HLS Grads Urged to 'Change the World'

CNN Legal analyst Greta Van Susteren cautioned Harvard Law School (HLS) not to use their law degree just to get a job or make money, but to use it as a way to make greater changes in society.

"The law has it all," Van Susteren said. "A law degree is something you can change the world with."

Van Susteren addressed the assembled crowd of graduates, their parents and alumnae at the Law School Class Day ceremony held on Holmes Field in front of the school's Langdell Library.

"Do more than just take a law degree and walk off into a job," Van Susteren told the graduates.

She cited the example of five professors at the Law School and one graduate of the school as lawyers who had made such efforts, and thus used the law to its full potential.

These examples were Charles J. Ogletree, Climenko professor of law; Alan M. Dershowitz, Frankfurter professor of law; William P. Alford, Stimson professor of law; Arthur R. Miller, Bromley professor of law; Laurence H. Tribe, Tyler professor of law; and Janet Reno, a member of the Law School class of 1963 and U.S. attorney general under former President Bill Clinton.

She noted that the law is an exciting profession to work in as long as lawyers follow such examples.

And while some lawyers have an unsatisfactory experience in their careers, Van Susteren said that they should not blame the field as a whole, but the particular job they went into. She said that any graduate of Harvard Law School should be smart enough to leave a job that they did not enjoy.

Van Susteren also made reference to the law school rankings of U.S. News and World Report, which for the past two years have placed Harvard Law School in third place behind Yale and Stanford, but said practicing lawyers almost universally recognize Harvard as the nation's top law school.

The Class Day ceremony also included the presentation of the Sacks-Freund teaching award to Tribe--the first time he has been so honored in his years at the school.

Tribe said that he had for years hoped to win the award, as he particularly values and focuses on teaching, and said he was overjoyed when he learned that he had been chosen for it this year.

"It feels absolutely wonderful to feel well liked," Tribe said, paraphrasing from the play ****ITAL****Death of a Salesman.

The award concludes a very busy academic year for Tribe, during which he argued for Al Gore '69 in the case Gore v. Bush in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. He made a light-hearted reference to this case in his remarks upon receiving the award.

"I take pride in that I appear to have won it in what seems a free and fair election, uninterrupted by Catherine Harris or Jeb Bush," he said.

Prior to the Class Day ceremony, the Law School's Alumni Association gave Reno their annual award. The award is given annually to an alumnus or alumna in recognition of distinguished service to the law school, the legal profession and society at large.

--Crimson Staff Writer Daniel P. Mosteller can be reached at dmostell@fas.harvard.edu