Two questions: On graduation speeches and another random question

[weezie]

I appreciate the gesture, but a bet's a bet. I'm happy to pay for a steak in order to dine with the grand daddy of all DBR posters anyway.

Well, ok, as you put it so eloquently...
Pay the man, Grandpappy Oz!

[sue71, esq]

Good luck, Mike!

[OZZIE4DUKE]

I appreciate the gesture, but a bet's a bet. I'm happy to pay for a steak in order to dine with the grand daddy of all DBR posters anyway.

Good luck with the speech acceptance, Mike. And thanks, you are a scholar and a gentleman, and I don't care what anyone else says...

[OZZIE4DUKE]

I started out with a funny personal story about my grandmother (we just moved her into hospice care, incidentally)

Vibes, prayers and best wishes to you, your family and your grandmother.

[Mike Corey]

With much appreciation to each of you for your advice and support, I'm very humbled and excited to say that I'll be delivering the graduation address on behalf of my class at OSU Law.

I'll try to get in some plugs for Duke bball along the way.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

With much appreciation to each of you for your advice and support, I'm very humbled and excited to say that I'll be delivering the graduation address on behalf of my class at OSU Law.

I'll try to get in some plugs for Duke bball along the way.

Congratulations, Mike! You'll knock 'em dead!

[OldPhiKap]

With much appreciation to each of you for your advice and support, I'm very humbled and excited to say that I'll be delivering the graduation address on behalf of my class at OSU Law.

I'll try to get in some plugs for Duke bball along the way.

Congratulations! Make sure to send us the youtube link when available.

[blazindw]

With much appreciation to each of you for your advice and support, I'm very humbled and excited to say that I'll be delivering the graduation address on behalf of my class at OSU Law.

I'll try to get in some plugs for Duke bball along the way.

That's my boy! Congrats, buddy!

[Bostondevil]

With much appreciation to each of you for your advice and support, I'm very humbled and excited to say that I'll be delivering the graduation address on behalf of my class at OSU Law.

I'll try to get in some plugs for Duke bball along the way.

Congrats!

In other speechifying news, I have been asked to be the featured speaker at the MGH Marathon Team's Annual PreRace Pasta Dinner. They want me to speak about why I'm running the marathon.

[OldPhiKap]

I will be speaking tonight at my dinner table. My pre-teen daughter will ignore it; my son will half-listen as the peas invade gravy mountain; and my wife will ask why I'm not wearing pants.

Typical Thursday.

[sue71, esq]

With much appreciation to each of you for your advice and support, I'm very humbled and excited to say that I'll be delivering the graduation address on behalf of my class at OSU Law.

I'll try to get in some plugs for Duke bball along the way.

Woohoo! From one Buckeye to another, congrats!

[DukieInKansas]

Congratulations, Mike.

[Mike Corey]

DBR Friends: Our graduation was a week ago, and because you were instrumental in helping me craft this speech, and in providing the encouragement to speak well, I wanted to share these words with you. I've been informed that Ohio State did not videotape graduation--apparently Greg Paulus has stockpiled all the cameras in an effort to be the best at what he does for Coach Matta.

The only inside joke you need to be made aware of can be read about here.

Either way, here's a photo and the hard copy of my speech from OSU Law's graduation:



Dean Michaels, Professor Simmons, to our faculty and staff, to all of our distinguished guests—especially to all the mothers, an early Happy Mother’s Day to each of you, and most importantly, to the wonderful class of 2012…

I want to begin by telling you a story. It’s about my grandmother. She believes in three things: (1) Working hard, (2) America, and (3) the importance of me getting married. She worked until she was 87 years old; no one is more patriotic than she; and to the getting her grandson married thing…she’s still working on it.

She is, unfortunately, not the charismatic and independent woman she once was, but my grandmother still manages to challenge me despite her advancing age. Earlier this year she asked if I was an attorney yet. “Two more months," I said. She paused and asked me if it had been worth it.

I told her that even though it hasn’t been perfect, it has absolutely been worth it, mostly because of the people with whom I’d spent the past three years. I told her about the passion and the intelligence of my classmates, and their superhuman ability to do a little bit of everything and to do it all well. I told her about the dedication shown to student organizations—and in Rob Robol’s case, every student organization. I told her about the blood, sweat and Bluebooking devoted to our five law journals, and the countless hours of planning and leadership—and emailing—put in by our student government.

I told her about students excelling as research assistants, and about those somehow balancing work outside of law school with work inside law school.

I told her about classmates earning double degrees in public policy or business; and about those who somehow made time to run marathons or pedal in Pelotonia; I told her about my peers who were doing all of this while raising a family and of those who had lost family members along the way.

I told her about the diversity of our class, in color, creed and sexuality; I told her of peers who had served in the military, and peers who came to law school as chemists or journalists or pastors or college athletes. I even told her about a student so entrepreneurial that he’d established an online bookstore out of our very own library. I told her of one classmate who was already running for political office, of another who had already signed an agent for a book she was writing, and of another classmate who was not only thriving at Moritz, but who was beating cancer along the way.

I told my grandmother that I had been blessed with getting to know many of these people, and that I had made a life-changing group of friends because of it.

My grandmother furrowed her brow, taking a moment to digest my unnecessarily detailed answer, and said, “But Michael…all of these wonderful people and you’re still not married?!?”

~~~

We all had different reasons for coming to Moritz, and we all have different expectations of what we will do now that we’re each armed with a law degree. But before we venture away from this community, I have the great honor of helping to celebrate the work you’ve done, and the people you are.

And there is much to celebrate. So much to celebrate, in fact, that I think it answers my grandmother’s question rather easily: it was absolutely worth it.

Despite the thousands of pages of reading, despite the cold sweats induced by the Socratic method, despite the poring over and memorization of outlines and hornbooks and class notes, despite the MPRE and App Ad and bar applications, despite the wireless Internet that usually didn’t work and despite the heating and air conditioning systems that never did, despite the miserable job market and the cost of tuition, and despite the drama that so often accompanies being a law student, it was worth it.

If it doesn’t feel that way as we prepare to jump into the murky waters of the real world, I offer this: it will be worth it.

I know it will be worth it because no matter how you feel about your law school experience, you are a class that excels at more than just the study of law. Whatever comes next for you, and wherever you go, you will summon the skills cultivated here to sow a life well lived, to harvest yourselves in whatever communities you choose to join. But it will not be your abilities alone that set you apart. It will be something much more.

Professor Larry Garvin observed this early on. Prior to the final exam for his first-year contracts section, he emailed these words of encouragement to his students:

“Every class has its own chemistry, as you’ve learned through your educational careers. Your class is special. It’s not just that you’re bright, though you are. It’s not just that you’re both engaged and engaging, though you are. It’s not just that you’re serious, but not too serious, though that is true as well. But your class has that impossible-to-define something extra, something that one sees in particularly able lawyers who are particularly happy about what they do, and particularly giving to each other and to the community at large.”

This description from Professor Garvin epitomizes the class of 2012, for which we can all offer anecdotal evidence. In reflecting on our time here, I’m flooded with good memories of ways large and small in which you have extended yourselves beyond what is required of you as law students, and instead set a new, higher standard of what you have expected of yourselves as people.

I remember, for example, when Elbert Aull, Maureen Fulton and Jennifer Halas argued in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court for the abolishment of juvenile life sentences without parole. I remember the efforts of Pete Olsen, who through the website he launched during his first year of law school, successfully advocated for a change in certain practice attire on the vaunted OSU football team. I remember the compassion shown to Wan Kim after his computer was stolen. Dozens of you banded together to offer class notes, and to raise over $250 toward a new laptop. The humanity of this class extends beyond people, however. When a raccoon became trapped in the drainage area encircling the law school, our class worked with the administration—and Critter Control—to ensure its safe return to the wild.

Each of those examples is indicative of a skill—the art of public speaking—that so many of us have developed here. To speak publicly is not necessarily to do as I am doing on stage; it is to be an advocate, for whatever issue requires a strong voice—in the classroom, in the courtroom, or in the courtroom of public opinion. Our class has thrived in each capacity, volunteering with area children via the Street Law program, and in assisting hundreds of people through Moritz’s many legal clinics and pro bono offerings; in a wide array of passionate student groups that have facilitated and led conversation through hundreds of lunchtime events; in spirited class discussion and spirited Facebook discussion, on issues as large as the constitutionality of the health care bill, and as small as the supremacy of Samoas over Thin Mints.

That is not to say that we all get along, and it is not to say that we have always disagreed agreeably. We have all made mistakes in how we approach our classwork, and in how we approach one another. But the good and the bad alike have been part of our education, too, and we are continuously learning from our mistakes. There’s a reason why our differences have made us stronger: the arch of this community reaches toward kindness and collegiality through healthy competition, a competition that pushes us forward rather than drags us down.

And that is ultimately what has endeared me the most to the class of 2012. You celebrate one another through support and criticism alike; you hold up those that need someone to lean upon, not because you expect the favor to be returned, but because that is the constitution guiding this class, and it has been written by each of you in your deeds as well as by your words. You have spent three years relishing every opportunity to praise the people around you, never taking a moment to celebrate your own wonderful works.

But with all the good you are bound to do, with all the counsel you are soon to provide, I hope you never forget to celebrate yourselves. The profession we are entering is tumultuous, rife with anxieties that a law school experience cannot duplicate. For too many attorneys, the joy of the profession can get lost in the weight of briefs and motions and work that never stops piling up. And with that is lost the humanity of the law and its arch toward fairness and justice. You are all brimming with the skills and the gifts and the ideals to do more than uphold the law, but to advance it. And along the way, I know you will advance yourselves, your families, your communities. You have already done that for your classmates at Moritz, and you will continue to do that for the rest of your lives.

Now before I close, I wanted to share one more story with you. Since I was little, I have wanted to emulate anything and everything my father did. He was an attorney, and now I’m about to become one; his nose was two sizes too big for his face, and mine isn’t far behind; he was a little longwinded and sentimental when talking about his friends, and I suppose I am too; and he used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. But that was one thing he did not want me to emulate. So when he saw me at the age of four, running around the house pretending to smoke dry spaghetti, he decided to quit smoking cold turkey. To help him kick the habit, he needed something to keep his mind off the nicotine he wasn’t getting. So he would chew on coffee stirrers—all the time and everywhere he went. It became as much a part of him as the suits he wore to work every day and the Duke shirts he wore to bed every night. I don’t know why chewing on those stirrers worked, but it did. And I, of course, followed his lead…. He passed away seven years ago, but I’ll still find those chewed up stirrers all over the house. And every time I do, I’m reminded of the impact he had as a father on his son.

And that makes me think of the impact that each of you will have as mothers and fathers, and as lawyers and leaders—you will set the example that others will follow. People will look to you for guidance in everything you do, in acts large and small. I am grateful that you all will be leading the way.

So while we celebrate our professors who have pushed us and stimulated us; our loved ones who have put up with us and supported us; we are truly here to celebrate the work you have done, and the work you are now prepared to do. We celebrate one another for serving as both a safety net and as teammates while we have worked toward these diplomas, of the distinction and responsibility of being attorneys at law.

More work awaits us, but for now let us simply be proud of ourselves and of one another, and let us answer affirmatively that the sacrifice and the stress and the late nights and early mornings have been more than a challenge…they have been worth it to have compiled the knowledge and the skills we have compiled; they have been worth it to have amassed the friends we have amassed; they have been worth it to push ourselves toward the profession of the law, that no matter how we practice, will serve each of us, all of us well.

It has absolutely been worth it, and I am so very grateful that we have taken this journey together. I wish each of you the very best of health and happiness; may you each enjoy the success that you surely deserve; I love you guys, I will miss you dearly, and I offer each of you my most heartfelt congratulations on a job tremendously well done. Thank you.

[weezie]

Well done Mike. Spoken like a true Blue Devil.
I'm sure I'm not the only one to compliment your eloquence and to wish you every success down the road.
Bravo!

[OldPhiKap]

the supremacy of Samoas over Thin Mints.

Neither Daniel Webster nor Clarence Darrow could win that one.

Excellent speech!

-- OPK, esq.

[blazindw]

Not too many speeches better than that one, buddy! Standing ovation!

[DukieInKansas]

Great job, Mike!

[OZZIE4DUKE]

Nice speech! Nice Duke reference! And BTW, I had dinner at the Angus Barn on Thursday night! Wish you were there...