Charge to the Class of 2024, With Professor Richard Re

WARREN GORRELL JR.: Thank you. Thank you, Emma. We had a little discussion about the disparity in our heights. It's like following Risa. You know you have to change a little bit. But it's really an honor and a pleasure for me to be able to be with here with you guys here today to start the celebration of your graduation.

Graduations are really special. I can actually remember mine 45 years ago. It really-- time flies. It doesn't seem like that long ago. I guess first I should start off thanking Kennedy and Emma for all their work and organizing this--

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

--and then all the other festivities that you guys are going to have along the way. As chair of the board of the foundation, which, as you know, is responsible for garnering financial support, garnering alumni loyalty, overseeing the endowment-- on behalf of the board and our wonderful staff, it's really fantastic for me to be able to welcome you to the UVA alumni family.

You're soon going to join the ranks of 19,000 UVA law school alumni. Now, that's a pretty big number. But even more impressive than just the number is what really stands behind it. The alumni network is a powerful and enduring bond that can't be taken for granted and actually becomes more and more meaningful over time.

I've seen it myself at Hogan Lovells where I've been blessed to spend my whole legal career there, starting three days literally after I graduated here.

The UVA connection has been so valuable to me in so many ways, from representing clients, from attracting business, from referring business, from hiring students, and interacting with other people in other firms who haven't been a part of UVA law school.

It's great to see that everyone recognizes what a wonderful thing that we have going here. And they're really impressed by what we have. So I could give you a lot of examples about how this network works. Probably the most tangible one happened to me-- oh, cardinal rule number one violated.

That's actually one of my oldest clients calling me-- no, longest enduring, not oldest.

[LAUGHTER]

But more than 15 years ago, I was sitting in my desk one day, and I got a call totally out of the blue from a classmate of mine. We knew each other when we were here, but we hadn't really been close maybe because he went to Yale, and I went to Princeton. I'm not really sure

But we had you know spoken politely when we were at our reunions every five years and had a nice relationship, but weren't close. And he said that he had seen that I'd been active in things for our class and the law school. And so he thought of me.

And he said that his company was undertaking this huge project in China. And he knew that we had a large presence in China. So he wondered if we would help him. And I'm thinking, god, how does this happen?

So I'm happy to say that many years later and literally millions of dollars later, we're still helping them, even though he and I are no longer involved. And I just have to say that's a pretty nice network outcome. So I'm not saying there's at least to be any financial benefit in your taking this, but it all works good.

And I would really just encourage you to stay connected with everything that's going on here and engage with the law school, even after you're gone, whether it's being a class agent, or it's teaching, or it's helping recruit, or whatever. Every little bit is really helpful, and I think you'll get a lot of benefit out of it.

Now, you heard that I'm the chair of the board of the foundation. And you've heard that you know that the foundation-- one of our jobs is to encourage financial support. So I don't want to disappoint you. And I'd like to just spend a couple of minutes emphasizing the importance of alumni financial support to the law school.

You know the law school doesn't receive any state or public funding. We rely exclusively on tuition, which-- thank you. You don't have that anymore-- and private support. And those private funds actually bridge the gap between tuition revenue and the cost of a Virginia Law School education.

We're blessed to have the highest participation rate of alumni of any law school in the United States. So while purely from a financial standpoint, you might say more is better. And I guess I would probably always say that. It's really important at Virginia to know that equally important is participation.

And we strive to have over 50% participation of our alumni. There's no other law school that comes close. And I have to say we've fallen below that the last few years. With COVID, it's been challenging, but we're working really hard to get back above that level.

And given how the numbers work-- this is where it's personal to you-- it's really important to have more than 50% in the most recent classes because they're the largest. And that's just the way the numbers work.

So I would just ask, as you consider what to do in all the years ahead, please know that every alum matters, and every gift counts. It's important to give every year, starting now. And it's important also to know that literally no gift is too small. And what we're really after is participation.

And so as you're thinking about it, and in the early years where those charitable dollars are harder to come by than they're going to be in later years, it's really good to go ahead and do something, really anything. And as Risa is fond of saying, the more alumni who give, the more that's an endorsement of the stewardship that we have of the law school.

And I would just say even in those times when you're not happy with something that's going on here, it's really important to continue to give and to support the institution, and all of those are going to come behind you. And honestly, that's exactly what I did, even in those early years when it was a struggle.

I'm only the second person in my family to go to college. Obviously, I'm the first person to go to law school. I had huge loans, not the absolute magnitude that some of you have today, but it was a lot.

And in those early years when I was paying off those loans and struggling, I still contributed in a small way because I thought it was important to me to give back and help those who were going to be coming along before me.

And then in later years, when I realized that going to law school here actually changed my life and changed the lives of many of my relatives back in Kentucky, I was able to give more.

And so I just truly hope that all of you will think about this and that you will follow the same path, and in the end, that your experience will be the same as mine.

So thank you again for giving me the honor to do this and to share this wonderful celebration with you guys. I congratulate you on your achievement and wish you the best in the years ahead.

And I literally mean this. If there's ever anything that I can do to help you or the foundation staff can do to help you, please reach out. That's what this network is really all about. So thank you and good luck.

KENNEDY WILLIAMS: Hi. Thank you, Warren, for your wise words. I, for one, can't wait to join you as a UVA Law alum. Our next speaker does a really neat introduction, but I'm going to give him one anyway. For people who haven't had the pleasure of having Professor Richard Re, he's been to the law school since 2020, although now he seems like an institution of the law school.

He teaches criminal procedure, federal courts, and my personal favorite, sports and games. And he's about to here to speak to us about what it means to be a lawyer.

RICHARD RE: All right. Thank you so much, Kennedy, for that introduction, for inviting me to speak here today. When I first was told that I'd had the opportunity to speak with all of you, my first thought honestly was that it was so exciting and such a privilege to be able to celebrate all of your achievements, this incredible three-hour class.

And now that I'm here, it's actually even more awesome experience I think I expected it would be, as I look around and see so many faces I recognize. So before we get into my remarks, can we just stop and appreciate this moment that all of you are enjoying and give yourselves and your classmates a humongous round of applause right now, please?

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

OK. So part of me wondered if I should just end right there. But I do think that the charge to class involves at least some more words than that. And so I tried to think, well, what were the class representatives thinking in their decision to invite me here? And the first thought I had about that was, well, as many of you know, I often begin my lectures with these "ray-caps" You see look like [INAUDIBLE].

And so I thought this is actually an even better opportunity, maybe, than I realized because I can [? REcap ?] all of law school for you all. It would be a "ray-cap" You might say of "ev-eh-ray-thing." And so this is what we've got. All right. All right.

And you can see if you took a class with me, first off, I'm sorry. The second, there's a reference to every class here, and if you look really closely, the answer to the first question on the Crim pro exam can be found within. All right.

But then I had another thought. And the other thought I had was, actually, this is a this is a mistake it's not a "ray-cap" moment because the charge to class has got to be forward-looking. It's not about looking backwards, the things that you've already achieved and accomplished and learned. It's about anticipating the wonderful glorious futures that you're all going to have.

So what we really need is a, dare I say it, "p-ray-veew" of what you're-- I don't even know why it's funny anymore. I just-- all right. So what did I come up with then? Because as I said, it's going to be a wonderful future that all of you have as UVA alums.

So this is my first attempt. You will always have an exciting job. You will be unerringly correct. You will never fail. You will lack any self-doubt. And part of me thinks that's true. And I hope that part of you thinks that's true as well, and knows that that's true. But on the other hand, if things are going to be this flawless, you don't really need a charge. You don't really need me to come here.

So I thought that was not the best "p-ray-veew" to give. So option two for my "p-ray-veew" was a series of cliches, starting, of course, I guess with the cliche-- the cliches have a kernel of truth, and that's why they're cliches. So here's my attempt at that. You should know that you only live once. You'll figure it out in the end if at first you don't succeed, and trust your instincts.

But you've probably heard that before. If you haven't, you just did. You'll probably hear from other speakers who followed this well-worn path. So I thought maybe in class votes, maybe we need a third option. And I decided to vote for the third option, the brutal truth.

You will have a boring job. You will become self-deluded. You will have to let someone down. You will doubt yourself. And that's what I decided to go with, option three. So here we go. Let's start with the first one there-- you will get a boring job

And again, I sincerely believe-- this is disclaimer-- you're going to have great experiences, great careers. I know that about every single one of you, even those of you who haven't met somehow. But even so, you're all bound to deal with a bunch of boring tasks.

Being boring is practically part of a lawyer's job description. If you've been in any of my classes, you know that I excel at boredom. Early-career lawyers are especially likely to get boring work because boring work like other things tends to fall downhill.

But I want you to know what a huge opportunity boring work can be. Just because something is boring doesn't mean it's unimportant. In fact, if someone is demanding that you do work that's boring that probably means it's very important indeed.

So when you get a boring assignment or take on a boring job, you can console yourself that you have a chance to make a mark. After all, nobody's going to want to check your boring work. So you may get to be the person who recalls an obscure but pivotal fact-- I've seen it happen-- or who reminds everyone of a filing deadline. I've seen it not happen, which is a lot worse.

Or who asked, is there jurisdiction in this court? Also, I've seen that not happen. These boring achievements often save the day, or they don't. And then you really remember them. But getting a boring job is even better than that.

Because once you've gotten yourself in that positive mentality and made headway on the vast amount of boring work that lays ahead of you, you'll probably discover that the seemingly boring task isn't actually that boring after all. Usually, boring work only seems boring because it was hard and unpleasant to figure out. You just have to get over the hump of understanding what the boring work really concerns.

Let me give you a tiny example from my own life. When I was a law clerk, we had a lot of administrative law cases. Perhaps the least attractive ones involved electricity rates set by FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Early on in my clerkship, I randomly drew a FERC case. I was not a happy clerk-- or should I say, FERC that day? But by the end of my clerkship, I had come to love FERC and its hyper technical musings on electrical grids. I found myself volunteering-- this is real-- to take FERC cases. And my co-clerks started calling me FERCman.

Now, I didn't end up doing FERC work long term. But getting temporarily excited about FERC certainly made my clerkship experience much more enjoyable and successful. Now that upbeat and possibly dubious set of assertions about FERC leads very naturally to my second point about self-delusion.

Let me tell you a story about that, apart from what I just told you. I once knew a very experienced attorney who had a particular legal view. He had this view for many years, and he felt pretty strongly about it. But one day he took on a case that required him to argue that his longstanding view was wrong.

At first, he told himself, OK, I may not like it, but I've got a job to do here. I'll be a dutiful attorney. Then he started crafting the arguments, and writing them down, and practicing his responses to objections. And I kid you not by the time he had to appear in court, he was literally telling everyone he ran into about how obviously correct his new position was.

From one standpoint, the attorney in this story is a hero. He's a role model to all of us, lawyers everywhere, because advocates may be more compelling when they in some sense believe what they are arguing for. Passion is a powerful tool of persuasion. And again, this advocate was very good at what he did.

From another standpoint, however, as you can guess-- this is a cautionary story-- it shows how malleable and, maybe, opportunistic many of our legal beliefs can turn out to be. And once you realize that other people's beliefs, or see that other people's beliefs, can be this malleable, you might start to wonder about your own legal beliefs as well.

My point here is not to argue that the law is a fraud, or that we should luxuriate in cynicism about our collective professional undertaking. The real shot-- upshot, excuse me, I think is a reminder to have humility about one's own views and toleration when approaching the views of others.

Sometimes we lawyers argue about things with a lot of fervor and intensity. And that's good. But we should be open to the possibility that if things had gone a little bit differently, we might be arguing quite different positions or even opposite positions from the ones that were advocating today. OK.

Point next, you will have to let someone down. It's a really upbeat one. I was once sent out of state-- so I'm going to give you an upbeat story to warm you up. All right. I was once sent out of state to meet a business client I've been working for, and the client generously invited me to breakfast before the day's work began.

Shortly before I arrived at the breakfast, my boss called me with two important pieces of information. First, the client had just lost a big case in which we had been representing them. Second, I had to tell the client about this defeat right away. Like I said, certain things flow downhill.

So I went to the breakfast, ordered a tall stack of pancakes, and broke the news. The food went down easily-- the news, not so much. We mostly ate an awkward silence, but the client still picked up the check.

Now that story, as I promised, is a little bit light-hearted. But at some point in your legal careers, someone really will depend on you for something really important. They will depend on your work, on your integrity, on your talents. Maybe this has already happened for some of you. If not, it will happen, probably much sooner than you think.

Someone may depend on you to salvage their business, or to prevent them from going to prison, or to bring an offender to justice. In many of these cases, you will succeed, and succeeding will feel great. You will be proud. Your alma mater will be proud. You should send me an email, so I also can feel proud for you.

But nobody can succeed all the time. Many legal decisions are out of your control. The law may be against you. The judge may be against you. You could just be unlucky that day. Whatever the situation, you will have to look someone in the eye and say, we failed.

When that happens, please remember that these moments are proof that your work is significant, and that your efforts are valuable. Do not give up on yourself. Do not deem yourself an imposter. Instead, treat these moments as fuel to drive your future successes.

And let me add one more word about this, on the topic of mistakes, something I'm really quite expert in, along with boredom. Shortly before I graduated from law school, my law school dean gave a toast to the graduating class. At one point in the toast, he boldly predicted that everyone in that room would make a huge mistake within six months of graduating, and he was right.

And he says to me-- here's just one example-- I had an important job interview. To prepare, I went out and bought myself a suit. I constantly went into the interview and found myself gesturing this way and that way to make really important points to the interviewers. And I felt great about this interview because everywhere I gestured, I could see the interviewers eyes following my hands.

They were in rapt attention. Do you know where this is going? Does this happen some of you? But then I left the interview and ran into a friend. And she said, hey, I hope the interview went really well. By the way, you have a price tag on the collar-- or cuff of your jacket sleeve.

And she was right. So I look at the jacket sleeve, and it has a big red price tag on it with a slash through the middle, indicating a substantial savings. Needless to say, I was horrified. But it turns out that the interviewers appreciated the good bargain, and I still got a call back. So again, that's a light-hearted example for you today.

But the harder, colder truth is that you will still be learning quite a bit at the beginning of your careers, even after your decisions will start to have serious consequences for your clients and for others.

For that reason, making a mistake is not optional or avoidable. But what is up to you is what happens next. When you make a big mistake, don't panic. The mistake probably isn't as big as you think it is. In fact, it almost certainly isn't. More importantly, tell your boss or whoever else about the mistake right away, and then take whatever action is necessary to completely fix it.

If you don't do that, you'll be tempted to minimize the mistake, possibly causing it to become much, much bigger. The worst thing you can do-- the worst thing you can possibly do is conceal the mistake and hope that nobody notices. I know that all of you view your professors here at UVA as unerring, omniscient, legal demigods. That was not a laugh line.

But the reality is that we, too, had to muddle our way through the start of our legal careers. We did it, and so can you. OK. Relevant to that, the last bullet point-- you will doubt yourself.

At some point, you will feel like you have a question but can't quite figure out what the question is. Actually, I've seen this feeling on your faces already in class. I'm not talking about when I cold call on you. That's a different expression. I'm talking about the times when something has come up in class, but it just didn't click. It doesn't add up.

You can sense that much, but you can't quite put the problem into words. When this feeling happens, it's a little bit like a voice in your mind saying, huh, that's weird. Or huh, that doesn't quite make sense. What is Re talking about now? When this happens, it is very easy to brush the feeling aside and to turn to something loud, obvious, and attention-getting.

Please, please-- if there's nothing else you remember from my talk, this is the thing-- do not give in to that temptation. Don't cast aside your question, just because you don't know how to express it yet. Instead, I urge you to stop whatever you're doing right away, sit down that very moment, if possible, and focus on figuring out just what it is that isn't quite right.

It could turn out that you've just heard a statement in a deposition that quietly gives away the entire case, or maybe you stumbled onto a huge assumption that everyone is taking too much for granted, or he could have caught the whiff of contradiction in what is otherwise a flawless argument or story.

When I think back on my brief career in legal practice, I never regretted chasing down my inchoate questions. And sometimes, I badly regretted failing to do so.

OK. So having said all that stuff, let me end by letting you in on a secret. I don't actually know very much about your futures. In fact, my colleagues and I don't even know that much about the difficult legal issues that you'll confront during your lengthy careers. That's because the law is always changing.

You know this better than most graduating classes because even during your a few years in law school, quite a lot of law has changed, been abandoned, or invented out of whole cloth. The future will bring more of the same. Many legal views that today seem self-evident will eventually turn out to be anything but.

I remember a particular legal doctrine that I learned about in my 3L year. We read the leading case on the topic. The excellent professor taught the case, the doctrine it stood for, and the reasons behind it. When I took the exam in that class, I applied the doctrine and got whatever points came with that knowledge.

To me, and I think to many of my classmates, it seemed as though this particular legal principle was just part of the way things worked. But not long after I graduated, the supreme court unanimously overruled the very doctrine that we had studied, learned, and recited on our exam, not even the author of the original ruling stood behind it.

I have seen similar stories play out over and over again. The newest item on the chopping block appears to be a principle known as Chevron deference, which was once considered a cornerstone of administrative law.

In 2004, which was just before I started law school, Judge Easterbrook wrote, it is hard to find thoroughgoing critics of the Chevron doctrine. Just 20 years later, however, Chevron critics are easy to find, and it appears that most justices of the us supreme court are Chevron skeptics.

Next week when you start taking your exams, including my exam, you should definitely think about the legal principles and uncertainties we've discussed in class. I also recommend that you recite existing case law and focus on what was on the syllabus.

But as professional members of our legal culture, we cannot be like so many students taking an exam. We cannot accept a vision of the law that is closed, or static, or bounded by the desire to obtain a particular grade. We mustn't say, get used to expecting the unexpected.

These points call to mind the self-deluded attorney I mentioned before. Maybe the law's changeability, too, could be taken as an invitation to cynicism. If the law is malleable, one might think, then lawyers should endeavor to shape it in whatever ways will help or enrich themselves.

In ancient times, people with that sort of attitude were sometimes called sophists. They seemed sophisticated, but they really sought only to advance themselves. Their allegiance was to self-interest, not to truth. The great critic of sophistry was Socrates. And it's in his honor that we in law school engage in what is often called Socratic questioning.

Yes, Socratic discussion has helped you to think and speak on your feet. But it has also aspired to something more profound. It has tried to foster a frame of mind that is outward-looking, that is inquisitive, and that is concerned with the betterment of society at large.

Against that backdrop, I urge you to treat the law's malleability as a cause for excitement and for optimism because very soon you will play the key role in making the legal transformations in our society happen. You will transform the world in ways that we faculty here at UVA will have to unpack and, yes, struggle to understand.

We will be studying your cases, your decisions, and the fates of your legal projects. In that sense, you, now the students of the law, are destined to become its masters. So my experiences are really just preludes, or, yeah, "p-ray-loo-des." That-- it isn't the same-- [LAUGHS] to the newer, greater, and even more exciting experiences that you all have ahead of you.

And you are ready to have those great, exciting experiences not because you have been well positioned to have easy lives and to obtain financial wealth. Instead, you are ready because you are armed with the habits of thought that you will need and that our society will need during the difficult times ahead.

And it's a good thing, too, because my generation is entrusting the law's future to yours. That was the charge that my generation implicitly received many years ago. And now, I assign you and your generation the same mission.

I charge you, each and every one of you, to do better than your professors. And I'm sure that you will. Congratulations. You've already made us proud. And please lift the glass, cheers to all of you. Thank you very much.

[APPLAUSE]