Welcome to the Class of 2012

2009

Speeches

Summary by Jane Thompson: This is one of the longest speeches of David Getches available in the archives. It is a richer version of his student welcomes in 2010 and 2011. He starts by sharing interesting facts about the entering class, but he concludes by talking about the legal profession and its ideals. The "timeless values" he extols are: integrity, service, equal access to justice, and the rule of law. Regarding the latter, he reminds the listener that the struggle for the rule of law is not limited to developing countries, and he goes on to talk about torture, preventive detention, Guantanamo, and threats to the independence of the judiciary in the US. He concludes by commenting, "I say with confidence that this is a room full of trusted representatives, judges, political and community leaders, solvers of a generation of problems not yet imagined." It is a more formal and deliberate speech than others available in the archives, and could be termed a "legacy" speech. At the end of the text, it lists some of the sources for his remarks.

http://hdl.handle.net/10974/getches:163