The Commons
alter Dellinger, the Douglas B. Maggs Professor Emeritus of Law, told Duke Law School’s 2020 graduates that they “are challenged to be a part of a special time” when he addressed them during a virtual celebration on May 9. “You have an unparalleled opportunity to help lead us out from a dark period and to think about what fundamental changes need to be made to our way of living, our way of being, and our way of governance,” Dellinger said Dellinger, a renowned Supreme Court advocate, former assistant U.S. attorney general and head of the Office of Legal Counsel, and former acting U.S. solicitor general. A member of the Duke Law faculty for more than 50 years, he also assured them that no correlation exists between law school grades and professional and personal fulfillment and that each of them can commit to being an ethical lawyer and a good person. “The great qualities of being a lawyer are, by and large, qualities that you can conscientiously adopt,” he said. “That is, having good moral values, being conscientious and having the capacity for hard work, having a willingness to support and assist the work of others who are your peers, a respect for the dignity of every single person who works in your institution no matter what their role may be in the organization, a quality of empathy for those who are unlike yourself.” Kerry Abrams, the James B. Duke and Benjamin N. Duke Dean of the School of Law and professor of law, hosted the celebration of the Class of 2020, which was held online after the pandemic forced a postponement of their planned convocation ceremony in Cameron Indoor Stadium and included a “name crawl” of all the graduates. She noted that the graduates, their family members, professors, and supporters had logged on from all over the nation and the world.
14
Duke Law Magazine • Summer 2020
Among the 206 JD graduates honored, 24 had also completed requirements for the LLM in international and comparative law and seven were also receiving the LLM in law and entrepreneurship. Ninety internationally trained lawyers had completed the requirements for the LLM and two attorneys were receiving the LLM in law and entrepreneurship. Twenty sitting state, federal, and international judges had completed the coursework and thesis required to receive the LLM Abrams in judicial studies. Offering her congratulations to the graduates, Abrams also emphasized her confidence in their ability “to be the leaders that the world needs right now, in your profession and in your communities.” The pandemic represented an unprecedented crisis that had shaken the global economy and affected many of them personally, creating extraordinary challenges to launching or resuming their careers, she acknowledged. “But I have seen firsthand the resilience of the Class of 2020. You have already overcome so much here today, I know that you are prepared to handle anything that comes at you.” Dellinger, who received the American Constitution Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award in June, offered the example of Abraham Lincoln, “America’s greatest lawyer,” to demonstrate how legal skills can be applied to a wide range of societal problems — and to challenge the graduates to follow suit. In 1858, 50-year-old Lincoln was, he said, “a financially insecure, failing politician with no administrative experience.” But Lincoln was galvanized by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dred Scott v. Sanford that no person of color, slave or free, could ever be a citizen of the United States and that Congress had no power to limit slavery in the territories. That June, at the Illinois Republican convention in Springfield, he delivered a speech — the “House Divided” speech
Illustration: Fabio Consoli
W
Graduation 2020
