Law Schools

2017 Law School Graduation Speaker Round-Up

Who's speaking at your graduation?

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graduation groupSo who’s speaking at your graduation? We’ve been seeking intel on law school graduation speakers (and we’ll take cool full university speakers that you plan on attending as a law grad) for a week now and it’s time to publish our initial list. Thanks to everyone who wrote in and if you haven’t given us a shout, please do so.

Hopefully you’re going to see someone noteworthy. It’d be a shame if you took some idiot’s advice on where to go to law school and missed out on seeing a celebrity. Just know that the pain of missing a riotous Mindy Kaling routine stings for a day, but student loans are non-dischargeable debt.

Here’s what we have so far. We’ll update this post as more become available:

Albany: New York Times Vice President and Deputy General Counsel David McCraw
American: Founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative Bryan Stevenson
Ave Maria: Reverend Mitch Pacwa, SJ
Arizona State: Baseball Commissioner Emeritus Bud Selig
Brooklyn: Inside City Hall on NY1 News host Errol Louis
Buffalo: NY Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul
Campbell: North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein.
Cardozo: Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Vanita Gupta
City University of New York: NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill
Cleveland-Marshall: ABA President Linda Klein
Columbia: Debevoise partner and former SEC chair Mary Jo White
Cornell: Cornell President Martha E. Pollack
Drexel: Philadelphia City Solicitor Sozi Tulante,
Duke: Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch
Florida International University: Labor Secretary Alex Acosta
Florida State: N.D. Fla. Chief Judge M. Casey Rodgers
Fordham: NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman
Georgetown: University of Hawaii Law Professor Charles R. Lawrence III
George Washington: Morgan Lewis partner Grace Speights
Gonzaga: Attorney Thomas Hiller
Harvard: Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates
Hofstra: Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas
Howard: IMPACT Strategies Principal and CEO Angela Rye
Indiana University — Maurer: Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush
Lewis & Clark: Oregon Governor Kate Brown
Loyola New Orleans: Former Judge and dean of Loyala Madeleine Landrieu
LSU: Former FBI director Louis Freeh
Northeastern: Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards
Northwestern: Michigan Supreme Court Justice Richard Bernstein
Notre Dame: Vice President Mike Pence
NYLS: Former SDNY U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and “Making a Murderer” co-creator Laura Ricciardi
NYU: Second Circuit Judge Raymond J. Lohier (JDs) Boies Schiller partner and former Ambassador David Pressman (LLMs)
Pace: Paul Weiss partner Roberta Kaplan
Penn State: Senator Bob Casey
Pepperdine: Haynes and Boone co-founder Michael M. Boone
Pitt: New York Supreme Court Justice Shawndya L. Simpson
Roger Williams: Harvard Law Professor David B. Wilkins
Santa Clara University: Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta
Seton Hall: Paul Weiss partner Ted Wells
Southwestern: California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye
St. John’s: New York Court of Appeals Chief Judge Janet DiFiore
Stetson: Lieutenant General Ronald L. Burgess Jr. (Ret.)
Suffolk: Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh
Syracuse: Fifth Circuit Judge James E. Graves Jr.
Temple: Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro
Texas Tech: State Bar of Texas President and Locke Lord Dallas partner Frank Stevenson
Thomas M. Cooley: Judge Barbara Twine Thomas
Touro: U.S. Represpentative Joseph Crowley
University of Arkansas-Fayetteville: E.D. Ark. Judge Kristine G. Baker
University of Arizona: Arizona Supreme Court Justice John Lopez
University of Baltimore: Maryland Court of Appeals Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera
UC Berkeley: California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom
UC Hastings: SDNY Judge Jed Rakoff
UC Irvine: Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski
UCLA: Ninth Circuit Judge Paul Watford
University of Connecticut: Yale Law Senior Research Scholar Emily Bazelon
University of Georgia: Georgia Supreme Court Justice Carol W. Hunstein
University of Hawaii: Ninth Circuit Judge Richard Clifton and W.D. Wa. Judge James L. Robart
University of Iowa: Eighth Circuit Judge Michael Melloy
UMass-Dartmouth: SPLC Founder and Chief Legal Counsel Morris Dees (NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg will speak at the undergraduate commencement too)
UNLV: Former Senator Harry Reid
University of New Hampshire: Senator Maggie Hassan
University of New Mexico: New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas
University of North Carolina: U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General Vice Admiral James Crawford
University of Oregon: W.D. Wa. Judge James L. Robart
UPenn: Senator Cory Booker
University of Richmond: Supreme Court of Virginia Chief Justice Donald Lemons
University of San Francisco: California Attorney General Xavier Becerra
University of South Carolina: Boeing General Counsel and Former Fourth Circuit Judge J. Michael Luttig
University of Southern California: California Attorney General Xavier Becerra
University of Tennessee: Immediate Past President of the American Bar Association Paulette Brown
University of Texas: Texas Supreme Court Justice Debra Lehrmann
University of Utah: Founder and CEO of Avvo Mark Britton
University of Wisconsin: Seventh Circuit Judge Diane Sykes
Washington & Lee: Polsinelli partner William B. Hills, Jr.
William & Mary: Judge Lucy Haeran Koh
Vermont: NOAA General Counsel Lois J. Schiffer
Willamette: Oregon State Bar President Michael D. Levelle

Know of a speaker slated for graduation that we don’t have yet? Please email us.

HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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