Georgetown Law Alumni Magazine - Res Ipsa Loquitur
Fall/Winter 2009 - Online Volume 2
Lectures and Events
Graduation 2009
As their professors, family and friends looked on, members of Georgetown Law’s 137th graduating class marched across Healy Lawn on May 17, 2009, to receive the diplomas they’d worked so hard to achieve. Standing at the podium to greet them were many of the profession’s finest, including former Solicitor General Seth Waxman (H’09), a distinguished visitor from practice at Georgetown Law who received an honorary degree; and Professor David Vladeck (LL.M. ’77), co-director of Georgetown’s Institute for Public Representation and incoming director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. Though the weather was unseasonably cool, Vladeck gave the graduates a warm welcome in his commencement address. “You are joining the profession at exactly the right moment,” he said, noting that while there might be a million lawyers practicing in the United States, the country needs more — and it needs them now. “There are tens of millions of Americans who urgently need your help.” Excerpts from Vladeck’s address follow.
I want to discuss the choices that young lawyers face and the joys of being a lawyer. Let me start by making a few observations: First, there are one million lawyers in the United States and we need more, many more, and we need them now. I know that some firms are cutting staff and that this retrenchment has affected some of our graduates. But don’t despair, Class of 2009, you are joining the profession at exactly the right time. There is much work to be done. There are tens of millions of Americans who urgently need your help.
Second, the majority of practicing lawyers in the United States now work in law firms that predominantly represent institutions, not people. This marks a seismic shift from when I graduated from law school in 1976 (known better as the end of the Precambrian era) when about twothirds of the lawyers worked on their own or in small firms that represented people.
This shift has deepened a longstanding problem: Legal services are generally out of reach for most Americans; not by reason of poverty — most Americans are not poor — but because they are not sufficiently rich. For the poor, unless they win the legal services lottery, they are denied access to the justice system altogether. I tried to determine the number of lawyers in the United States who regularly represent poor people in civil cases. That number, I’m sorry to report, is 6,000, including all of the lawyers working for public and privately financed legal services organizations. Yes, 6,000. I think I have more lawyers than that living on my block. The consequence, of course, is that the poor are denied access to even the most basic legal services, leaving the most vulnerable in our society the least protected by the law.
Our nation’s economic struggles have made the crisis of under-service even more acute. Families are losing their homes at a staggering rate. Last year, over 850,000 families lost their homes to foreclosure. This year, another one million families will suffer the same fate. Unemployment is skyrocketing and nearly 40 million Americans now live below the poverty line. The nation’s financial crisis may be the greatest challenge our graduates ever face. But crisis breeds opportunity. The poor, the unemployed and the dispossessed need the help of lawyers to reclaim their lives, and they need help now. And there is so much that lawyers — including the Class of 2009 — can do to help.
Depending on your talents and interests, you can provide direct services to help families get their lives in order; you can bring test case litigation against unscrupulous lenders; you can lobby Congress and state and local legislatures for mortgage and foreclosure reform. You can work full time; you can work part time; you can hang out a shingle and start your own practice. Or, like my friend Seth Waxman, you can volunteer your time and work pro bono. But this is no time to stand on the sidelines. Indeed, Seth’s selection as this year’s honorary degree recipient could not be more fitting. Seth Waxman has never stood on the sidelines. Nor, by the way, has our faculty. Take a look at the men and women sitting on this podium. Their record of public service is inspiring. They are why I believe that Georgetown Law school is the largest public interest law firm in the country, thanks in large measure to the vision of Dean Aleinikoff and Dean Areen and to the Jesuit tradition, whose spirit was personified by our beloved colleague, Father Drinan.
Part of this call to service is duty: Lawyers have a duty — both moral and ethical — to serve the public. A license to practice law carries with it powerful privileges in our society. Lawyers make and enforce the law. Lawyers run government. Lawyers invoke the machinery of our judicial system. Lawyers can compel people to give evidence and provide testimony. Our society invests lawyers with these powers. In exchange, society expects lawyers to give back. It is a fair bargain.
But representing people in need isn’t just about duty or altruism; it is also an act of self-interest. I want to emphasize the joys of lawyering — yes, there is joy in being a lawyer — and especially lawyering to serve real people like the millions of Americans whose lives have been turned upside down by the recession. Using your talents and skills to serve people is where the fun part of lawyering comes in. I love being a lawyer, I believe deeply in the nobility of the law, and I want to explain why. Let me begin with two stories:
I came to Georgetown in 1976 to work with Vic Kramer. Vic ran the clinic I now co-direct — the Institute for Public Representation. Vic was a mythic figure in Washington, D.C. He had been the senior lawyer in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice; the managing partner at one of Washington’s powerhouse law firms, Arnold, Fortas and Porter, and had joined the Georgetown faculty a few years earlier.
Lawyers of my vintage all know about Vic’s interviewing practices. They were so terrifying that even Dick Cheney would be appalled. Vic would take out his pocket watch, point to a large stack of resumes on his desk, and say: “These are resumes from the brightest young lawyers in the country. You have ten minutes to persuade me that you are the best candidate for the job.” He would then pace back and forth like Groucho Marx as you tried to answer him. Terrifying. Having survived that ordeal, I spoke up and asked Vic why he worked at Georgetown. After all, Vic could have any job. Vic’s answer made such an impact on me that, over 30 years later, I can quote him verbatim: “I just love this job. It is the best job. I represent the clients I want to represent.” Vic then told me about his client, Myron Cherry, a wheelchair-bound activist who wanted to make D.C.’s Metro, which was then under construction, accessible to people in wheelchairs. Vic and Myron succeeded in forcing Metro to put an elevator in each station. Vic was tremendously proud of their victory. I still think of Vic and Myron when I ride the Metro.
During my year at Georgetown, Vic arranged for me to interview at the Public Citizen Litigation Group. The Group was run by Alan Morrison, a pioneering public interest lawyer, who had already won a string of important Supreme Court cases. I asked Alan the same question: What do you like about your job? Alan’s answer was the same as Vic’s: “I just love this job. It is the best job. I get to represent the clients I want to represent.” Alan was especially excited about the Group’s recent win — Professor Gerry Spann played a big role in this case — on behalf of the Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, a group of little old ladies who adored Alan and Gerry. Tired of driving around Northern Virginia to find low-cost medicines, they challenged a Virginia law making it illegal for drug stores to advertise the price of prescription drugs. And with Alan and Gerry’s help, they won and in so doing extended the First Amendment’s coverage to commercial speech.
I draw two lessons from these conversations: One is that lawyers should find something they love to do and stick with it. Next to your family, your job is the most important thing in your life. Find something you love to do. Time is too precious not to.
The other lesson is that who a lawyer represents matters, and having real people with real problems as clients can bring great satisfaction. It was the reason why Vic and Alan so loved their work. I took their lesson to heart. The best cases I’ve had are ones in which I was paid in hugs, not in dollars.
I spent 15 years handling a succession of cases to force the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to regulate toxic substances in the workplace. My practice sounded like a chemistry course — ethylene oxide, benzene, formaldehyde, cadmium and hexavalent chromium. These were dry, technical cases. Nothing glamorous. But I loved them. Why? Because I got to know the workers affected by these hazards. Their health and well-being depended on the outcome of the case. There is no higher calling than fighting for the powerless. There is no greater satisfaction than using your skills to protect another person from harm or the loss of freedom.
Take ethylene oxide — maybe the case I am most proud of. Ethylene oxide is a gas used to sterilize heat-sensitive medical equipment; it is used so widely because it kills everything. But no one gave thought to the 80,000 hospital workers who operated the sterilizers. They were exposed to significant levels of the gas. Why were these workers ignored? They were all women, virtually all minorities, and they worked in the bowels of hospitals, unseen and invisible. But they were suffering from neuropathy — the loss of feeling in their limbs (one woman told me that she could not feel her baby as she held it in her arms) — and a frighteningly high rate of miscarriages and blood cancers. They asked for help.
The project took seven years. But in the end we forced OSHA to issue a tough standard that protects workers from exposure. To celebrate I went back to see my clients and got hugs — lots of great hugs. Helping these women get safe working conditions was the most moving experience of my professional life.
These are extraordinary times, and the demand for lawyers willing to represent people in need is unbounded. I have decided to take a leave from Georgetown to go to the Federal Trade Commission to direct the Bureau of Consumer Protection. Yes, Julie O’Sullivan, I’ll be back. I was drawn to this job because so much important work needs to be done. Consumer fraud is out of control and the targets of fraud are, as always, those who can least afford it. They are families on the verge of losing their homes. They are parents struggling to feed their children. They are people who are sick, who can’t afford a doctor, and place their hope and their last few dollars on a snake-oil supplement that promises a cure but delivers nothing.
As I was preparing for this address, I read a speech Louis Brandeis gave to Harvard students in May 1905, long before he was appointed to the Supreme Court. I looked to Brandeis for inspiration because he was the first “people’s lawyer” — a social activist who fought against monopolies, campaigned for shorter workdays and minimum wage laws, and, fittingly, helped create the Federal Trade Commission. In his Harvard speech, Brandeis worried about the growing influence and size of the corporate bar, especially at the expense of the shrinking pool of lawyers left to represent the people’s interest. He called on the next generation to rectify this imbalance. “Nothing can better fit you for taking part in the solution of these problems than the study and preeminently the practice of law. Those of you who feel drawn to that profession may rest assured that you will find in it an opportunity for usefulness which is probably unequaled. There is a call upon the legal profession to do great work for this country.”
More than ever Brandeis’s words ring true: There is today indeed “a call upon the legal profession to do great work for this country.”
Let me end with two observations for the Class of 2009. One is this: Your energy, passions and talents are needed now. Millions of Americans urgently need legal assistance. As Brandeis put it, there are opportunities for your usefulness which are probably unequaled; you just have to look for them. They won’t be hard to find.
The second is this: Find the part of the profession that you love. Law is a big tent; there is something wonderful under it for each of you. Thank you and again congratulations to the Class of 2009.
