Each August, as dean of Cleveland State University College of Law, I welcome our first-year class of law students and share some thoughts…
Today, I want to share three pieces of advice as you embark on this next chapter of your life.
Lean into uncertainty.
We live in a VUCA world — volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Life is often about making sufficient conclusions from insufficient information. Get comfortable with no clear answers. Rarely, if ever, are there just two choices. The best decision makers stay flexible and adaptable and create multiple options and paths before solving a complex problem.
Lean into uncertainty with the resilience and optimism you displayed during the pandemic. There are times in every lawyer’s life when, despite their best efforts, they come up short. You may provide sound advice to a client only to have the client ignore it. You may write the perfect motion only to have the court deny it. The true measure of your success in law school will be how you learn from your mistakes and setbacks by adapting, changing and improving.
Recognize that the law, like life, is complex and full of shades of gray and contradictions. Many of our historical figures after whom institutions are named led contradictory lives that serve as a constant reminder of our nation’s contradictions. The lives of many of our nation’s founders hold multiple truths — that they did truly great things and they did reprehensible things that we should condemn and never excuse. Our Constitution is one of the greatest documents ever written and has stood the test of time because of its core values of democratic governance and safeguards of liberty, but it was deeply flawed. The preamble’s first three words, “We the people,” did not include the majority of America’s citizens — women and Blacks.
Seek first to understand.
We need leaders who recognize the value of asking rather than telling, of listening rather than jumping to conclusions. As Steven Covey notes in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
At a time when political polarization has reached new heights and political discourse has reached new lows, it’s never been more important to have the courage and skill to listen, learn and understand before you speak, advocate and lead.
Question assumptions. Doubt what you know, be curious about what you don’t know and be open to changing your mind. As Adam Grant notes in Think Again, “If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.”
Stop seeing what you want to see and hearing what you want to hear because everything you perceive has a way of confirming whatever you believe.
Our commitment to diversity and inclusion means that we must protect the expression of all views, even those we disagree with. We must create a learning environment that both respects freedom of speech and ensures that we support all of our diverse community members on their path to becoming lawyers.
Remember your why.
Two bricklayers were asked: “What are you doing?’ The first, exhausted and unhappy, said, “I am laying bricks.” The second, energized and in good spirits, said, “I am building a cathedral.”
There will be days when it will be difficult to see beyond the bricks. Beyond the stress of today’s challenging reading assignment, tomorrow’s possible cold call in class and next week’s final exam. But in those most challenging moments, I ask you to remember your why.
You have decided to study and work for the next several years like most people won’t, so you can learn law and live justice like most people can’t.
As our nation becomes more diverse, we can find the shared values and common ground that make us all human and connected, or, by our silence and inaction, we can allow demagogues to exploit our differences that divide and separate us. We need leaders who know how to discern what is true and what is not by examining facts and evidence — and have the courage to speak up when our democracy and rule of law are threatened.
My friend Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, in The Bill of Obligations, argues that while the Bill of Rights is at the center of our Constitution, we should also have a bill of obligations to which good citizens commit in order to heal our divisions and to safeguard democracy.
Similarly, with your law degree will come obligations. Among them is to know that even as you zealously advocate for your clients, you must remain committed to the ethical practice of law and civility, and to use your law degree not only to make a difference for your clients but to make a difference for people you may never meet.
Fidelity to the rule of law does not mean that the law is always just. It is not. We all have work to do in making it better. But when our nation has achieved anything of consequence, it has done so most often through civil debate, mutual respect and measured compromise. We are at our best when we are showing humility, listening to other views, respectfully debating differences and building consensus.
So think of yourselves as more than aspiring lawyers. Think of yourselves as future custodians of civility, defenders of democracy and guardians of justice.
The world needs you more than ever.
