his position. Neither evidences the need to compete with the other.”18
Of course, there are times when our professional responsibility or even our own personal beliefs require that we steadfastly defend a position. However, even if we have to be uncompromising on some things, as we surely do, we can still shape how we express those positions so that they evidence respect for others—avoiding ad hominem attacks and resisting the natural inclination to turn a professional disagreement into a personal competition in which we are motivated as much by our desire to defend our pride as by our commitment to obtain the best outcome for our client.
A good first step in this regard is to presume others’ good faith, even when we disagree with them. Don’t presume disagreement as a sign of stupidity or ill will. In a recent program led by Judge Thomas B. Griffith, Justice Sonia Sotomayor shared some advice she received in this regard from Justice David Souter as she began her career on the Supreme Court. He told her, “Sonia, I know life on the court became easier for me when I had an epiphany one day. And that was I get very upset and angry as a dissenter because I couldn’t convince my colleagues of my views. It drove me crazy. At a certain point I realized, they are as passionate about the Constitution, about our laws, about our democracy as I am.” 19 Like Justice Souter, we will be less angry and better able to be peacemakers if we don’t automatically attribute disagreement to bad intent.
Valuing the Win-Win
As we learn and apply these and the other principles found in prophetic teachings, it may change the way we think about the very nature of our practice. Lainey Feingold, one of the key innovators in the structured negotiation form of alternative dispute resolution, once asked lawyers to think more broadly about the common inquiry “What kind of lawyer are you?” She wrote:
What do you say when someone asks what kind of lawyer you are? Maybe you start simple—“I’m a plaintiffs’ lawyer,” you answer, or “I’m a general practitioner.” . . .
Maybe you talk about the size or geographic scope of your firm—“I have a mid-size firm with a global reach;” “I’m a solo attorney with a focus on my local business community.”
These are the “what” answers about our law practices. They are critically important to our identity as lawyers: . . who we are and what we do. . . .
A good first step. . . is to presume others’ good faith.
This article is about something else: the “how” of our law practices. . . . Do we believe lawsuits and a scorched earth approach bring the best results for our clients?
Do we thrill at gambling for the win, or do we value the advantages of the win-win?
And then she poses this question, which may be critical to our acceptance of President Nelson’s invitation: “Do we believe lawyers can be strong advocates and peacemakers?”20
My answer reflects the mission statement of byu Law School, which provides in part, “We are committed to the teachings of Jesus Christ and honor His many roles, including healer, mediator, counselor, peacemaker, advocate, lawgiver, and judge.”21 As so beautifully portrayed in the Jorge Cocco original paintings in the Law School, peacemaker and advocate are both essential and mutually reinforcing roles that Christ plays. I realize there are vast differences between Christ, as a God, and us, as mortal beings. But He commands us to follow Him,22 to be like Him.23 And so, as the byu Law mission statement puts it, we “striv[e] to emulate His example”24—to be advocates and peacemakers.
What if we made peacemaking part of how we practice law? What if we, as members of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, were known as peacemakers? Lawyers who when they walk in the room bring a sense of calm and not anger. Lawyers who others want to work with because of the way they are treated. What if peacemaker came to be part of the kind of lawyer we are? If we, as members of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, truly became peacemakers, it would have a profound impact. As President Nelson taught, “we can literally change the world—one person and one interaction at a time. How? By modeling how to manage honest differences of opinion with mutual respect and dignified dialogue.”25 Do we believe that prophetic assertion? We can, and we should.
One way we can magnify the impact of our peacemaking efforts as lawyers is to accept and act on President Nelson’s repeated request that we build bridges of understanding and cooperation.26 There is considerable overlap between peacemaking and bridge building. It is hard to build bridges of understanding and cooperation if there is not some level of peace. Likewise, building bridges can help create the conditions for peace to exist. But peacemaking is often a more proximate process for resolving and diffusing immediate contentious situations, whereas bridge building is usually a more long-term process that focuses on the future. Both require that we act in higher and holier ways, in peculiar ways that are different from those of the world. More importantly, both tasks require a level of love or charity that causes us to focus more on the well-being of others than on our own need to succeed or be praised or vindicated. There are powerful examples of how love-motivated, long-term bridge-building efforts can profoundly affect both individuals and society; one such example is that involving the over 50-year journey of 14 Black football players from the University of Wyoming.27
Being peacemakers and bridge builders is a challenging task, but it is also one that brings joy and peace. And it is one that is required of disciples of Christ. In the words of President Nelson, “The Savior’s message is clear: His true disciples build, lift, encourage, persuade, and inspire—no matter how difficult the situation. True disciples of Jesus Christ are peacemakers.”28 May we all, as disciples of Christ, become peacemakers by following the example of the Prince of Peace. a
notes
1 See Adam Sternbergh, “The Year We Lost It,” New York Times, late edition (East Coast), Dec. 17, 2022.
2 Social scientists have asserted that anger and outrage can provide motivation for positive social change. One expert noted, “Moral outrage must be closely managed, or it can do more harm than good. . . . Stoking the emotion is easy. Learning how to channel it to useful ends . . is harder. For anger to be productive, at some point, it must stop.” Charles Duhigg, “Why Are We So Angry?” Atlantic, Jan./Feb. 2019, 62–75.
3 See Stephanie Cornwell, “5 Ways Anger Affects Your Health,” Everyday Health, updated Feb. 13, 2024, everydayhealth.com/news/ways-anger-ruining -your-health/; see also Clair Cassiello-Robbins and David H. Barlow, “Anger: The Unrecognizable Emotion in Emotional Disorders,” Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 23, no. 1 (Mar. 2016): 66–85; Chol Shin et al., “Relationship Between Trait-Anger and Sleep Disturbances in Middle-Aged Men and Women,” Journal of Psychosomatic Research 58, no. 2 (Feb. 2005): 183–89.
4 See Russell M. Nelson, “Peacemakers Needed,” Liahona, May 2023, 98–101.
5 Tracey Meyers, “Understanding Anger and Its Impact on Lawyers,” Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, Jan. 7, 2021, masslawyersweekly.com/2021/01/07 /understanding-anger-and-its-impact-on-lawyers -part-1/.
6 “This document fragment was dated July 1, 1 850, by Abraham Lincoln’s White House secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, who collected many of his manuscripts after his death. The note in the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln indicates that Lincoln could have written these observations several years later than 1850. It is not known, however, if Lincoln ever delivered this lecture.” Roy P. Basler, ed., “Abraham Lincoln’s Notes for a Law Lecture,”
Abraham Lincoln Online, accessed Apr. 26, 2024, abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches /lawlect.htm.
7 Abraham Lincoln, “Fragment: Notes for a Law Lecture,” July 1, 1850[?], in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 2 (Sept. 3, 1848–Aug. 21, 1858), ed. Roy P. Basler (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 81.
8 See Lainey Feingold, “Can Lawyers Be Advocates and Peacemakers?” Law Practice Today, Oct. 12, 2017, lawpracticetoday.org/article/can-lawyers -be-advocates-peacemakers/; see also Todd B. Carver and Albert A. Vondra, “Alternative Dispute Resolution: Why It Doesn’t Work and Why It Does,” Harvard Business Review 72, no. 3 (May/June 1994): 120–30.
9 Mission Statement of the J. Re uben Clark Law Society.
10 See Nelson, “Peacemakers Needed.”
11 Nelson, “Peacemakers Needed,” 98.
12 Carl Sandburg, The People, Yes (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1936), 181.
13 Nelson, “Peacemakers Needed,” 99–100; emphasis in original.
14 Nelson, “Peacemakers Needed,” 99.
15 Nelson, “Peacemakers Needed,” 101.
16 Nelson, “Peacemakers Needed,” 100–1; emphasis in original.
17 Kevin J Worthen, “Religiously Affiliated Law Schools: An Added Dimension,” in Life in the Law: Service and Integrity, vol. 2 of Life in the Law, ed. Scott W. Cameron, Galen L. Fletcher, and Jane H. Wise (Provo: byu J. Reuben Clark Law Society, 2009), 51.
18 Nelson, “Peacemakers Needed,” 100.
19 David Souter to Sonia Sotomayor, in Hanna Seariac, “Two US Supreme Court Justices on How They ‘Disagree Better,’” Deseret News, Feb. 23, 2024,
20 Feingold, “Can Lawyers Be Advocates and Peacemakers?”
21 “About byu Law: Who We Are,” byu Law School, accessed May 21, 2024, law.byu.edu/explore/about /who-we-are.
22 See Luke 18:22.
23 See 3 Nephi 12:48.
24 “About byu Law: Who We Are.”
25 Nelson, “Peacemakers Needed,” 100.
26 President Nelson has extended the invitation several times in several different ways. “Ultimately, we realize that only the comprehension of the true Fatherhood of God can bring full appreciation of the true brotherhood of men and the true sisterhood of women. That understanding inspires us with passionate desire to build bridges of cooperation instead of walls of segregation.” Russell M. Nelson, “Building Bridges,” New Era, Aug. 2018, 6.
“We need to work tirelessly to build bridges of understanding rather than creating walls of segregation. I plead with us to work together for peace, for mutual respect, and for an outpouring of love for all of God’s children.” Russell M. Nelson, “We join with many throughout this nation and around the world who are deeply saddened at recent evidences of racism and a blatant disregard for human life,” Facebook post, June 1, 2020, facebook.com /russell.m.nelson/posts/we-join-with-many -throughout-this-nation-and-around-the-world -who-are-deeply-sad/3015443371856412.
“We agree with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s statement that ‘hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.’ It is this kind of love that inspires us to do the rigorous work of building bridges of cooperation rather than walls of segregation and alienation.” Russell M. Nelson, Derrick Johnson, Leon Russell, and Amos C. Brown, “Locking Arms for Racial Harmony in America,” joint statement with naacp officials and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, published on Medium, June 8, 2020, medium.com/@Ch_JesusChrist /locking-arms-for-racial-harmony-in-america -2f62180abf37; see also Martin Luther King Jr., “Loving Your Enemies,” speech given at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, on Nov. 17, 1957.
27 See “The Black 14: Healing Hearts and Feeding Souls,” byu Daily Universe , byu School of Communications, YouTube video, posted Sept. 23, 2022, youtube.com/watch?v=4KMuwB_aj98.
28 Nelson, “Peacemakers Needed,” 99; emphasis in original.
Lawyers, the Law, and the Good Samaritan
BY DENISE POSSE-BLANCO LINDBERG, ’88 / Senior District Judge, Third Judicial District of Utah
At last year’s annual conference, participants examined the question “Who is my neighbor?” from the parable of the good Samaritan. This year we return to the parable to consider the meaning of Jesus’s parting words to the lawyer: “Go, and do thou likewise.” 1
My message to you is that the skills we’ve developed during our legal education and practice provide us with the means and opportunity to make a meaningful difference for good in the world when we accept the Lord’s charge to “go, and do . . . likewise.” However, before I turn to that issue, please bear with me as I take you through a couple of detours that I hope will clarify some preliminary issues raised by the parable.
This article is adapted from remarks delivered at the J. Reuben Clark Law Society Annual Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 21, 2024.
I will begin with the lawyer whose questions to Jesus begin the scriptural account. Next, I will address why the other characters in the story may have acted as they did and suggest what we can learn from the Samaritan’s actions. Finally, I will discuss the ways our legal training and experience have given us unique skills with which we can fulfill the Lord’s directive.
photography by bradley slade
1 THE LAW AND LAWYERS IN THE SCRIPTURES
Many years ago, my husband and I bought a Volkswagen Rabbit. Until then I had paid little attention to the make of vehicles I passed on the road each day. Suddenly, however, it seemed that everywhere I looked I saw VW Rabbits. Granted, at the time those were popular cars, but I am pretty sure that, unlike their flesh-and-blood namesakes, the VW Rabbits had not multiplied exponentially in the weeks following our car purchase. What had happened was that I had become sensitized to their presence on the road.
Similarly, when I began studying law, the scriptural references to lawyers gained salience for me as never before, and I realized how few, if any, of those references painted lawyers in a positive light. That troubled me, so I investigated it and found the following helpful explanation:
In everyday speech, we use the term “lawyer” to mean an attorney, one who represents another in a legal courtroom. The Bible, however, attaches another definition—a religious one. When you encounter the word “lawyer” in Scripture, concentrate on the “law” root. The “law” here is the Mosaic Law, the codified system of rules and regulations meant to govern Israel. . . . A “lawyer,” therefore, was an expert [and] scholar of the Mosaic Law . . . comparable to . . . a doctor of theology[ ,] . . . a very learned man in Jewish religion and skilled in the interpretation and application of the Mosaic Law.2
The Bible Dictionary included with editions of the Bible published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints clarifies that the New Testament term lawyer is “equivalent to scribe, one who was by profession a student and teacher of . . . the written law of the Pentateuch, and also ‘the traditions of the elders.’”3 The phrase “traditions of the elders” is not defined further, but other scholarly sources indicate that this phrase refers to the oral Torah, known as the Mishnah—a series of rabbinical debates about and elaborations on the Mosaic law—and to subsequent interpretive commentary on the Mishnah, called the Gemara. Together, the Mishnah and the Gemara form the Talmud, which Orthodox Judaism considers just as binding as the written law. 4 In short, the lawyer who addressed Jesus was a religious expert, a student of the Mosaic law and subsequent rabbinical interpretations, not a lawyer as we understand the term today.
Biblical scholarship suggests that the word tempted meant something other than what we understand that term to mean today.
As we know, the story of the good Samaritan begins, “A certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him [Jesus], saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”5 How should we characterize the lawyer’s motives? I suspect many of us have read this passage without giving much thought to how the word tempted was used at the time Luke wrote his record. Yet I think most of us would agree that when we come across ambiguous terms in our work, it is helpful to examine how those terms were used at the time the text was drafted. Obviously, no one knows exactly what was in the mind of the lawyer when he approached Jesus with his questions, but biblical scholarship suggests that the word tempted meant something other than what we understand that term to mean today. The first synonyms for tempt in the Bible Dictionary are “test, try, or prove.”6 Another scholar adds, “There are many similar instances in Rabbinic writings of meetings between great Teachers, when each tried to involve the other in dialectic difficulties and subtle disputations [about the law]. Indeed, this was part of [rabbinical practice].”7
Knowing that debating the Mosaic law was a common practice among religious scholars and that this lawyer likely was a religious expert, his question to Jesus acquires a less pejorative inference. At a minimum, I submit there is insufficient evidence to infer an evil motive in the question.8 This detour taught me that as I study the scriptures, I need to be mindful of how word usage has changed over centuries so I don’t graft today’s understandings onto translations of biblical text.
Now, for many of you, what I have said may not be new information, but for me it brought new insights into who the lawyers of the time were and why scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers were so frequently criticized by Jesus.
2 COMPASSION AND MERCY IN THE PARABLE
Iturn now to the principles of compassion and mercy the parable of the good Samaritan teaches us.
While I am a Latter-day Saint Christian and bring that viewpoint to this scripture, the sacred books of the three great Abrahamic faiths—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—all teach that we are to love God and all who would be our “neighbor.”9 Latter-day Saints are taught that love, compassion, and mercy animated the Father’s plan of happiness and the redemptive mission of Jesus Christ. One of the key tasks of mortality is to learn these principles for ourselves and incorporate them into our lives. Indeed, Elder Marion D. Hanks taught that until we understand compassion and mercy in a very personal way, it is to us “no more useful or virtuous than impersonal faith or impersonal repentance or impersonal love.”10 In other words, knowing about mercy and compassion is not enough; to be of redemptive worth, that knowledge must guide how we live each day.
In 2019, Catholic theologian John O’Callaghan delivered a masterful presentation in which he traced the evolution of the Christian understanding of compassion and mercy. O’Callaghan explained that, initially, those terms generally were used to explain God’s relationship to men. Over time, however, the understanding and usage of those terms shifted from explaining God’s grace toward fallible human beings to explaining how human beings respond when they witness another’s suffering. O’Callaghan pointed to the parable of the good Samaritan as a scriptural model of “compassionate mercy [in] the image and likeness of God.”11
The King James Bible refers to the parable’s unfortunate traveler as a “he,” but according to O’Callaghan, in neither the early Greek nor Latin accounts is the person who was accosted by thieves on the road to Jericho described with particularity. O’Callaghan speculated that the reason for the omission was that it did not matter whether the person in need was “a man or woman, Jew or Greek, Roman or Samaritan”; what mattered was that there was a suffering human being and a second being who was moved by compassion and acted mercifully to alleviate the suffering to the extent possible.12
In the parable, the Samaritan never questions who the injured one is or weighs what rendering aid may cost him. Instead, he goes to the rescue, attends to the injured one’s wounds, transports him to safety,
spends a long night personally ministering to his needs, and arranges for the wounded person to receive continuing care. None of the Samaritan’s actions provided him any benefit; if anything, the opposite was true. It was compassion at the sight of an injured person that compelled the Samaritan to act and bring relief to the sufferer.
According to some scholars, in questioning Jesus “Who is my neighbor?” the lawyer was giving voice to an issue that greatly preoccupied the rabbinical establishment of that time because the answer dictated what obligations to another, if any, were created under Jewish canonical law. Over the centuries, hypertechnical rabbinical elaborations on God’s covenant to make Abraham’s progeny His chosen people had created a proud society disdainful of all non-Jews.13 Perhaps that is why, in the parable, neither the priest nor the Levite stop to render aid; instead, they “[pass] by on the other side.”14
Given that history, we can imagine the thought processes of the priest or the Levite upon seeing the injured man: “Who is this person?” “How did he come to be here?” “Is he friend or foe?” Having been stripped of raiment and possessions, nothing would have identified the injured person as a Jew. It is understandable why neither one would have felt a duty to render aid. After all, why intervene and perhaps risk incurring personal danger, or even worse, exposure to a heathen?
From the lawyer’s initial question to Jesus about how to achieve eternal life, we can infer he was a Pharisee because that sect believed in resurrection, whereas the Sadducees did not.15 The Pharisees strictly interpreted Mosaic law and the oral traditions of the elders, and in their quest for purity they “separated themselves from any potential source of defilement.”16 Accordingly, as the parable begins, a Pharisee lawyer would have understood and likely would have agreed with the priest and the Levite’s actions. But, after the parable, the lawyer could not avoid the obvious answer to the very question he had put to Jesus: “Who is my neighbor?” “He that shewed mercy.”17 With this parable, Jesus was challenging those pharisaical practices that gave “exclusive attention to the letter” of the law but, in the process, “destroy[ed] the spirit of the Law.”18 A Pharisee lawyer could not possibly have missed the parable’s anti-rabbinical message.
The skills
In the lawyer’s reluctance even to utter the hated word “Samaritan,” we also see the enmity that existed between Samaritans and Jews.19 Given the Jews’ disdain for Samaritans, isn’t it interesting that in three separate accounts of Jesus’s ministry, a Samaritan is at the center of the story? It is the good Samaritan who is held up as an example of mercy and compassionate service. When Jesus heals the 10 lepers, the Samaritan is the only one who returns to give thanks and praise God for the cleansing miracle.20 Finally, it is to a Samaritan woman with a checkered personal history that Jesus for the first time publicly declares his Messiahship.21 These cannot be coincidences. I believe they reflect Jesus’s rebuke of Judaic self-importance and its narrow and formalistic understanding of the law.22 In these three examples, we also see two other lessons: First, that love, rather than duty, is the true foundation of God’s law. Second, that the gospel message is for everyone, without exception.
3 “GO, AND DO THOU LIKEWISE”
Anyone who has studied law should recognize familiar patterns in the interaction between Jesus and the lawyer. We see how Jesus responds in Socratic fashion to the lawyer’s questions with questions of his own, thereby eliciting answers to those questions from the lawyer’s own mouth. Jesus then illustrates the lesson he is trying to teach with a hypothetical worthy of a law school final exam. And twice during the lesson, Jesus instructs the lawyer to show his mastery of the principles by living in a manner consistent with what he knows. The message of the parable is clear: we are to be merciful and compassionate and, when we see another’s suffering, to do what we can to alleviate it.
Jesus told the lawyer to “go, and do.” These are verbs that call upon us to take affirmative action to serve others.
In a 2012 general conference talk, President Linda K. Burton, who was then serving as Relief Society General President, elegantly summarized a useful approach for all of us to follow when she said, “First observe, then serve.”23 Isn’t that, after all, what the Samaritan did? He observed a need and responded by serving the injured man even though it probably was not convenient and did not fit into his plans. President Burton’s formulation offers simple and effective guidance to all people of faith, but as lawyers, I believe we can and should do more. The skills we have developed through our legal education and practice also provide us the opportunity—and the responsibility—to strengthen society and make this a better world.
Aside from the substantive knowledge we develop in legal practice, our strengths lie mostly in process skills: analytical reasoning, critical thinking, persuasive advocacy,
and priority setting, just to name a few.24 To that list I add two essential but rarely mentioned skills: listening carefully and communicating clearly. These are difficult skills to explain but become obvious when one observes a talented lawyer at work. Almost 75 years ago, John W. Davis, a prominent New York City lawyer, described the lawyers’ work as follows:
True, we build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures—unless as amateurs for our own amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men’s burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.25
What an elegant statement of what a good lawyer does! Let’s look at each point in more detail.
Lawyers smooth out difficulties. As a general proposition, people seek out lawyers because they currently are facing, or anticipate facing, legal issues that could imperil their personal or family welfare, assets, or even freedom. The trigger may be a financial crisis, a divorce, a criminal charge, an eviction, or some other problem. Even when there is no immediate crisis, lawyers help clients assess risk, anticipate problems, explore solutions, and put those solutions into effect. Whether acting as counselors, negotiators, mediators, or advocates, lawyers are society’s problem solvers. We smooth out difficulties.
Lawyers relieve stress. Both in my law practice and as a judge, I saw the emotional toll of legal proceedings on litigants and their families. Court cases are time-consuming, expensive, and often confusing—even for those who are familiar with court processes. Often the resulting stress can be immobilizing. At a J. Reuben Clark Law Society fireside in 2003, President James E. Faust spoke of the satisfaction he experienced from helping “just common folks” who would arrive at his office “distraught and anguished.” President Faust noted how a simple reassuring statement— “I think we can get this matter straightened out”—lifted his clients’ spirits.26
we have developed through our legal education and practice also provide us the opportunity— and the responsibility— to strengthen society and make this a better world.
In my law practice, I represented large institutional healthcare providers. I did my best to serve them competently, but my pro b ono work was more satisfying. I remember how rewarding it was to see my clients’ fears and anxiety turn to understanding and a degree of peace. Years later, as a judge, I became the target of a lawsuit that challenged judgments I had entered in a case. It was then that I really came to understand just how emotionally draining the process can be. I understood how the system works, but there were times when stress still tied my stomach in knots. I will forever be grateful for the skill and dedication of two appellate partners at my former law firm, whose pro bono representation of me over the course of two years culminated in a Tenth Circuit order dismissing the case against me. I know lawyers can and do relieve stress.
Lawyers correct mistakes. Let’s face it, in law as in life, mistakes happen. Our legal system is good, but it’s not perfect. People fall through the cracks. Sometimes justice
fails—with tragic consequences. Examples abound of systemic problems that undermine the promise of equal justice under law. It can be a depressing thing to consider, which is why I appreciate all the good lawyers who have made and continue to make a difference for good in society. Among their number, I count the lawyers at the time of this country’s founding who envisioned and crafted the framework of a new and untested form of government and inspired others to believe it was possible. Those ranks also include thoughtful lawmakers who work to improve the communities in which we live, and crusading lawyers, like those who work on the Innocence Project, which as of December 2023 had secured freedom for 249 wrongly convicted persons.27 And let us not forget the thousands of lawyers who—daily and without fanfare—help their clients resolve their own and others’ mistakes.
Perhaps some of you have visited Monroe Elementary School, one of four segregated elementary schools in Topeka, Kansas, included in the Brown v. Board of Education case. Today it is a national historic site, but the separate drinking fountains and bathrooms marked “coloreds” and “whites only” are still there. They are reminders of the indignities that were once accepted as normal and considered “just the way things are.” I spent an afternoon there some years ago. I can’t fully convey just how moving it was to see what Thurgood Marshall and his small team of lawyers at the naacp fought for and accomplished. I have never been so proud to be a lawyer. As few others can, lawyers help correct mistakes.
Lawyers take up other men’s burdens. Members of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society in chapters throughout the world render untold hours of pro bono service each year. Through your service, you take up other people’s burdens in very real and meaningful ways. As a district court judge, I held regularly scheduled unlawful detainer hearings. Landlords were usually represented by counsel; practically none of the defendants were. Some defendants could not read English well enough to understand the summonses or their legal obligations, having had no prior experience with the system. Frequently, the defendants worked full-time but earned only a minimum wage. Many worked more than one job to make ends meet. Then a cascading set of events would cause them to default on their rent. Often an illness, either their own or that of a family member, for which there was no health insurance coverage, triggered the avalanche of hardship. Because of illness, they missed too much work and lost their jobs. Without employment, what little money they had ran out before expenses did. When they came to court, they were scared.
Each week a few lawyers would come to my courtroom to volunteer limited representation to those defendants. Meeting in the hallway with their assigned clients, they had only a few minutes before the cases were called. Meeting with the landlords’ lawyers, they tried to negotiate the orderly and dignified surrender of the premises. Sometimes those efforts fell on deaf ears, leaving me no option but to grant the landlord representative’s motion for entry of judgment for the amount in default, plus triple damages and attorney’s fees, as authorized by law. Today I acknowledge and pay tribute to those few landlord representatives who, without
disadvantaging their clients, forbore from pressing every advantage available to them under the law. I hope they realize the difference their small courtesies made to those defendants.
Lawyers make possible a peaceful life in a peaceful state. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, one by one the former Soviet satellite states declared their independence. Members of the American Law Institute, the American Bar Association, and others with expertise in constitutional law and in other areas of law responded to calls for assistance. They traveled to the former Soviet bloc countries to lend their expertise to the task of writing new constitutions for those newly independent states. Today we see the result of those efforts in the way democratic principles and the rule of law have taken root in places such as Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and others. byu Law School’s own Cole Durham was among those pioneering experts.
Members of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society in chapters throughout the world render untold hours of pro bono service each year. Through your service, you take up other people’s burdens in very real and meaningful ways.
I remember being thrilled for the citizens of those countries as they took their first tentative steps toward democratic rule. There was a sense of excitement in the air that was almost palpable. Not unexpectedly, there have been ups and downs along that path in the 35 years since those early days of promise. Today there are worrying signs of backsliding because of economic difficulties and the rise of authoritarian leaders. As we know all too well from our own country’s struggles, democracies are fragile; the rule of law does not long survive without constant attention to protecting and reinforcing democratic principles and the basic institutions of society. No professionals are better suited to that task than lawyers. Skilled and righteous lawyers committed to the rule of law are the bulwark against tyranny. We make possible a peaceful life in a peaceful state.
In closing I leave you with this challenge: As people of faith, let us serve our
neighbors with love, mercy, and compassion. As lawyers, let us use our skills to smooth out difficulties, relieve stress, correct mistakes, and lift other people’s burdens, that by doing so we will make possible a peaceful life in a peaceful state. Let us answer this challenge in our hearts and our daily conduct as we commit “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with [our] God.”28 a
notes
1 Luke 10:37.
2 Shawn Brasseaux, “Who Are the ‘Lawyers’ in Scripture?” For What Saith the Scriptures? Nov. 7, 2018, forwhatsaiththescriptures.org/2018/11/07/lawyers -in-scripture/; emphasis in original.
3 Bible Dictionary, s.v. “lawyer.”
4 See Lou Hackett Silberman and Haim Zalman Dimitrovsky, “Talmud and Midrash,” Britannica, Apr. 19, 2024, britannica.com/topic/Talmud.
5 Luke 10:25; emphasis added.
6 Bible Dictionary, s.v. “tempt.” See also Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 8th ed. (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899), 2:234.
7 Edersheim, Life and Times, 2:234.
8 See also Edersheim, Life and Times, 2:234.
9 See the Qur’an 4:36 and 49:13; the Torah, Deuteronomy 6:4–5 and Leviticus 19:18, 34; the Bible, Matthew 22:36–39.
10 Marion D. Hanks, “My Specialty Is Mercy,” Ensign, Nov. 1981, 73.
11 John O’Callaghan, “Aquinas Lecture: How Mercy Became Compassionate,” 2019 McMahon Aquinas Lecture at St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, Nov. 12, 2019, 24, academia.edu/44528851 /How_Mercy_Became_Compassionate.
12 O’Callaghan, “Aquinas Lecture,” 24.
13 See Edersheim, Life and Times, 2:237.
14 Luke 10:31, 32.
15 See Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, American ed., (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1950), 1:314–15. See also Bill Palmer, “Who Is This Lawyer in Luke 10?” Bible Study Mentor, Jul. 18, 2018, biblestudymentor .com/who-is-this-lawyer-in-luke-10/.
16 Palmer, “Who Is This Lawyer?”; see also Bible Dictionary, s.v. “Pharisees.”
17 Luke 10:37.
18 Edersheim, Life and Times, 2:238.
19 Although greatly despised by the Jews, Samaritans generally were not considered to be heathens.
20 See Luke 17:11–19.
21 See John 4:4–26.
22 See Edersheim, Life and Times, 2:237.
23 Linda K. Burton, “First Observe, Then Serve,” Ensign, Nov. 2012, 78.
24 See David H. Moore, “Five Ways Law School Contributes to Life’s True Purpose,” Clark Memorandum, Fall 2023, 2–9.
25 John W. Davis, address at the 75th Anniversary Proceedings of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Mar. 16, 1946; quoted in James E. Faust, “Be Healers,” speech delivered at a J. Reuben Clark Law Society satellite fireside in Salt Lake City, Utah, Feb. 28, 2 003; published in Clark Memorandum, Spring 2003, 7.
26 James E. Faust, “The Study and Practice of the Laws of Men in Light of the Laws of God,” remarks at a J. Reuben Clark Law School fireside, Nov. 22, 1987; published in Clark Memorandum, Fall 1988, 19.
27 Data current as of December 2 1, 2023. See “Explore the Numbers: Innocence Project’s Impact,” Innocence Project, innocenceproject.org/exonerations -data/.
28 Micah 6:8.
by elizabeth clark Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies
“You’re
not one of those idealists, are you?” Not too long ago, I was speaking with a government official about religious regulations in his country and I mentioned international norms and best practices—and this was his response. I recently heard reports of very similar attitudes among high-level leaders of my own government, including the jaded view that constitutional interpretation on weighty matters is just politics.
DANTE TERZIGNI
So why do I tell you this? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (udhr) was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly 75 years ago this year. The udhr recognizes “the inherent dignity . . . of all members of the human family” and describes fundamental human rights that should be protected everywhere by the rule of law.1 Where will it be in 75 more years? Will it matter? I see the future of the legacy of the udhr and our commitments to human rights as dependent on whether we continue to speak up and refuse to give in to the cynicism of our age.
Living the Truth
From 1990 to 1991, I had the opportunity to spend several months in Slovakia (then a part of Czechoslovakia). I lived with a wonderful family and taught English. I stayed over for a Christmas I will never forget. My hosts tried to teach me how to ski, which even little children in Slovakia know how to do. Despite having lived in Utah for more than 25 years, I still have never learned to ski. Over that Christmas break, after three days of trying very hard and falling a lot, I finally learned how to fall correctly. On New Year’s Day, we all sat down in their apartment in front of the television for what was an annual ritual in Czechoslovakia at that time. The president of the country delivered a yearly state-of-the-union address, followed by a rousing performance of Smetana’s great symphonic poem Má Vlast (My Homeland) by the Czech Philharmonic. As we gathered for the address, we recalled the message delivered the previous year—a speech unlike all the other annual addresses that had come before.
In late 1989, the country had gone through the Velvet Revolution, a nonviolent transition of power from communist rule to a government selected by free and
This article is adapted from remarks delivered at byu Law’s International Center for Law and Religion Studies Annual Symposium on October 3, 2023, which celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
MUCH LIKE PLANTING A TREE AFFECTS THE GENERATION AFTER US, OUR MORAL ACTIONS HELP CREATE A FUTURE WORLD THAT IS MORE JUST.
fair elections. Václav Havel had been elected president in December, and his New Year’s speech in 1990 was one of his first major addresses to his country. Havel’s opening—I’ve never heard a better opening—was this:
For 40 years, you heard from my predecessors on this day different variations on the same theme: how our country was flourishing, how many million tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright perspectives were unfolding in front of us. I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you.2
As many of you know, approximately 20 years prior, when Russian tanks quashed the Prague Spring of 1968, Havel led a protest movement known as Charter 77 and spent time in prison. Havel’s time as a dissident led him to write his moving and thoughtful essay The Power of the Powerless. One of his main themes was contrasting what it means to live in truth versus living a lie, and how we all live lies in small ways, out of fear or conformity.3 For example, a grocer might display a patriotic statement in his window not because he believes it but rather because he feels obliged to or because he is worried what his neighbors or the government would think if he does not. Havel explains that living a lie leaves us susceptible to manipulation. In contrast, living in truth, he says, is not just about politics or standing up for things in the political sphere but includes living with honesty in any sphere. Poets, painters, musicians, and ordinary citizens are able to maintain their human dignity when they choose to live in truth. There is enormous dignity in what Havel describes as an attempt to regain control over one’s own sense of responsibility and taking ownership for one’s own life and choices. Living in truth is living with integrity. As I’ve heard it said elsewhere, truth is ultimately something we live, not just something we know.
Maintaining Ideals
What does this have to do with the udhr? Threats to its legacy come from a variety of sources, but in my view its greatest challenge is the cynicism in our world today. Cynics devalue idealistic norms such as human rights or universal rights. They dismiss the degradation of ideals as “just politics” or “just a power play.” Cynics consider truth, equity, and justice as lovely words that are used to hide personal interests or power and to gain leverage over others. International norms and rights are just window dressing for powerful states imposing their views. I will not gloss over or ignore the reality that laws and norms can be used for purely instrumental reasons to exercise power, enforce colonialism, and promote unfairness and injustice—and that this manipulation leads to tragedy. This is very real. But there is a value in laws that transcends mere power and politics.
To illustrate this, I’ll return to Václav Havel and the Charter 77 movement. The movement focused on holding the Czechoslovak government accountable for failing to meet human rights obligations in the international documents they had signed, which were based on the udhr. The protesters’ demand on their government was simple: live in truth and act with
integrity. They essentially said, “Here are the treaties and laws you’ve agreed to; we expect you to implement them.” This confrontation was effective because, as modern scholars have documented, engaging a country in dialogue on specific commitments and abuses can, over time, affect even a hypocritical dialogue partner. An important theory of change in human rights traces how “a process which began for instrumental reasons, with arguments being used merely rhetorically, increasingly becomes a true dialogue over specific human rights allegations in the ‘target state.’”4 This is not inevitable, but thankfully it is not impossible. Law and advocacy can make a difference for good, even when the situation reformers face appears to be a dead end.
I am not suggesting that human rights or the udhr should replace religion and things of transcendent importance. Once again, I’ll quote Václav Havel: “The key to a humane, dignified, rich and happy life does not lie either in the constitution or in the criminal code.”5 But there is still power in having these touchstones of our commitments to rights, something we can all refer to, a vision of what living in the truth would mean for a government or society. When we see remarkable individuals who clearly live in truth, who live with integrity, a Václav Havel, we are all inspired to do better. This kind of honest accountability can strengthen our commitments to the rights we say we protect and the neighbors we say we love. Living in truth can also unlock the power of human rights norms, such as the udhr.
Planting Trees in the Moral Universe
Was the Charter 77 movement successful? Not if you looked at it at the time, or even 10 years after the protests. The signers lost their jobs. Their children lost educational opportunities. Some lost citizenship or served time in prison. But this commitment to human rights, to living in truth, and to holding to ideals set the stage for the eventual peaceful transfer of power and the election of Václav Havel as president in 1989. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”6 Change may be slow. But much like planting a tree affects the generation after us, our moral actions help create a future world that is more just.
The world we live in is rife with injustice, persecution, war, abuse, and unvarnished evil. But as Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.”7 So ultimately, it’s up to us. We all choose every day whether we live in truth or live a lie. When an individual chooses to live more and more in integrity and truth, that individual has a powerful influence in their family, in their community, and in their country. When enough individuals have integrity to respect their commitments, including legal commitments, then a country can flourish and become a powerful influence for good in the world. And if enough countries run their affairs with integrity, then commitments, including human rights, will be honored, making our world more peaceful and stable.
But the choice is ours. Will we give in to the cynicism of our age? Or will we choose to live in truth? My wish is that we may all leave here with more knowledge, with expanded friendships, and with a commitment to live in truth. a
notes
1 UN General Ass embly, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Resolution 217A (III) (Dec. 10, 1948), preamble.
2 Václav Havel, “New Year’s Address to the Nation,” speech delivered at Prague Castle and broadcast on Czechoslovak Television, Jan. 1, 1990, Czech Republic Presidential Website, old.hrad.cz /president/Havel/speeches/1990/0101.html.
3 See Václav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless” (Oct. 1978), in Václav Havel et al., The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe, ed. John Keane, trans. Paul Wilson (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1985), 23–96.
4 Thomas Riss e and Kathryn Sikkink, “The Socialization of International Human Rights Norms into Domestic Practices: Introduction,” in The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change, eds. Thomas Risse et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 28; see also Elizabeth A. Clark, “Advancing Religious Freedom in Different Political Regimes in Theory and Practice,” Talk About (blog), International Center for Law and Religion Studies, June 15, 2021, talkabout .iclrs.org/2021/06/15/advancing-religious-freedom -in-theory-and-practice.
5 Havel, The Power of the Powerless, 77.
6 Martin Luther King Jr., “A Look to the Future,” address delivered at Highlander Folk School’s 25th anniversary meeting in Monteagle, Tenn., Sept. 2, 1957, in The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., vol. 4, Symbol of the Movement, January 1957–December 1958, eds. Clayborne Carson et al. (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), 275; paraphrasing Theodore Parker, Ten Sermons of Religion (Boston: Crosby, Nichols, and Co., 1853), 84–85.
7 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “The Ascent,” in The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–1956, vol. 2, An Experiment in Literary Investigation III–IV, trans. Thomas Whitney (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 615.
Courage to Try
BY ELIZA SMITH-DRIGGS, 2L
isiting assistant professor Jessica Lees had no idea what she would do with her English degree. “I loved research and writing, which are skills I use all the time now,” she explains. “But I found myself nearing the end of my junior year of college unsure how I could put these to use.” Then, during the summer before her senior year of college, she interned with a women’s rights NGO in Geneva, Switzerland, where she got hands-on experience interacting with leaders in global women’s rights initiatives. She saw the impact she could make with a law degree and thought, “I like making arguments. I like helping people. Maybe law school would work.”
While at Boston University School of Law, Lees kept an open mind. “I tried many different things, which is how I ended up in financial services law,” she says. Lees did not have a background in business at the time. In fact, during one of her undergraduate classes, each student took a quiz to determine how entrepreneurial they were, and she got the lowest score in the class. Unfazed, she thought, “I’m simply not a businessperson, and that’s fine!” Little
FACULTY HIGHLIGHT
JESSICA LEES
did she know she would soon become one.
After graduating from law school, Lees practiced financial services law at Dechert LLP for nearly six years. “I’m really grateful for the time I had at Dechert,” she says. “I had great mentorship and the chance to work on sophisticated projects.” She also had the opportunity to provide pro bono legal services to people in her community who needed legal help. While
and I want it to be a part of whatever I do in the future,” she says. Her teaching style appeals to all types of learners. Her classes include discussions, hypotheticals, visual charts, and many other learning formats. Lees tries to give 1Ls opportunities she never had in law school, such as practice problems and practical assessments throughout the semester. She also provides recap slides at the beginning of each class to review and solidify new concepts she taught in the previous class and answer additional questions. “There is no perfect system,” she admits, “but I want to encourage all of my students to feel comfortable enough to raise their hands and give things a try.”
in practice, she particularly enjoyed mentoring junior associates, so refocusing her career on teaching law students was a natural transition. Lees saw a posting on the @ldswomeninlaw Instagram page about a visiting assistant professor position at BYU Law, and she thought, “This is exactly what I’m interested in!” Professor Lees is in her second year of teaching at BYU Law. “I love teaching
Jacob Newell, 1L, validates Lees’s efforts: “Professor Lees is an exceptional teacher. She caters to different learning styles and ensures that each student feels comfortable asking for help.” Rebecca Knowles, 2L, also applauds Lees and her teaching style. “Professor Lees clearly cares about her students and is passionate about her subject,” Knowles says. “On more than one occasion, she has gone out of her way to research something outside of our curriculum just because a question came up in class. Her commitment to teaching and learning beyond the bounds of the exam is a reminder that education is a gift.”
Professor Lees wants students to know they can solve difficult problems. She says, “My teaching philosophy is to not overcomplicate things and to give students the tools and confidence to figure things out.” She does an excellent job of doing just that.
In Demand
BY ROBERT BORDEN, 2L
The faculty at BYU Law School is loaded with heavy hitters. They teach classes, mentor students, publish in prestigious journals, and serve in important leadership positions. They are the lifeblood of the school. Among BYU’s impressive faculty, Professor Aaron Nielson stands out.
Busy is the word to describe Professor Nielson. In the last year alone, he oversaw the Law School’s Global Law Seminar in Dubai. He taught a class on administrative law. He published in the Vanderbilt Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the American Journal of Legal History, and Leading Cases in Administrative Law He reviewed research papers from students who sought his mentorship. He also helped student groups bring speakers to campus and host events. Nielson did all of this while maintaining an of-counsel practice at Kirkland & Ellis.
When someone works as hard as Professor Nielson, people notice. For example, in late 2023, the attorney general of Texas asked Nielson to serve as Texas solicitor general—the state’s lead appellate lawyer. He accepted. While this role requires him to take a leave of absence from teaching at BYU Law, his influence remains. Indeed, Nielson’s inclination to public service embodies the Law School’s mission
statement, which encourages us to be “people of integrity who combine faith and intellect in lifelong service to God and neighbor.”
When the attorney general made the announcement, he praised Nielson’s talent and expertise as “virtually unmatched.” This was no overstatement. After Nielson earned his JD and completed a fellowship at Harvard, he received an LLM from the University of Cambridge, where he focused his studies on institutions that regulate global competition and commerce. He then completed judicial clerkships on the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (Judge Jerry E. Smith), the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit (Judge Janice Rogers Brown), and the US Supreme Court (Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.). Nielson has since spent nearly two decades working in private practice and legal academia.
Yet Professor Nielson’s credentials do not adequately reflect his commitment to helping BYU Law students. In 2020, when the US Supreme Court needed an advocate to argue as amicus curiae in the separation-of-powers case Collins v. Yellen, the Court appointed Nielson. The appointment required extensive research and writing, full briefing, and oral argument. Nielson could have called on many capable and experienced attorneys to assist him; instead, he chose to enlist BYU
FACULTY HIGHLIGHT AARON L. NIELSON
Law students, which allowed them to hone their research and writing skills, develop a deeper understanding of the federal court system, and prepare for appellate practice in ways most students can only dream of. This pattern of extending opportunities to students continues as several prepare to join the Texas Attorney General’s Office as law clerks this summer.
One member of the amicus curiae student team, Kade Allred, ’22, describes his time working under Nielson’s direction as foundational preparation for his career: “Working with Professor Nielson was an absolute privilege. Not only is he one of the most brilliant individuals I know, but he has also been an invested mentor who I have continually looked
to for career guidance. My understanding of the law is so much more profound because of him.” Since graduating, Allred has clerked at the US District Court for the District of Idaho and is now a litigation associate at Quinn Emanuel.
On a personal note, I too have benefited from Professor Nielson’s generous mentorship. When I was struggling with the subject for my substantial writing project, he shared his time and expertise with me. He helped set me on a course that has led to a continuously expanding understanding of the federal rules and courts. What started as a struggle became one of my greatest successes in law school. I’m grateful for Professor Nielson and his commitment to helping students learn and succeed.
Celebrating Diversity
THE FIRST GRADUATING CLASS OF BYU LAW ACHIEVEMENT FELLOWS
BY RACHEL EDWARDS
This year BYU Law School honored the first graduating class of Achievement Fellows. These students were chosen for their resilience in overcoming adversity in pursuit of excellence. While at BYU Law, they contributed their unique perspectives and wide experiences to classroom discussions and enriched the Law School community—and the current fellows are following in their footsteps.
“The Achievement Fellowship was designed with a clear vision: to attract, recognize, and support talented students who, despite encountering substantial obstacles, have qualified themselves for admission to law school,” explains Barbara Melendez, ’97, director of belonging, achievement, and impact at BYU Law. Eligibility for the fellowship is determined through a comprehensive review of each applicant’s history of challenges and disadvantages, such as socioeconomic hardship, disability, immigrant or refugee status, incarceration, health issues, domestic abuse, and substance abuse.
The most important criteria for selection include evidence of personal growth,
initiative, perseverance, and character development. “This initiative aligns with BYU Law’s mission to create an environment where differences are not merely tolerated but are actively celebrated and where every student feels they belong,” Melendez says.
Achievement Fellows receive full tuition for three years, mentoring from experienced professionals in local law firms, and other support as needed. “Generous financial backing from law firms and donors allows these students to dedicate themselves to their studies without the burden of financial insecurity,” notes Melendez. “These students positively impact BYU Law School culture. Their willingness to volunteer, mentor, and support each other—even in the competitive environment
of law school—has fostered a sense of camaraderie among these students.”
Achievement Fellows measure their success not only by their academic achievements but also by how they develop their talents and leadership abilities. Melendez has played a crucial role in supporting the fellows through their law school journey by hosting Sunday suppers, karaoke nights, and other events. “These activities are foundational in building a supportive and cohesive community that extends beyond the classroom,” she says.
In three years, the Achievement Fellows have grown from the initial group of 8 to include 23 students spread across three cohorts. “Seeing our first class of fellows graduate is a profound
moment for us at BYU Law,” Melendez shares. “This is just the beginning. We are excited to see how these graduates will use their skills and experiences to advocate for justice, inspire the next generation of law students, and significantly influence the landscape of the legal profession.”
A Redefining Chance
Raised by his single mother, who worked multiple jobs to make ends meet, Derek Rodriguez, ’24, ran with a rough crowd growing up. “I got into a lot of fights. I went to school because I had to, but it was really difficult for me,” he says. “I never thought I’d end up pursuing higher education. I didn’t see this coming.”
Rodriguez did study at BYU–Idaho, but he soon dropped out, returning home to work at a
left to right: Breeze Parker, Isabella Ang, Jacob Kuamoo, Shubham Shah, Derek Rodriguez, Jordin Annett, Paris Thomas, Macy Shanklin
grocery store, a sandwich shop, a moving company, and a fastfood restaurant. He considered either joining the military or becoming a police officer because neither required a college education. “I didn’t think school was my thing,” he says.
But meeting his girlfriend’s father, attorney L. Richard Humpherys, ’76, changed everything. “I told him that I wanted to marry Sara,” Rodriguez recalls, “and he said, ‘I think you would be a great police officer—I really do. But if you have a degree, you’ll make more money.’”
Humpherys encouraged Rodriguez to resume his college studies and gave him a job as a paralegal, which allowed him to work while pursuing a degree in criminal justice at Weber State University. “Rich didn’t just give me advice; he offered me a chance to redefine my path,” Rodriguez says of his now father-in-law. “He saw potential in me when I saw none in myself.”
What Humpherys saw was a future lawyer. “He told me I was already the kind of person who would be a really great lawyer; I just needed to get my foot in the door with grades,” Rodriguez remembers. So Rodriguez began to aim higher. He excelled on the LSAT and was accepted at BYU Law as a member of the inaugural class of Achievement Fellows.
For Rodriguez, the Achievement Fellowship has not only given him the financial means to pursue his education but has also provided a supportive community of peers throughout law school. “Finding a group of people who have faced challenges and were still pushing forward made me realize that I wasn’t alone in this,” he says. “Trusting that someone can become better than they are and actively helping them to rise is one of the most valuable contributions one can make. Now it’s my time to provide the same support that was once extended to me.”
During law school, Rodriguez worked with the Utah County Public Defender’s Office, and his interactions with clients deepened his commitment to use his education to make a difference in the lives of others. “This path is about more than just me,” he says. “It is about how I can help those facing the difficulties I managed to avoid.”
Rodriguez’s path exemplifies the core mission of the Achievement Fellowship program: to empower students to surmount challenges and reach their fullest potential, benefiting not just themselves but society as a whole.
While at BYU Law, Rodriguez discovered the US Army Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps, which combines practicing law with military service. He is set to enter the JAG Corps in August 2025.
A Remarkable Transformation
Isabella Ang, ’24, moved from Singapore to Provo, Utah, at the age of seven. Struggling to assimilate, she went down
a path of addiction and legal troubles. “I started using drugs in junior high, and at age 18, I began using heroin,” Ang shares. By age 24 she was struggling with methamphetamine addiction and weighed only 82 pounds. She also faced several felony charges and had no home and no money. When her attorney met her for a court appearance, he told her that he couldn’t help her anymore—she had to go to rehab. “It took me three times through treatment to get sober,” Ang admits.
While in a sober-living facility, Ang began taking classes at Salt Lake Community College and then transferred to the University of Utah, where she earned a degree in writing and rhetoric studies. One day she came across an article about Ben Aldana, ’18, a BYU Law graduate who had served time in federal prison and now works at the Utah County Public Defender’s Office. “His story of fighting for his law license in front of the bar was incredibly motivating,” Ang says. “I thought to myself, ‘If Ben can do it, so can I!’”
So Ang set her sights on law school. “Everyone told me that there was no chance I was getting into law school,” she remembers. But she proved them wrong when she was accepted as an Achievement Fellow at BYU Law.
During law school, Ang served as president of the BYU Minority Law Students Association (MLSA), a support group that works to bridge gaps for students from diverse backgrounds. Like Ang, many of these students come to law school knowing very little about law and legal terminology. “I knew about being on
the wrong side of the law,” she says. “Other students knew the names of corporate law firms.” MLSA organizes activities and events, such as panel discussions with minority lawyers who share their experiences with diversity in the legal field. “These events help demystify the profession for those of us who are new to it, providing exposure and career opportunities,” Ang explains.
Preparing for admission to the bar has been a challenging process for Ang. Her mentors, which include Aldana and Professor Carl Hernandez III, ’92, have been helping since her first year of law school to prepare her for an eventual hearing. “Given my background— and learning more about Ben’s experience—I knew this would be problematic,” she says. This collective effort has equipped Ang with the confidence to face the future, which will include a position in the civil litigation practice at Wilson Sonsini in Salt Lake City.
Ang attributes her success navigating law school’s many challenges to the Achievement Fellows program: “BYU Law was willing to give me a chance, and my law school experience has been transformative.” Her journey is a reminder that second chances can lead to remarkable achievements.
Faculty Notes
Clark D. Asay
Creative
Commons Licenses, in EdTEchnica: ThE OpEn EncyclOpEdia
Of EducaTiOnal TEchnOlOgy 117 (2023) (with Rebecca N. Nissen).
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Extra-Legal Uses of TM, N.Y.U. J. Of InTEll. PrOp. & EnT L (forthcoming 2024) (with LeReina Hingson and Stephanie Plamondon).
Kif AugustineAdams Book Review, 72 Historia Mexicana 1949 (reviewing Pablo Yankelevich, Los Otros: Raza, Normas y Corrupción en la Gestión de la Extranjería en México, 1900–1950 (2019)) (with Adriana Santoveña).
Eliminating Pretrial Detention, 104 B. u l rEv (forthcoming 2024).
Catherine Bramble Finding a Better Way: An Alternative Path to Attorney Licensure in Utah, 36 uTah B.J. 12 (2023).
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Effective Requests: How to Write Persuasively, in ThE cErTifiEd advOcaTE parTnErs prOgraM pracTicE Manual (Hayley Brooks Cousin ed., Timpanogos Legal Center 2023).
William W. Clayton High-End Securities Regulation: Reflections on the SEC’s 2022–23 Private Funds Rulemaking, 14 harv. Bus l rEv 71 (2024).
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Private Equity Negotiations, in ThE palgravE EncyclOpEdia Of privaTE EquiTy (Douglas Cumming and Benjamin Hammer eds., Palgrave Macmillan 2024).
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Private Equity Fund Bargaining: What We Know (and Don’t Know), in rEsEarch handBOOk On ThE sTrucTurE Of privaTE EquiTy and vEnTurE capiTal (invited chapter, Brian Broughman and Elizabeth de Fontenay eds., forthcoming Edward Elgar 2024).
Justin Collings The Elites, the People, and Their Court, in ThE lEgiTiMacy Of EurOpEan cOnsTiTuTiOnal OrdErs: a cOMparaTivE inquiry 214 (Marco Dani, Marco Goldini, and Agustín J. Menéndez eds., Edward Elgar 2023).
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Was Nützt Verfassungsgeschichte— und Wem? [What—and Whom—Does Constitutional History Serve?], in ThEOriE dEr vErfassungsgEschichTE 167 (Ino Augsburg and Michael W. Müller eds., Mohr Siebeck 2023).
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Memory as Mantle: Evil Pasts and Judges’ Power in Germany and South Africa, in 2 cOMparaTivE cOnsTiTuTiOnal hisTOry: usEs Of hisTOry in cOnsTiTuTiOnal adJudicaTiOn 71 (Francesco Biagi, Justin O. Frosini, and Jason Mazzone eds., Brill 2023).
Elysa M. Dishman Calling the Shots: Multistate Challenges to Federal Vaccine Mandates, 96 s cal l rEv pOsTscripT 15 (2023).
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West Virginia v. EPA: Major Questions for the Future of the Administrative State and American Federalism, 53 puBlius: J. fEdEralisM 435 (2023).
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Public Availability of Agency Settlement Agreements, solicited essay published by the rEgulaTOry rEviEw (2023).
J. Clifton Fleming Jr. Acknowledging (Celebrating? Regretting?)
Sixty Years of Subpart F, 51 inTErTax 519 (2023).
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2023 Cumulative Update for Students and Teachers to fEdEral incOME Tax: dOcTrinE, sTrucTurE, and pOlicy (5th ed. Carolina Academic Press 2023) (with Joseph M. Dodge, Francine J. Lipman, and Robert J. Peroni).
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Directions for U.S. International Tax Policy: A Response to Hanna and Wilson, 48 J. COrp. L. DigiT 8 (2023) (with Stephen E. Shay and Robert J. Peroni).
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What’s the Problem That Prompted Pillar 2 and Is There a Better Solution?, in Taxing IncOME and COnsuMpTiOn: ThE DEvElOpMEnT Of InTErnaTiOnal Tax Law and POlicy (forthcoming 2024) (with Robert J. Peroni and Stephen Shay).
Kristin Gerdy Kyle What’s in a Name? The Implications of Strategic Naming Choices in Legal Advocacy, univ Of alaBaMa l . and psych. rEv. (forthcoming 2024).
Lisa Grow
“The Great Check”: Reflections on Disaster and Faith, in EvEry nEEdful Thing: Essays On ThE lifE Of ThE Mind and ThE hEarT 169 (Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye and Kate Holbrook eds., BYU Maxwell Institute 2023).
Matthew Jennejohn Gender and the Social Structure of Exclusion in U.S. Corporate Law, 90 U. Chi. L. REv. 1819 (2023) (with Afra Afsharipour).
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Contract Production in M&A Markets, 171 U. Pa. L. REv. 1881 (2023) (with Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati, and Robert E. Scott).
Eric Talbot Jensen
“Attacking” Big Data: Strategic Competition, the Race for AI, and the International Law of Cyber Sabotage, in Big daTa and arMEd cOnflicT: lEgal issuEs aBOvE and BElOw ThE arMEd cOnflicT ThrEshOld 91 (Laura A. Dickinson and Edward W. Berg eds., Oxford University Press 2023) (with Gary P. Corn).
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“Accompanying the Force” in Modern Armed Conflict, in prisOnErs Of war in cOnTEMpOrary cOnflicT 81 (Michael N. Schmitt and Christopher J. Koschnitzky eds., 2023).
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A Century After the “S.S. Lotus” Case: A Modern Understanding, inTErnaTiOnal law sTOriEs (forthcoming 2024).
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Battlefield Artificial Intelligence and War Crimes Prosecutions, TEx. TEch l rEv (forthcoming 2024) (with Makayla Beitler).
Thomas R. Lee Corpus Linguistics and the Original Public Meaning of the Sixteenth Amendment, 73 DukE L.J. OnlinE 159 (2024) (with Lawrence B. Solum, James C. Phillips, and Jesse A. Egbert).
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Triangulating Ordinary Meaning, 112 GEO. L.J. OnlinE 23 (2023) (with Kevin Tobia and Jesse A. Egbert).
David H. Moore Treaty Interpretation at the Human Rights Committee: Reconciling International Law and Normativity, 56 UC Davis L. REv 1311 (2023).
Aaron L. Nielson Congress’s Anti-Removal Power, 76 Vand. L. REv. 1 (2023) (with Christopher J. Walker).
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The Early Years of Congress’s Anti-Removal Power, 63 AM. J. LEgal HisTOry 219 (2023) (with Christopher J. Walker).
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Stephanie Plamondon Smart Patents, 2023 U. Ill L. REv. 419 (2023).
Extra-Legal Uses of TM, N.Y.U. J. Of InTEll PrOp & EnT L (forthcoming 2024) (with Clark D. Asay and LeReina Hingson).
Bradley Rebeiro Frederick Douglass and the Original Originalists, 48 BYU L. REv. 909 (2023).
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A Tale of Two Declarations, 25 u pa. J. cOnsT l 915 (2023) (reviewing Kermit Roosevelt III, ThE naTiOn ThaT nEvEr was: rEcOnsTrucTing aMErica’s sTOry (2022)).
Gladriel Shobe Innovations in IPO Deal Structure: Do Up-C IPOs Harm Public Shareholders?, 69 ManagEMEnT sciEncE 3048 (2023) (with Mary Brooke Billings, Kevin Hsueh, and Melissa F. Lewis-Western).
Michalyn Steele
Our Inescapable Connectedness, in EvEry nEEdful Thing: Essays On ThE lifE Of ThE Mind and ThE hEarT 181 (Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye and Kate Holbrook eds., BYU Maxwell Institute 2023).
Dane R. Thorley
The Failure of Judicial Recusal and Disclosure Rules: Evidence from a Field Experiment, 117 Nw. U. L. REv 1277 (2023).
Lucy Williams
American Exceptionalism as/in Constitutional Interpretation, 57 Ga. L. REv 1071 (2023).
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American Exceptionalism and/ in Affirmative Action, 56 ariz sT l .J. 365 (2024).
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The First Amendment and Constitutive Rhetoric: A Policy Proposal, N.Y.U. L. REv (forthcoming 2024) (with Mason Spedding).
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Making a Mother: The Supreme Court and the Constitutive Rhetoric of Motherhood, 102 N.C. L. REv 395 (2024).
hannon Howard, ’24, had just endured a long cancer recovery when she read an article about a mother of seven children who decided to go to law school. “This flabbergasted me!” Howard recalls. “I showed the article to my husband and said, ‘Why couldn’t I go to law school?’ I expected him to dismiss my proposal, but his answer was ‘I could see that.’ Suddenly, I was studying for the LSAT.”
The notion of going to law school was entirely new for Howard. After earning a master’s in English composition, she taught English at a community college for many years, finding satisfaction in helping students build confidence. “I tried to empower them, telling them, ‘It doesn’t matter that your junior high teacher told you that you’re not a good writer! Let’s start over—you can do this!’” Without realizing it, Howard had become an advocate. After stepping away from nearly everything in her life during her cancer treatment, she came out of that trauma craving new purpose in her life. She knew that her determination to help others would be an important component of her next chapter, and she considered becoming a chaplain or school counselor—before she happened upon the article and decided on law school.
Persistence Pays Off
After three semesters at Arizona State University, Howard came to BYU Law as a visiting student for a semester. She intended to return to ASU; after all, she lives in Arizona, where her husband has a medical practice,
Hard Reset
BY MAREN HENDRICKS
and her youngest child was a high-school junior. But once she experienced BYU Law, she longed to stay. “I felt so accepted at BYU and there is a spirit here that I just couldn’t leave behind,” she explains. “I had to find a way to transfer.”
Howard’s initial request to transfer was denied because BYU policy requires transferring by the third semester. She persisted, and a team of Law School deans ultimately permitted the transfer because she had spent her fourth semester at BYU. Other logistics fell into place. An expanded Provo airport offered cheap nonstop flights to and from Arizona. Two of Howard’s children, undergraduates at BYU, were her taxi service, and she stayed at a friend’s condo close to campus. “The stars aligned for me,” Howard says.
Finding Her Niche Weekly pro bono work on family law cases at Timpanogos
Legal Center has provided an outlet for Howard’s desire to give back. She also serves as a court-appointed mediator for the Justice Courts in Maricopa County, Arizona. After graduation, Howard will join the Child and Family Protection Division of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. Again, Howard marvels at how things have worked out for her. An attorney from that office spoke at BYU’s Lunching with Lawyers series, and Howard ended up interviewing with him afterward. She shares, “He told me that he wasn’t cut out for litigation because he’s not a fighter, he’s a protector. This hit me so hard. That’s me.”
Volunteering has also helped Howard navigate the stresses of law school. “Pro bono work reminds me why I’m here and has made my burdens lighter,” she says. “The BYU Law mission statement, which commits us to emulating Jesus Christ’s role as a mediator, peacemaker,
and advocate—I want to live it.” Howard’s dedication to pro bono work earned her the 2024 Public Interest Service Award with Distinction from BYU Law.
Looking back, Howard laughs about her initial attitude about attending law school: “‘How hard could it be?’ I thought. I had done graduate work. . . . I was humbled so quickly!” Although Howard has often felt discouraged, perceiving herself as surrounded by smarter and more talented peers, she acknowledges, “These feelings of inadequacy help me see other people who need to be seen. This is another one of those unexpected blessings.”
Howard’s capabilities grew during her cancer battle, and she knew that with the Lord’s help she could meet any challenges along her law school journey. “Sometimes we do have these jarring trials,” she says. “But they reset us.” Howard is convinced that when we commit to helping others, the Lord uses us: “He will put us where we need to be. And He will put people on our path to help us get there. If we are willing to serve His children, the Lord helps us a hundredfold. He expands us.”
The Crucial Role of Mediation in Dispute Resolution
BY RODRIGO SENATORE, LLM ’24
isputes are an inevitable thread in the complex tapestry of human interaction. Whether arising from business transactions, family matters, or interpersonal conflicts, disputes have the potential to disrupt the delicate balance of relationships. In the realm of law, the traditional adversarial approach has long been the go-to method for resolving conflicts. However, in recent years, mediation has emerged as a powerful alternative, offering a path to resolution that prioritizes collaboration over confrontation.
Finding Common Ground
Mediation is a voluntary and confidential process in which an impartial third party, the mediator, facilitates communication and negotiation between disputing parties. Unlike litigation,
which often escalates tensions and strains relationships, mediation encourages open dialogue and empowers parties to find mutually acceptable solutions.
The mediator, trained in the art of conflict resolution, guides the participants through a structured conversation aimed at identifying common ground and crafting agreements that address the underlying issues.
One of the primary benefits of mediation is the preservation of relationships. Unlike courtroom battles that can leave scorched earth in their wake, mediation fosters a collaborative atmosphere that encourages parties to work together toward resolution. Collaboration is particularly crucial in business and family disputes where ongoing relationships are often at stake.
In mediation, each party actively participates in negotiating an agreement rather than being subject to the decision of an arbitrator or judge. At the
conclusion, both parties can experience the satisfaction of having their voices and concerns acknowledged, leading to a mutually agreeable solution. Over the course of my decadelong career as a police officer, I have witnessed firsthand numerous cases when the decision to pursue mediation proved to be a transformative choice. Time and again, I have observed positive outcomes when parties allow mediators to actively engage in the resolution process.
Promoting Speed and Economy
Litigation often drags on for years before a final decision is reached—and even longer if the decision is appealed. Additionally, litigation can accrue substantial costs in attorney’s fees. While arbitration, in which a neutral third party makes a binding decision in a private setting, provides many benefits, mediation offers a streamlined and costefficient alternative to both litigation and arbitration.
The rise of mediation signals a paradigm shift in the legal landscape. Courts and legal professionals have
begun to recognize the value of mediation and incorporate it into their repertoire of disputeresolution tools. Many jurisdictions now require parties to attempt mediation before pursuing litigation, acknowledging the efficacy and efficiency of this alternative approach. Furthermore, mediation is flexible and can be applied across a broad spectrum of disputes, from civil and commercial matters to family and community conflicts. This adaptability is another reason why mediation is driving a fundamental evolution in the way we approach conflict resolution. In a world where conflict is inevitable, a tool that fosters collaboration, preserves relationships, and provides cost-effective and timely solutions is a powerful option in the legal arsenal. As we navigate an era that prioritizes hostility over harmony, mediation stands as a beacon of hope, guiding individuals and communities toward resolutions that transcend the adversarial norms of the past. Embracing mediation’s transformative potential is not just a legal choice; it is a commitment to building a more harmonious and interconnected society.
LEGAL TECHNOLOGY TIP Legal-Specific AI Tools
By Nick Hafen, ’19, Head of Legal Technology Education, BYU Law
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Generative AI, powered by large language models (LLMs), is reshaping legal practice. While it’s tough to keep up with the pace of change, attorneys should understand some fundamentals before using generative AI. Traditional legal research relies on search algorithms designed to surface the “best” or “most relevant” documents. Generative AI algorithms, however, do not search a database— instead, they predict likely next words in response to a user’s
PRACTITIONER TIP
query. For example, a traditional search for “the capital of France” will retrieve documents containing the words capital and France; an LLM will instead predict Paris because those words have a particular statistical relationship in the LLM’s training data.
LLMs produce likely sequences of words, not true sequences of words—LLMs don’t have a method of evaluating what is “true.” The two overlap often enough, as in the Paris example, that general-use LLMs can be very useful, but they are not accurate enough for many legal tasks. The law relies on authoritative text, not likely text.
For tasks that demand precision, lawyers should turn to legal-specific generative AI tools like Lexis+ AI, Paxton AI, Casetext’s CoCounsel, or
The Ten Commandments of Litigation Practice for Young Lawyers
By Daniel M. Livingston, ’82, Partner, Payne & Fears LLP
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I. Thou Shalt Not Procrastinate. Serve your client best and reduce risk by preparing filings and responses long before their actual deadline. Allow time to edit, reflect on, and refine your work. File a day before the deadline in case of unforeseen problems.
II. Thou Shalt Be Prepared. If you aren’t the smartest person in the room, you had better be the most prepared. There is no substitute for fully mastering the facts and law applicable to your case.
III. Thou Shalt Not Overreach in Thine Arguments.
Credibility is your most valuable asset as an advocate. Shrillness, exaggeration, and superlatives do not win arguments.
IV. Thou Shalt Not Underestimate Thine Enemy. Opposing counsel may appear to lack intellect or a sterling résumé, but they might be crafty and streetwise. Don’t be smug.
V. Thou Shalt Be Courteous in Communications with Opposing Counsel. Your professional reputation is priceless and will precede you. Judges
vLex’s Vincent AI. These tools use a technique called retrievalaugmented generation to search for documents relevant to a user’s query and then instruct an LLM to answer the query based on the retrieved documents. The output typically consists of a synthesis of the relevant sources and links to the underlying documents. The linked documents will always be real because they are pulled from a database, just like traditional legal research. But the synthesis could still contain errors because it’s created by an LLM. You might think of legal-specific generative
AI tools as smart-but-inexperienced junior associates. Plenty of legal work doesn’t require the precision and accuracy of legal research. Generaluse LLMs like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude are most useful where precision and authority are relatively less important, such as in summarizing documents, drafting correspondence, and revising text. Think of these tools as smartbut-inexperienced interns. While lawyers need to be aware of ethical obligations and rules about generative AI imposed by employers, clients, and courts, using these tools can improve lawyers’ lives and businesses. Lawyers must strike a careful balance between embracing innovation and maintaining the profession’s high standards.
client’s position by showing weakness or conceding any of your valid points.
VIII. Thou Shalt Omit Needless Words. Write in short, declarative sentences in the active voice. Be brief.
dislike contention in verbal and written communications. Advocate with reason and respect, not with emotion or vindictiveness.
VI. Thou Shalt Show Respect to the Court, Clerk, and Bailiff at All Times. Be early to your hearings and treat the court staff with deference. In oral argument, address only the court, never opposing counsel. Always say “your honor” and “the court” when addressing or referring to the judge.
VII. Thou Shalt Show Confidence in Thy Position to the Court and Opposing Counsel. Conviction is not arrogance. Never betray your
IX. Thou Shalt Keep Clients Fully and Accurately Informed. This is an ethical duty. Show the client that you care about the case and that your work for them is valuable. Return all emails and calls promptly. Don’t overpromise or sugarcoat your client’s position. Take responsibility for any shortfalls.
X. Thou Shalt Play by the Rules of the Firm. Keep partners informed of your work. Submit your billable time every day accurately and with clear descriptions. Be available to your colleagues. Never expose the firm to sanctions, bad publicity, or any claim of malpractice.
NEW TO THE LAW SCHOOL
FACULTY
Dayle Elieson
Elieson is the former United States attorney for the District of Nevada and the former chief counsel for the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. She has also served as counsel to the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary and as assistant United States attorney for the Northern District of Texas. At BYU Law, she will focus her teaching on litigation skills, government practice skills, and simulation courses and labs.
Tyler Lindley
A graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, Lindley was previously a research fellow at BYU Law and will join the BYU faculty after clerking for Judge Gregory G. Katsas of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Starting in the summer of 2026, Lindley will take a one-year leave of absence from the Law School to serve as a law clerk to Justice Neil M. Gorsuch on the United States Supreme Court. Lindley’s areas of scholarship include judicial remedies, federal courts, constitutional law, and administrative law.
RESEARCH FELLOWS
Annika Boone Barkdull
After graduating from Harvard Law School, Barkdull clerked for Justice Thomas R. Lee of the Utah Supreme Court and Judge Ryan D. Nelson of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She then joined Schaerr Jaffe LLP in Washington, DC, where her practice focused on First Amendment litigation. Barkdull’s research centers on law and religion.
Kathryn Blair
Blair received a JD from Stanford Law School and is completing her PhD in history at Yale University. Prior to studying at Yale, she worked as an attorney, focusing on international trade and investment law. Her research interests include law and empire, sovereignty, citizenship, and the international system.
Jane Mitchell
Mitchell practiced corporate law at Kaye Scholer LLP and is founder and CEO of the Reset Foundation. She holds a JD from Columbia Law School and an EdM in educational leadership from Columbia University’s Teachers College. Mitchell is completing her PhD at NYU while teaching transformational leadership at BYU Law.
Charity Wyatt
Wyatt is a senior associate in the Executive Compensation, Employment, and Benefits group of Latham & Watkins LLP; she was previously at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. Wyatt received her JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. Her research interests include executive compensation and employment law.
Anxiously Engaged
HIGHLIGHTING THE GOOD WORK OF BYU LAW’S STUDENT
ORGANIZATIONS
Fostering Well-Being
This year the BYU Law Student Well-Being Club (LSWC) supported students by planning events that brought students together, organizing help for students in need, and creating initiatives that promoted belonging and well-being. One of those initiatives was a belonging challenge. Over 10 days, the club presented religious and secular messages centered on belonging and coupled them with reflection questions. Students were challenged to ponder them and then gather to discuss them each day. Participants reported that the challenge blessed them and increased their desire to foster Christlike service by being more inclusive and kind. LSWC continues to sponsor its Mental Health and Wellness Allies program, which mobilizes help for law students in need.
Honoring Public Service
The Government and Politics Legal Society (GPLS) hosted several events this year, welcoming elected officials, attorneys who work in government, and candidates for public office. One event, cohosted by Women in Law, featured a panel of female leaders that included Becky Edwards, Tami Tran, Tracy Nuttall, and Brooke Gledhill Wood. Each talked about the vital role of women in public service and advocacy. This spring, GPLS held the 42nd annual State and Local Government Conference at BYU Law. The society honored Utah governor Spencer Cox with the Distinguished Service Award, which was presented by Elder Larry Echo Hawk and accepted by Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson on the governor’s behalf.
Stumping the Professors
Women in Law (WIL) held many events this year that provided resources and connections to the women of the Law School. One of WIL’s favorite annual events, Stump the Professor, was a great success, raising just over $2,200 for the Refuge Utah, a local crisis center for women and children. WIL was also excited to join with other student groups and outside organizations this year, which allowed them to help plan and manage several larger events. Partners included the Government and Politics Legal Society, the Minority Law Students Association, and Women Lawyers of Utah.
Promoting the BYU-NYC Pipeline
The New York Law Society connects BYU Law students with mentors and job opportunities in the nation’s premier legal market. Many students are eager to start their careers in the Big Apple, and there are many firms who are keen to hire BYU Law students. This year the society prioritized building relationships with major New York law firms by hosting firm visits to BYU. In November, John Vetterli, a partner at White & Case, visited campus, and in January, students enjoyed a virtual visit from members of Clifford Chance law firm’s recruiting team and Tanner Schenewark, a BYU Law alum and former New York Law Society president.
Respecting the Constitution
The BYU Law student chapter of the Federalist Society seeks to enhance students’ understanding of individual freedom, the role of the courts, and the US Constitution. The chapter invites speakers with wide-ranging political views
and varied judicial philosophies to speak, debate, and answer questions from the student body. In September, the chapter welcomed Tad R. Callister, a retired attorney and former Sunday School general president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who spoke on the Constitution as a divine document that warrants respect. In March the society was honored to host Judge Amul R. Thapar of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Judge Thapar discussed his recent book, The People’s Justice, about US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Celebrating Shared Experiences
The BYU Law Black Law Students Association (BLSA) enjoyed a year focused on legal advocacy, meaningful dialogue, and celebration. The association’s Black History Month speaker Goldburn P. Maynard Jr., assistant professor at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, shared how tax policy impacts equality in the United States. Another event featured a panel of Black BYU Law alumni who shared insights into navigating the legal field. BLSA closed the school year by hosting a dinner to honor members of the 2024 graduating class.
Donate to the BYU Law Academies
BYU Law’s 1L Academies provide intense, week-long, hands-on experiential learning. In 2024, 87 1Ls participated in eight different Academies: Startups (Palo Alto), Deals (New York), Immigration (Salt Lake City), Trial (Dallas), Energy (Houston), Restructuring (Chicago), Corporate Compliance (Los Angeles), and Chancery (Wilmington).
“Now in our fourth year of the Academies, we’ve seen amazing results in job placement, career focus, and professional development. Please make a one-time or recurring gift to help provide this important experience to all our incoming 1Ls.”
—
DAVID MOORE, BYU LAW DEAN
“The Academies program singlehandedly changed my career, and I couldn’t have attended if it weren’t free for students. I will be earmarking all my donations to support the Academies.”
—ELIZA
SMITH-DRIGGS, 2L
Choose the “Law School Student Experiential Learning” fund on this webpage to help support the Academies.
BYU Law Forums
EXPLORING EXCELLENCE AND INSIGHTS
--------------
BY MAREN HENDRICKS
Causes and Consequences of Temporary Leadership
Utah Court of Appeals at BYU Law
BYU Law students became real-world appellate advocates before the Utah Court of Appeals in a special argument session held in BYU Law’s moot courtroom. The four-judge panel included BYU Law graduates David N. Mortensen, ’93, John D. Luthy, ’00, and Ryan D. Tenney, ’03, as well as Harvard Law graduate Amy J. Oliver. Oral arguments included two criminal-law appeals. The first case examined the improper admission of character and hearsay evidence; the second objected to a stream of questions that led a witness to invoke her privilege against self-incrimination nearly 50 times before the jury.
Becca Barker, Ryder
Seamons,
Paige
Skousen, and Jaden Steeves, all 3L BYU Law Trial Advocacy team members, were prepared and poised. As they were peppered with questions, each team member presented clear arguments and impressed the court. Judge Tenney lauded the students’ briefs and oral advocacy.
Afterward, the judges shared advice for future trial attorneys. They advised, “Answer the question! Even if it’s not to your advantage.” Judge Luthy emphasized that judges “arrive leaning,” and, consequently, briefs are more important than oral argument. Judge Tenney agreed, observing that “the podium can create tunnel vision.” But these BYU Law students were anything but blinded—they were exemplary.
Anne Joseph O’Connell, Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, shed light on why acting, unconfirmed “stand-ins” are leading so many federal agencies. More than 1,200 positions in the federal government require presidential nomination and Senate confirmation, and many of these positions remain vacant after months—even years. Why?
O’Connell pointed to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, which directs that a departing leader’s first assistant become the default acting leader. Rather than providing
a transition to permanent leadership, the Vacancies Act instead creates an easy limbo with powerful inertia. O’Connell posited that swelling ranks of stand-in leadership reduces the number of federal government positions that require presidential appointment and Senate confirmation. Should leaders promoted by default have a limited tenure as provided for in the Vacancies Act, or does the Constitution’s Appointments Clause permit a lax approach? The current mix of default leadership (per the Vacancies Act) with an indeterminate end (per the Appointments Clause) is a perplexing status quo.
Lincoln: A Heroic, Problem-Solving Lawyer
Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, delivered remarks focused on the Constitution and Abraham Lincoln’s legacy. Amar views the Constitution as the most democratic event in history, with its ratification in 1788 marking the beginning of the modern world. “That was the big bang,” he said, bifurcating world history into BC (“before the Constitution”) and AD (“after the document”).
Previously, only Britain and Switzerland were self-governing— the rest of the world was governed by tyrants or royals. Now, Amar noted, “half the world
is self-governing.” The US Constitution, while imperfect, proved a solid foundation for the new union, and it has been a lodestar for the world.
The Constitution’s shortcomings, most notably its provision for slavery, have required its successive amendments, which have improved the text over time. The US has also compiled what Amar called “an unwritten Constitution” of “unenumerated rights” gleaned from American consensus and custom that is ultimately reflected in legislation and court decisions. He observed that “reading between the lines” of the Constitution is essential because the written Constitution didn’t come with an interpretive guide.
Amar voiced his dismay that America isn’t living up to its potential and isn’t fulfilling its duty as a democratic leader in the world. He cited the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol building as particularly troubling. “I am more worried about my country now than I was 10 years ago,” he admitted. Getting back on track will require our leaders to emulate Lincoln’s commitment to solving difficult problems and achieving compromise.
“Spend time with Lincoln— you’ll like him,” Amar urged. He also advised students to “diversify your news feed” and “befriend people who disagree with you . . . , who think differently than you, and actually talk to them and force yourself to hear stuff that doesn’t comport with what you think.” Amar observed that law schools are doing a better job of encouraging this essential congeniality and open-mindedness, telling law students, “[You’re] my biggest hope.”
Chip Wars: The Impact of Geopolitics on Technology Policy
The US and China are in an intense battle for technology supremacy, and semiconductors are at the center of it.
“If you were advising a tech company, how would you help them navigate US-China relations?” Greg Slater, ’90, vice president and senior director of global regulatory affairs for Intel, posed this question to BYU Law students. Navigating international relations, Slater
The Value of Dissent
Judge Patrick J. Bumatay of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered remarks as BYU Law’s Jurist in Residence, with a focus on the value of incisive, powerful dissenting opinions in shaping Constitutional dialogue, future jurisprudence, and legislation. Judge Bumatay championed the essential role of dissenting opinions in improving the law, citing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s scathing but respectful dissent in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. (2007) and its influence on discriminatory pay legislation enacted only two years later. History can prove dissenters right, he noted, and promote the legitimacy of the US Supreme Court even when the majority gets
said, involves predicting regulatory trends by identifying the decision-makers and analyzing their motivations.
A whirlwind review of China’s priorities over the past five decades highlighted China’s increasing emphasis on national security and selfreliance. Slater pointed out that both priorities are achieved by becoming a technology powerhouse.
China is not only a manufacturing juggernaut focused on exports; it also represents an enormous consumer market for US companies. In recent years, however, China has favored “secure and controllable” technology products from indigenous companies over imports. These Chinese technology companies are heavily subsidized, and they have flourished. Supply-chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic brought US dependence on Chinese suppliers—especially semiconductor suppliers—into sharp focus. Legislation aimed at strengthening domestic semiconductor manufacturing, research, and design, coupled with recent restrictions on exports of advanced, AI-capable computing chips to China, seek to reverse US reliance on China and guard US military capabilities. “US tech restrictions are here to stay,” reasoned Slater.
it wrong. A brief history of the US Supreme Court’s evolution— from the seriatim opinions under Chief Justice John Jay, to the unanimous per curiam orders in 93 percent of cases under Chief Justice John Marshall— contextualized the modern Court’s hybrid approach, in which multiple concurring and dissenting opinions may accompany a majority opinion.
The proliferation of dissenting opinions does not signal
acrimony on the Court, Judge Bumatay said, but rather reflects a recognition that voicing opposing views can help to focus the majority, provide transparency in Court decisions where outcomes are controversial, and educate the public. These considerations inform his own careful dissents, which he crafts while keeping law students—future advocates and judges—in mind.
The Silver Lining of Adversity
A line from Shakespeare’s As You Like It—“Sweet are the uses of adversity”—set the stage for BYU Law forum remarks from Judge Milan D. Smith of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Smith spoke on how setbacks for several historical figures paved the way for their extraordinary contributions.
William Blackstone, who was denied a professorship at Oxford, devoted himself to studying English common law. His resulting treatise Commentaries on the Laws of England became one of the great resources in the Western legal world.
Crafting AI Prompts
“We are not in an AI winter anymore. It’s late spring,” declared Dazza Greenwood, researcher at the MIT Media Lab and executive director of law.MIT. edu. In real time, Greenwood used a student inquiry about using AI to amend a patent to demonstrate how detailed inputs can generate astonishingly accurate results. The AI model proposed the very changes that had been made to avoid a patent lawsuit.
Historically, law has not been an ideal space for AI because results were generated in a logical, decision-tree flow, while legal answers are nuanced and require judgment. “Now what we have is well-suited to the legal domain,” Greenwood said. The key is to give the AI model as much context as possible to yield the most accurate results. Greenwood recommended “utility prompts” that give specific orders and fine-tune the
George Washington, who was fatherless at age 11 and had no hope of receiving a formal education, joined the military. At his mother’s insistence, he declined a plum opportunity in the British Royal Navy. Instead, he served as a military officer in many disastrous battles of the French and Indian War, gaining military, political, and leadership skills that would be invaluable during the American Revolution.
US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor struggled to find a job after graduating from Stanford Law School in 1952, because law firms were
results by specifying a purpose and the desired formatting. He admitted, “I take great joy in creating enormous prompts!”
Greenwood urged students to use AI to validate understanding and brainstorm ideas, but he warned, “Do not copy and paste results—ever.” Assessing AI-generated results for accuracy is essential and requires expertise. This necessity, Greenwood observed, is good news for law students: “Law school is still really important because the legal world needs capable shepherds.”
not hiring women. She initially worked without pay as a deputy county attorney and then got into politics. Her government work was instrumental in her eventual appointment to the bench; as the first female member of what she labeled a
“small firm—of nine,” she paved the way for female attorneys for generations to come.
Judge Smith also shared his own experience with adversity’s silver lining. In 1991, he resigned in protest as vice chair of California’s Fair Employment and Housing Commission after the governor vetoed legislation permitting sexual harassment victims to collect monetary damages. His resignation was instrumental in his appointment to the Ninth Circuit 15 years later. Judge Smith advised students, “Bad things aren’t necessarily disastrous; they can be a pathway to something else that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.”
Addressing Inequality with Tax Policy
“Inequality is a complicated, seemingly unsolvable paradox,” warned Goldburn P. Maynard Jr., Indiana University assistant professor of business law and ethics, at BYU Law’s Black History Month lecture. Inequality is inherent in our world, he observed, and striving for greater equality creates tension because it requires that we treat people differently. “I’m not going to pretend that inequality and wealth distribution are easy issues,” he admitted. Does improving equality mean that everyone should have the same starting point, resources, or opportunities?
Taxation is an imperfect but powerful tool for redistributing wealth to promote greater resource equality. Maynard championed several “big idea” tax policies that are difficult politically, including a higher inheritance tax. Other policies that have been proposed to remedy inequality are cost
prohibitive, such as ensuring a universal minimum “inheritance” for all, or are constitutionally problematic, such as race-based opportunities. Yet Maynard pointed to the Earned Income Tax Credit and the expanded Child Tax Credit as successes that demonstrate progress. “This is ultimately political will,” he said. “Greater equality is not impossible, but it’s a dance.”
What We’re Reading
TWO BYU LAW PROFESSORS SHARE
WHAT’S ON THEIR BOOKSHELVES
Jesus Is the Question:
The 307 Questions Jesus Asked and the 3 He Answered
By Martin B. Copenhaver
Reviewed by Shima Baradaran Baughman, ’04, Woodruff J. Deem Professor of Law and Distinguished Fellow at the Wheatley Institute
Law students are perennially frustrated by professors who ask questions in a Socratic manner. Law professors are also infamous for not providing answers to questions students pose, forcing students to instead figure out the answer themselves through dialogue. But was this teaching style truly made famous by Socrates? Is it really a cruel and unusual way to teach law?
I recently read a book that explains how this Socratic question-and-answer format is the way our Savior, Jesus Christ, chose to teach. In the book, Jesus Is the Question: The 307 Questions Jesus Asked and the 3 He Answered by Martin B. Copenhaver, the author reviews the four Gospels and studies the questions Jesus asked, the questions He was asked, and how He answered—or didn’t answer—questions.
Copenhaver reports that, as recorded in the Gospels, Jesus asked 307 questions and was asked 183 questions. Of the 183 questions He was THE DOCKET
asked, Jesus gave only eight direct answers, preferring by far to give indirect answers. Copenhaver writes that “Jesus is almost 40 times more likely to ask a question than he is to give a direct answer.”
However, of the eight questions He answered directly, three of them are arguably the most important. First, “How can I have eternal life?”—to which Christ answered, “Keep the commandments” (see Matthew 19:16–17). Second, “What is the most important commandment?”—to which He answered, “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor” (see Mark 12:28–31). And third, “Are you the Messiah?”— to which Jesus responded, “I am” (see Mark 14:61–62).
We can follow the way Jesus taught in the way we teach others at Church and at home. Helping someone find answers through diligent study and thought often helps them retain the material longer and personalize its meaning. May we emulate our Savior, Jesus Christ, in all ways, including how He chose to teach during His time here on Earth.
Holding Fast to Dreams:
Empowering Youth from the Civil Rights Crusade to STEM Achievement
By Freeman A. Hrabowski III
Reviewed by David L. Armond, ’04, Assistant Dean for Information Technology at BYU Law
Freeman A. Hrabowski III was 12 when he first heard Martin Luther King Jr. preach at his church in Birmingham, Alabama. King’s stirring message was that children’s actions could impact the future, and he encouraged participation in the Children’s Crusade—a march in which hundreds of youth assembled for a peaceful antisegregation protest. He anticipated that news coverage of children jailed for taking part in the protest would outrage the nation, and indeed the incident produced a groundswell of support for the civil rights movement. Hrabowski’s parents, however, were worried. They initially refused Hrabowski’s request to participate in the Crusade, and his reaction got him sent to his room. But the next morning his parents relented, explaining, “We have prayed all night, and we are going to put you in God’s hands.”
The book recounts Hrabowski’s subsequent march, arrest, and incarceration. It also highlights Hrabowski’s love for his parents, ministers, and teachers, including his high school principal, who was ordered to expel the Crusade
marchers. His principal, however, chose to invite the arrested children on stage during a National Honor Society ceremony as he quoted from Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience. Hrabowski’s parents and others in his community taught him to work hard and dream big. He dedicates his book “to the black teachers in the ‘colored schools’ in the Birmingham public school system . . . because they understood our dreams and worked to make them come true.”
In graduate school, Hrabowski found his vocation helping African Americans succeed in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). As vice provost and then president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, he developed a program that recruits high-performing students and teaches them to listen to advice and analyze it, to think critically and ask questions, to empathetically contextualize others, and to adopt an empowered mindset and take responsibility for setbacks.
Hrabowski concludes with a challenge for all educators to heighten students’ critical thinking through broader exposure to STEM courses. Although he has focused his energies on African American student success, his vision includes all people who want to learn.
A Look at Six BYU Law Graduates
BY RACHEL EDWARDS
Dual-Degree Dynamo
Discovering BYU’s joint JD/ Master of Accountancy program was a pivotal moment for Jenner Berryhill, ’24. “I found out that BYU Law is one of the very few law schools offering this joint degree,” Berryhill explains, “and I thought, ‘Why not apply?’” He worked hard to prepare for the LSAT and nailed the score he needed for a scholarship; it all just felt right, and he never looked back. Berryhill has been pleasantly surprised by the supportive and friendly peer environment at BYU Law: “What stood out to me was the collaborative spirit among students despite the
competitive environment. I wasn’t expecting that!” Law school has also bolstered his confidence. “Every semester brought its doubts,” he says, “but each hurdle I overcame reaffirmed my ability to think like a lawyer and tackle whatever comes my way.”
BYU Law professors, including Curtis Anderson and Mike Moesel, have been instrumental in shaping Berryhill’s preparedness for the legal profession. “The courses at BYU Law broadened my understanding of areas such as venture capital and capital markets. During my summer internships, firm associates appreciated my familiarity with these subjects,” he explains. Drafting classes also honed practical abilities that have served Berryhill well. His 2L summer with Kirkland & Ellis focused him on antitrust law. “Antitrust combines my interests with my strengths,” he says. “The strong emphasis on economics keeps me engaged, and each day brings new insights into various industries and products.”
Following graduation, Berryhill is set to join the corporate antitrust practice group at Kirkland & Ellis in New York City.
Inclination for Innovation
A mock trial in fifth grade inspired William Emery, ’24, to pursue a legal career. “It was the most fun I’d ever had in school,” he says. Originally from Granville, Ohio, Emery earned degrees in English and government from Georgetown University. During his time there, he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and married his wife, Brynlee Paige. At BYU Law, Emery has found the integration of legal education and faith enriching. “BYU Law instills the understanding that law is fundamentally a service-oriented profession,” he says. “A legal education isn’t just about advocacy skills; it’s about shaping you into a better person.”
Emery has been instrumental in driving legal technology initiatives at BYU Law, making significant contributions to the Law, Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship (LITE) Group and the LawX Clinic. When the Global Legal Hackathon, a competition focused on innovative legal solutions, ended in 2022, Emery and a group of fellow students approached the Law School administration about organizing a similar event. He recalls, “We established the LITE Group and decided to host our own competition. Student teams competed to design a solution to an accessto-justice issue affecting pro se litigants navigating the Utah legal system.”
Now poised to embark on a corporate law career in Delaware with Potter Anderson, Emery is eager to apply his affinity for innovative problemsolving to the world of commercial disputes. “The firm I’m joining specializes in providing a platform where corporations can resolve problems arising during mergers and acquisitions,” he says. “I enjoy tackling complex puzzles and advocating for a solution.”
Executive Energy
Tasked with acting in a legal drama in her seventh-grade drama class, Carly Madsen, ’24, found herself captivated. “I was filled with righteous indignation for my side!” she remembers. “That was what first got me thinking about becoming a lawyer.”
Madsen earned an undergraduate degree in political science and a master of public administration. She moved to Washington, DC, to work with Running Start, a nonprofit focused on fostering young women’s political ambitions. When the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly had her working from home, and in anticipation of the birth of her daughter, Madsen moved back to Utah. With family nearby, and with encouragement from lawyers she met during her time in DC, she decided it was time
byu Law instills the understanding that law is fundamentally a service-oriented profession.
—william emery
to tackle law school. Her only regret: “I probably should have done BYU’s JD/MPA program. I could have saved time and money!”
At BYU Law, Madsen has been a powerhouse, leading multiple organizations at once. Helming Women in Law and the Government and Politics Legal Society, Madsen led initiatives that have broadened access for women in law, leadership, and public service. Her work with Project Elect, a nonpartisan nonprofit encouraging Latter-day Saint women to participate in public service, reflects her conviction in the transformative role women can play in leadership and community improvement. “I want to encourage more women to recognize their qualifications for public service roles,” she says. “They already have the skills they need to make a positive difference in their communities.”
While interning at the Utah County Public Defender’s Office, Madsen discovered a worthy outlet for her energy, empathy, and deep commitment to justice. She says, “I am motivated to protect people’s rights and make a difference in individuals’ lives. Although I can’t fix every problem, I’m dedicated to helping defendants navigate their legal battles.”
Powerhouse Pioneer
Tatenda Makanza, ’24, a firstgeneration law student from Zimbabwe, arrived at BYU Law with a solid educational foundation: master’s degrees in political science and in ethics, peace, and global affairs from institutions in Geneva and in Washington, DC. At BYU Law, Makanza served as a Leadership Fellow, a position that blends legal education with leadership training through mentorship and service. Her contribution to the 2023 BYU Law and Leadership Conference on well-being in the legal field stands out as a highlight. Makanza also participated in BYU Law’s Leadership Study Tour, traveling through New York, Delaware, and Washington, DC, to visit key institutions, including the US Supreme Court and the Delaware Court of Chancery.
An internship with Justice John A. Pearce of the Utah Supreme Court offered her a close look at the appellate court system. “The time spent with Justice Pearce was invaluable,” Makanza says. “He was always ready to explain complex legal principles, enhancing my learning and my understanding of appellate court operations.” Her participation in the Startups Academy in Palo Alto, California, was also formative: “The academy offered hands-on experience in the legal profession, increasing my knowledge and expanding my career options.”
Law school has broadened Makanza’s perspective on how legal skills can be applied in various sectors to create meaningful change. “Prior to coming to law school, my vision of helping people was through public interest,” she says. “Law school taught me that you can make a positive impact in many areas of law.” She notes that her vision of public-interest work has expanded to include impacts in corporate law, real estate, and cross-border transactions. “My legal education has opened up many pathways, each offering unique opportunities to make a meaningful difference in my community,” she says.
Corporate Competence
“The day after graduation, I plan to relax!” After working as a tax and corporate lawyer for three years in Guatemala, then earning a US law degree from BYU, Roberto “Luis” Maldonado Estrada, ’24, will have earned a few days off before he studies for the Texas bar exam and joins the corporate law practice at Kirkland & Ellis in Dallas.
Navigating the cultural contrast of life in the US and the unique environment at BYU has been a positive experience for Maldonado. BYU Law has been a good fit for him. “People are so welcoming regardless of where you come from or your beliefs,” he says. “I have never felt like an outsider— I’ve felt like a member of the community.” Maldonado has also worked to transition his thinking from Guatemala’s civil law system to the US common law system, which has required him to grasp new legal principles and adjust his mindset toward the law. “My property class was difficult because there are common law principles that don’t exist in the civil law system. My contracts class was easier for me because I took law classes in Guatemala that touched on similar principles,” he says.
Participating in the inaugural International Commercial Arbitration Academy in Singapore further expanded Maldonado’s worldview. “In international arbitration, the way you write and argue needs to fit a worldwide audience,” he explains. “Learning how to adjust my approach to match these international practices was an interesting challenge.” Maldonado also managed the labyrinthine requirements for student visas and work visas on top of the normal stresses and logistics of landing a job. He leaned heavily on BYU Law’s Career Development Office and its robust alumni network in finding work opportunities. “Thanks to BYU,” he says, “I am returning to the practice of corporate law as a more-complete and morecompetent attorney.”
Bankruptcy Big Leagues
“Law school made me feel really capable,” says Maddy Sharp, ’24. She is confident that she chose the right career path. After earning her undergraduate degree in art history at BYU, Sharp spent two years working as a paralegal at a litigation firm. She arrived at BYU Law primed to learn.
Sharp served as president of the New York Law Society,
My legal education has opened up many pathways, each offering unique opportunities to make a meaningful difference in my community.
—tatenda makanza
focusing on mentoring firstyear students and connecting them with opportunities at large New York law firms. She was also a teaching assistant for first-year courses, where she coached students on examtaking strategies and demystified the testing process. “I tell students that doing well on law exams is like understanding how to play a game well,” she says. “It’s not just about knowing the law; it’s about knowing how to apply it effectively when it counts.” Sharp also underscores the importance of resilience and adaptability: “Each semester offers a fresh chance for growth. Grades are just a gateway. What truly matters is learning and growing from each experience.”
With roots in Florida, Sharp has focused her career ambitions on the East Coast. She will clerk for Judge John T. Dorsey at the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware before joining Skadden in New York City. These opportunities align with her interest in bankruptcy law, a practice area she gravitated toward after being inspired by her 1L contracts professor, Brook Gotberg. “Unlike corporate litigation, which can be solely about money, bankruptcy involves negotiation and aims for the company’s survival,” Sharp explains. “A bankruptcy practice will require me to advocate for my clients while working towards a positive outcome for everyone involved.”
Finding a Louder Moral Voice
BY DAVID A. CHANNER , ’85
Associate General Counsel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Over the past 35 years, the J. Reuben Clark Law Society has grown throughout the world on the shoulders of men and women of great capacity: students, lawyers, judges, and benefactors. Importantly, the Society includes members of many different faiths. All are welcome! We live in perilous times—we need one another. The battlefield is set and the forces of good and evil are mobilizing.
When the signers of the Declaration of Independence placed their names on that document in the summer of 1776, they believed they were signing their own death warrants. Benjamin Franklin, one of the signers, purportedly said, “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”1
A dramatic statement to be sure, but I think it conveys the seriousness of what we are up against now.
Speaking Up to Defend Liberty I have been asked to say a few words about the Law Society’s future. I wish I could see the future more
clearly, but having some understanding of the past, I can project a few thoughts as to where the Law Society must go and where it must not go.
The mission statement of the Law Society could not be more striking:
We affirm the strength brought to the law by a lawyer’s personal religious conviction. We strive through public service and professional excellence to promote fairness and virtue founded upon the rule of law.2
The mission statement invites all lawyers and law students of all faiths to join its ranks. Few organizations in the world bring faith and law together and ask that an attorney’s practice be guided by his or her faith. Its vision, its mission, and its outreach are outward-looking, uplifting, and edifying. The Law Society’s eye is upon religious conviction, fairness, virtue, and the rule of law. Now more than ever the world needs the influence of its members, appropri-
ately expressed and applied in measured tone and dialogue.
The Law Society’s future must include aid and succor to the underserved, the vulnerable, and the downtrodden. These are our brothers and sisters who are often without means to help themselves and are too often treated unfairly under the law. This is why Law Society members must become the leaven in the loaves of legal bread throughout the earth.
Society members must be prepared to discuss moral issues and their religious liberty implications. The time is coming when the Law Society and its members will have to take an even bolder stand in defense of religious freedom and moral values.
Preserving Moral Values
The Book of Mormon illustrates how waning morality leads to legal corruption. In the book of Helaman we read about the state of the government that King Mosiah entrusted to “wise men to . . . judge this
people according to the commandments of God.”3 It was in shambles 60 years later:
Yea, they began to remember the . . . words of Mosiah; . . . And that they had altered and trampled under their feet the laws of Mosiah, . . . and they saw that their laws had become corrupted.4
For as their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction, for the laws had become corrupted.5
We see this same corruption of laws in our own society today. I could provide an extensive list of such corruptions, but I will mention only two, and these concern the intersection of parental rights with religious and moral liberty.
Montgomery County Public Schools
This article is adapted from remarks delivered at the J. Reuben Clark Law Society Leadership Conference on September 28, 2023.
Many of you will be familiar with the recent case Mahmoud v. McKnight, colloquially known as the Montgomery County Public Schools decision. A Maryland public school board incorporated a collection of storybooks featuring LGBTQ characters into the elementary school curriculum. Parents of diverse faiths sought a preliminary injunction requiring the school board to give them advance notice and an opportunity to opt their children out of classroom instruction involving these books or other instruction relating to family life and human sexuality. The US District Court for the District of Maryland denied the motion.6
The case has been appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In the meantime, this Maryland county has woven themes and imagery typically reserved for sex education classes into ordinary elementary school subjects—and then barred parents from opting out their children. We will see what future courts do with this controversy, but it is a disturbing outcome based on laws that have become morally corrupt.
California’s Child Custody Bill
Recently, the California State Legislature passed a bill, AB 957, dealing with child custody. Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill, but its passage reflects the moral values of the legislature representing our nation’s most populous state. The digest of the bill provided, in relevant part, as follows:
Existing law governs the determination of child custody and visitation in contested proceedings and requires the court, for purposes of deciding custody, to determine the best interests of the child based on certain factors, including, among other things, the health, safety, and welfare of the child. This bill, for purposes of this provision, would include a parent’s affirmation of the child’s gender identity or gender expression as part of the health, safety, and welfare of the child.7
Under such a bill, it is not far-fetched to think (and some would argue it was the legislature’s intent) that a parent who, for religious or other reasons, believes that facilitating gender affirmation is not in their child’s best interest could
and would be denied custody and visitation rights. It is important to note that ideological values drive cultural values and cultural values ultimately drive legal values. Thus, I believe there will come a time, and perhaps it is upon us, that the Law Society and its members in countries all over the world will be called upon to protect religious and moral freedoms in many nations. These freedoms include the rights of parents to raise their children according to their own faith traditions. This will be hard work. It will require decent people to listen in good faith to one another, to consider the merits of opposing positions, positions that will be sincerely held, and to mold an acceptable outcome. We should consider how to prepare for—and help others prepare for—this burgeoning conflict.
Feeling Through the Fog
I was in the audience in 1985 when Elder Boyd K. Packer delivered the commencement address instructing us that our BYU education was intended to help us to not only “think everything all the way through” but also “feel [our] way through.”8 He went on to caution that we would be moving “into a world where few people think deeply enough about the issues which affect them. Fewer yet feel deeply about them. And fewer even than that think and feel with balance and maturity.” Finally, he warned:
Morality is a very unstable and a very transparent element. Shake it very hard, and it will evaporate. It will crystallize again only when the climate is prepared in the mind and in the heart of a human soul. It
will solidify into public decency only when increasing numbers of men and women and their children join hands and invite it to stay.9
It should be the work of the Law Society to help produce the “increasing numbers” who will invite and help morality to stay. It should be the work of the Law Society to contribute to both thinking things through as lawyers and also feeling things through as moral leaders. Perhaps lawyers have become too focused on the academic or overly concerned about sophistication. Perhaps we have allowed the speed of life to forestall deep reflection. Or perhaps everything has combined to make us not willing enough or courageous enough to state that some truths are immutable and objective. I wonder whether we are failing to “feel our way” through some very important issues. Some may disagree with me—whether as to the cadence of the march or as to its direction—but it seems to me that we are moving from a society in which moral and decent laws allow religious freedom to flourish, to a society in which indecent and corrupt laws are becoming the norm and, consequently, religious liberty, morality, and virtue are increasingly constrained. There also seems to be heightened emphasis on an anything-goes, you-do-you approach to life. This mindset does not promote maintaining high moral ground. As we move into the future, the J. Reuben Clark Law Society must hold fast to, and even strengthen, its mission to affirm faith and promote fairness and virtue under the rule of law. This is the Law
Society’s unique and singular purpose. Without morals and ethics, society in general will not survive. I invite all of us to find new ways to defend religious freedom. I hope to see the Law Society consider fostering, for those who so choose, these two attributes:
1 A membership capable of and inclined to serve as a bulwark against the corruption of laws and core moral values.
2 A membership capable of and committed to “feeling our way through” the consequential “thick things” of life, including important moral issues of our time that might otherwise be marginalized or treated as a thing of naught.
We should defend morality not out of partisanship or anger or enmity—nothing resembling the political discourse of our time—but as collected defenders of law and liberty, truth and decency, and faith and family.
n OTE s
1 This famous saying is commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin; however, see Carl Van Doren, ed., Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiographical Writings (Viking Press: New York, 1945), 418–19.
2 J. Reuben Clark Law Society mission statement, jrcls.org.
3 Mosiah 29:11.
4 Helaman 4:21–22; emphasis added.
5 Helaman 5:2; emphasis added.
6 Mahmoud v. McKnight, No. DLB23-1380, 2023 WL 5487218 (D. Md. Aug. 24, 2023).
7 Assemb. B. 957, Cal. Leg. (2023).
8 Boyd K. Packer, “Sentiment and Sober Thinking,” BYU commencement address, April 19, 1985.
9 Packer, “Sentiment and Sober Thinking.”
2023–2024 byu law school conferences
SEPTEMBER 27, 2023
JRCLS Leadership Conference
JUNE 15, 2023 Religious Freedom Annual Review
OCTOBER 1–3, 2023 ICLRS International Law and Religion Symposium
NOVEMBER 16, 2023 The Future of Private Equity Regulation
MARCH 15, 2024 State and Local Government Conference
MARCH 13–15, 2024 Winter Deals Conference
MARCH 28, 2024 Empirical Legal Studies Student Conference
MARCH 21–23, 2024
JRCLS Annual Conference
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LawX
LawX, BYU Law’s groundbreaking legal design lab, uses design thinking within a classroom setting to tackle some of the most pressing access-to-legal-services issues. Previous projects include SoloSuit (an award-winning online tool to help pro se defendants), Hello Landlord (an online tenant-landlord communication tool designed to reduce evictions), and Goodbye Record (an online resource to assist individuals, legislators, and corporate partners in addressing flaws in the expungement process).
Law and Corpus Linguistics
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