Law School Honors Class of 2016 at 128th Commencement Exercises

The University of Minnesota Law School held its 128th commencement ceremony May 14 at Northrop Memorial Auditorium. Dean David Wippman welcomed the Class of 2016, their families and friends, and several special guests: University of Minnesota Regent David McMillan (’87), executive vice president at Minnesota Power in Duluth, Minn.; Karen Hanson, the University’s executive vice president and provost; and the keynote speakers, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar and United States Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta.

Dean David Wippman at 2016 Commencement
To begin his introductory remarks, Dean Wippman asked the parents, spouses, partners, and children of the graduates to stand and be recognized for their vital support. Then, after reminding the soon-to-be J.D.s what had brought them to this momentous day—“three years of Socratic inquiry, endless reading, a deeper acquaintance with citation style than you ever thought possible, and perhaps an occasional stint with the bar review”—he confessed that he didn’t remember his own law school graduation ceremony very well. Perhaps, he mused, that’s because law school is much more about the journey than the destination. “I do remember much of what I learned during my own journey through law school,” he said. “Not specific cases or doctrine, although a smattering of that stuck, but rather the analytical process and the commitment to justice we call thinking like a lawyer. It has served me well; I trust it will serve you well also.”

Faculty Awards

Having introduced the members of the Law School faculty, Dean Wippman moved on to present the annual Stanley V. Kinyon Professor of the Year Award for Excellence in Teaching and Counseling, established by family and friends in honor of the late Prof. Stanley V. Kinyon (’33), a recognized commercial law scholar and member of the Law School faculty for 40 years. This year’s awards were given to:

Jessica Clarke: Stanley V. Kinyon Tenured Teacher of the Year Award, 2015-16
Linus Chan: Stanley V. Kinyon Clinical Teacher of the Year Award, 2015-16
Mitchell E. Zamoff: Stanley V. Kinyon Teacher of the Year Award in Practice, 2015-16

2016 Stanley V. Kinyon Professor of the Year Award for Excellence in Teaching and Counseling Recipients

 

 

 

Student Awards

Kaiya Lyons ('16)
Three special student awards also were presented at the commencement ceremonies. Kaiya Lyons, chair of the Student Commencement Committee, presented two of the awards, whose recipients were selected by their classmates for exceptional contributions inside and outside the classroom during the three years of study.

Kerry McGuire
The Excellence in Public Service Award was presented to Kerry McGuire. Prior to attending the Law School, McGuire spent four years in social services, working with Latino immigrants in Chicago. During her 2L year, McGuire was a student attorney with the Detainee Rights Clinic, working on Board of Immigration appeals and representing detained immigrant clients in removal proceedings. She served as student director of the Detainee Rights Clinic during her 3L year. She was also honored as a Robina Public Interest Fellow, and she published an article on the relationship between NAFTA and indigenous populations in Mexico in the Minnesota Journal of International Law. She worked in criminal defense at Cabrini Green Legal Aid in Chicago (summer 2014), in family law at Legal Assistance of Dakota County (summer 2013), and in several capacities with the Minnesota Justice Foundation. McGuire has been awarded a two-year postgraduate fellowship through Equal Justice Works, which she will spend working with the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota to create medical-legal partnerships with health clinics in rural Minnesota, with the aim of increasing immigrants’ access to legal aid.

Andrew Glasnovich ('16)
Andrew J. Glasnovich was presented with the Outstanding Contribution Award, which honors the student who contributed the most to the graduating class through class participation, involvement in academic programs, leadership in extracurricular activities, and enhancement of the Law School experience. During his time at Mondale Hall, Drew Glasnovich was known for his unwavering friendship and advocacy. As a three-year member of Law Council, he advocated for academic reforms, such as creating a central syllabi database, and worked with Facilities to secure an accessible all-gender restroom at the Law School. Glasnovich advocated for clients in the Insurance Law Clinic, winning a half-dozen victories in coverage disputes with insurance companies, served as editor-in-chief of Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice, and appeared as a lead actor in the two most recent Theatre of the Relatively Talentless (TORT) productions. He interned with the U.S District Court in St. Paul and the EEOC in Minneapolis, and he will soon join Stinson Leonard Street as a litigation associate.

Dean Wippman Presents Nicholas Bednar with the 2016 William B. Lockhart Award for Excellence in Scholarship, Leadership, and Service
Dean Wippman presented the third special student award—the William B. Lockhart Award for Excellence in Scholarship, Leadership, and Service, whose recipient is selected by a faculty committee. The award honors the Law School’s fifth dean and 28-year faculty member for his dedication in enriching the curriculum, attracting leading scholars, and sharing his gift for teaching. This year’s Lockhart Award was given to Nicholas Bednar, whose distinguished record includes honors in Legal Writing and Law in Practice and multiple Book Awards for the highest course grade. Bednar served as lead articles editor for the Minnesota Law Review, which also published his scholarship; was treasurer and director of the Asylum Law Project; helped clients as a student attorney with the Center for New Americans’ Immigration and Human Rights Clinic; worked as a research assistant for Professors Kristin Hickman, Stephen Meili, and Robert Stein; and

co-founded and served as president of a new student group for future immigration law practitioners, the Voices for Immigration Student Association, or VISA. Bednar also found time to serve new Americans with a remarkable 432 hours of law-related public service through his work with the Asylum Law Project and The Advocates for Human Rights. He will begin his legal career with two judicial clerkships, first with Judge Tracy M. Smith (’88) of the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and then with Chief Judge John Tunheim (’80) of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.

Dean Wippman also called attention to numerous other students who were recognized for participation in journals, moot courts, and other activities at a special ceremony and reception on May 13.

Class Gift

Drew Glasnovich announced that the class of 2016 will continue the 3L Pledge Drive established six years ago by making annual financial contributions to the Law School for the next three years. This gift means that one person from the class of 2016 will receive a $5,000 fellowship to engage in public interest work. 

LL.M. Class of 2016 Graduation Address

Adrian Zacharias ('16)
This year’s LL.M. class of 74 students from 15 countries selected Adrian Zacharias to deliver a graduation address. Zacharias is from Germany; upon returning to Europe, he will receive his master’s degree in international and European law from Tilburg University in the Netherlands. At the Law School, he focused on criminal justice, served as the LL.M. class representative on Law Council, and interned at The Advocates for Human Rights. In his address, Zacharias spoke of being “amazed by the incredible diversity of classes offered at the Law School”—so many courses, he said, that he had trouble deciding which ones to take and ended up with “way too many credits.” (“I must confess that I’ve hated myself for that during finals,” he quipped.) Zacharias thanked the Law School staff and community for their welcoming spirit, the professors for teaching with passion and vigor, and his LL.M. classmates for sharing an intense intellectual adventure. “I have learned so much by being surrounded with so many different cultures,” he said. “Congratulations to all of us. So long, and thanks for all the free food.”

J.D. Class of 2016 Graduation Address

Kerry McGuire ('16)
Kerry McGuire, mentioned above as the recipient of the Excellence in Public Service Award, was chosen by her J.D. classmates to deliver the 2016 graduation address. She began her witty and heartfelt speech by reminding her classmates of their Law School orientation, when Professor McGeveran held up an apple and a red pepper and asked the students to compare them, to classify them, to “think like lawyers” about them. She also reminded the class of 2016 that, in an era of declining job prospects, many people thought they were “crazy” to go to law school at all. And now, after three years, McGuire asked, what have those very nervous 1Ls done? Among many other things, they have “gotten settlements out of big companies in the name of consumer protection, protected a former child soldier from being deported and facing persecution in his home country, [and] argued in front of a federal court of appeals with such confidence you would think they were just answering a cold call in Professor Burkhart’s property class.” They have written award-winning papers on regulatory toxicology, multilingual product labels, and trademarking YouTube comedy. They have defeated Harvard in a moot court competition. And, McGuire noted, they “enjoyed doing it all so much that they used their precious spare time to write a musical about it.” In conclusion, she said, “As we head out into this strange new world of eight Supreme Court justices, never forget how you quieted that voice that said, You’ll never finish your 1L brief. Never forget the network of friends, family, and law students that were there for you for the last three years, and are there for you now. And never forget that yes, we are crazy, but we’ve seen what amazing things a crazy group of people can do.”

Commencement Addresses

Minnesota’s senior U.S. Senator, Amy Klobuchar, gave the first 2016 commencement address. Before her election to the Senate in 2006, Klobuchar was a partner at the Minneapolis-based law firms Dorsey & Whitney and Gray Plant Mooty. She began her life in public service as Hennepin County Attorney, an office she held for eight years. She currently serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology. She was a chief author of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 and has successfully championed new consumer protections in commercial aviation and telecommunications, among others. Klobuchar grew up in Minnesota and was the valedictorian of her Wayzata High School class. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School.

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar
Klobuchar began her remarks with funny, self-deprecating anecdotes about former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Walter Mondale (’56), segued into the tale of a mortifying classroom encounter with her 1L torts professor, and arrived at her theme: respect for the law, and the idea that “the rule of law begets democracy.” She criticized the unwillingness of the Senate’s Republican leadership to hold confirmation hearings for Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court seat formerly held by the late Justice Antonin Scalia. She also disputed the idea that “a Supreme Court justice is supposed to, as some people believe now, just rubber-stamp the views of the president who appointed him or her,” citing the example of Minnesotan Harry Blackmun, a Nixon “law and order” nominee who, during his 24 years on the court, adopted more liberal positions—“based on what he thought was right under the law,” Klobuchar said.

Klobuchar ended her address with a plea for the class of 2016 to complement their respect for the law with “respect for people of different backgrounds, different religions, and different ethnic backgrounds, different races. We are living in a time right now where we’re seeing a diminishing of that respect, and I just think your role as future lawyers is to make sure that respect is there…. So just think of those touchstone values—no matter where you go, wherever you are, because it’s one of your obligations as a lawyer…. Respect for the law that grounds you, and respect for the value of each other.”

The second commencement speaker was Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice since October 2014. Prior to joining the Justice Department, she served as deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and director of its Center for Justice. She also worked as an attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where she successfully led the effort to overturn the wrongful drug convictions of 38 individuals in Tulia, Texas, and then helped negotiate a $6 million settlement on behalf of her clients. Gupta is a graduate of Yale University and received her law degree from New York University School of Law, where she taught a civil rights litigation clinic for several years.

United States Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta
“In too many communities across our country,” Gupta said, “we can see a dramatic gap between what the law guarantees, on one hand, and what people experience, on the other. This gap exists for many reasons: systemic inequality, implicit bias and explicit discrimination. And despite decades of transformative progress, even today, in 2016, this gap continues to harm communities, to hurt people and to erode public trust.”

The question facing the graduates, she said, is “how will you, as lawyers, respond?” Her advice was centered around three words: ambition, courage, and kindness. Be ambitious, she urged, not just for career success but for “a more equal America.” Have the courage to make “choices between action and silence; between disrupting the world around you and defending the status quo; between conventional and creative strategies... [the] courage to stand up, to speak out, and to advance the ideals of this profession: equality, justice and fairness for all.” And strive to “live kindly and treat people with compassion—in your personal life and in your career.

“I want to close,” Gupta said, “with some words from one of my most favorite artists, a proud Minnesotan, a musical genius who left us far too early, Prince, who once said: ‘We ain’t got no time for excuses, the promised land belongs to all.’ Class of 2016—may you find the ambition to never settle for excuses. May you find the courage to make the promise of America’s laws a reality for all. May you find the time to actually listen to those around you and treat them with kindness and compassion. And through the legal profession, may you find not only a worthy career, but also a moral calling.”

The Finale

After remarks on behalf of the Board of Regents, Regent McMillan conferred degrees on the J.D., LL.M., and Masters of Science in Patent Law graduates. The J.D. class had selected Professors Ann Burkhart and Brad Clary (’75) to present their diplomas; the LL.M. class chose Director of International and Graduate Programs Khary Hornsby (’05); and the M.S.P.L. class chose Program Director Chris Frank. Dean Wippman, after acknowledging his upcoming departure from the Law School to assume the presidency of Hamilton College and thanking the Law School community for eight rewarding years, invited graduates and guests to a reception on the Northrop Mall and Plaza.

T.O.R.T Singers Lead "Hail, Minnesota!"
The commencement ceremonies concluded with the singing of “Hail, Minnesota!” led by 10 singers from Theatre of the Relatively Talentless (TORT): Michael DePrince (’16), Jacob Dona (’16), Drew Glasnovich (’16), Timothy Joyce (’17), Lindsey Krause (’16), Kaiya Lyons (’16), Rajin Olson (’16), Katherine Ponce (’16), Nicole Wanlass (’16), and Maria Warhol (’16). The St. Anthony Brass Quintet provided accompaniment and departing procession music.