Congratulations to the Law Class of 2008

Address to the Graduating Students of the Faculty of Law
11 April 2008, Class of 2008 Graduation Bal
By Professor Shauna Van Praagh, Associate Dean, Graduate Studies

Dear students,

I begin with a quote from one of my most reliable sources in law: Harry Potter. In Book Seven, Hermione – in her indomitable way – insists on the reasons for a Ministry of Magic Law and on the applicable rules of evidence. “Are you planning a career in Magical Law, Miss Granger?”, asks the annoyed Minister of Magic. “No, I’m not,” retorts Hermione. “I’m hoping to do some good in the world!”

As you come to the end of the most formal stage of your legal education, you – as McGill law students – no doubt challenge the dichotomy that Hermione takes for granted. You plan careers in law, whether magical or not. After all, you are now jurists, whatever your particular path. But you probably also hope to do some good in the world, to join with others in your projects, to have a positive influence on others’ lives. The two aspirations must be compatible. But the fact that Hermione and perhaps others like her question the combination of becoming a jurist and doing good in the world should give us pause.

Perhaps this explains why the equivalent in Hebrew to Congratulations or Félicitations is Mazel Tov…literally “good luck”. In other words, rather than congratulating you on what you have achieved to date and what you have become i.e. jurists and McGill law alumni, saying Mazel Tov pushes you to look ahead, to take what you have learned, turn it into a foundation, and ensure that it points the way to future success in doing good.

Tonight I will briefly speak to you about law and learning, law and life, and law and love. In doing so, I answer Hermione by saying that doing good is what people can decide to do, at the micro or macro level, in their families or in their offices, in leadership roles and in community participation. Working with law, acting as jurist, accepting one’s heavy responsibility as a lawyer…these simply represent one particular way of making that decision to do good, one particular mode of going about implementing that decision.

To speak to you about law and learning, I turn to another of my favourite sources: Justice Benjamin Cardozo. In addressing a graduating class of law students in 1925, Justice Cardozo characterized the processes of law as “fascinating, baffling, elusive, infinite in their variety of aspects, and yet infinite also in appeal to the heart and mind and spirit of generous and ambitious youth.” And he spoke of the importance of looking back in order to move forward. According to Cardozo, “one must be historian and prophet all in one – the qualities of each united in a perfect blend”. Indeed, the endeavour of prophesying and shaping justice for the future can be taken on with confidence only if we know from whence we came. Studying law is all about the fragile equilibrium of our roles as historian and prophet.

Nous connaissons le Code Civil du Québec comme successeur au code civil du Bas Canada; nous l’apprécions en explorant ses racines dans la tradition civiliste, les coutumes et pratiques, et les cultures d’une societé. Et de là, nous pouvons suggérer de nouvelles interprétations, nous pouvons même entrer dans la discussion de ce qu’on appelle la doctrine. Egalement, si nous voulons participer au projet qui veut tracer des limites du droit privé dans le contexte de la responsabilité de nos gouvernements envers les citoyens, il faut retourner à la common law, à l’histoire bien connue de Mme Donoghue et du petit escargot. Finalement, si nous voulons comprendre les promesses et périls du droit au Tibet, au Darfur, au Zimbabwe, il faut examiner notre passé, il faut étudier nos erreurs et nos succès autour de notre monde partagé.

The constant backwards and forwards of learning law, of looking to the past at the same time that you are expected to imagine the future, is a crucial part of the identity and experience of students. It is not only the substance of law that develops with constant reference to its sources; it is the very process of learning the language of law that equips us as future participants by ensuring that we play first with the building blocks.

Four years ago on sabbatical in Ste Alvère, a little village in southern France, new friends gave us a gift of two huge cèpes – wild mushrooms larger than an adult hand – that they had found hidden in the Perigord woods. All the while they whispered assurances of how special and unique these were. As we cut them up, sautéed them in garlic, olive oil and parsley, we realized that we had been truly initiated as residents of Ste Alvère, moved from the periphery of observers or tourists into the circle of true citizens.

For law students, it is not at first clear where the special cèpes are hiding, or how to cook them, savour them, truly appreciate their flavour, texture, and aroma. But you have now found them, you have moved from novice to true citizen, able to work with sources and substance, process and promise. Law and learning, if you like, have merged into law and the rest of your lives.

I do not want to try to say too much about law and life. I am only a professor, and sticking to legal education seems like a pretty safe bet! But if learning law is like learning how to find the special mushroom as well as how to treasure and enjoy it, then maybe life in law is all about figuring out one’s own identity as a jurist, one’s own special way of discovering the hidden cèpe. Finding wild mushrooms in life becomes part of the everyday, still savoured but gradually understood and claimed.

Perhaps, as a professor of obligations, I can offer one small idea about the ways in which you will each develop your own modus vivendi of life in law, of law and life. Like everyone else, you owe an obligation to act reasonably vis-à-vis others, neighbours, the people whom you can foresee might be affected by your actions. As jurists, that obligation may sometimes be heightened given the expertise that you are expected to have. But the true moments in which you will have an impact on other people will be those in which you move beyond fulfilling your obligations. They will be the moments in which you care for others, give advice, say a kind word, hold a hand. They will be the transsystemic moments in which doing good and doing law really do merge, in which your role as mentor will eclipse the projects in which you invest so much time and energy, in which the support you give will reinforce the framework of your lives.

Finally, I turn to law and love. Here I really don’t want to say much at all…after all, you will discover your own ways in which to flourish in love, live in loving relationships, and, for many of you, give more love than you thought possible to your children, and have that love tested again and again…and again!

So, let me turn to a final reference: a poem, of course. This is a 40 year old poem by the New Brunswick poet, Alden Nowlan, entitled “The Masks of Love”.

I come in from a walk
With you
And they ask me
If it is raining.

I didn’t notice
But I’ll have to give them
the right answer
Or they’ll think I’m crazy.

Entirely absorbed in love, the “I” in the poem has gone for a walk and has no idea whether it is raining or not. Usually, of course, we notice if the rain is coming down. We feel damp, and then wet, we say we are soaked, and we may even feel like we are drowning. But sometimes we can ignore the rain, because of love. We can put our engagement in law in perspective, because of life. We can find renewed energy and creativity as we continually recreate our interactions with law, because of our interactions with other people.

We can choose whether to feel submerged as the rain comes down; or we can enjoy the taste and feel of the raindrops, and look forward to the sights, smells and sounds of spring. As you emerge from what may sometimes have felt like a true flood of ideas and challenges, remember some of the moments in which you didn’t even notice you were getting wet, and look forward to the long walk ahead.

It has been an honour to teach you, to learn from you, to share a path with you and to speak with you tonight to congratulate you all, and to wish you Félicitations et Mazel Tov for the future.