Post Script or Swan Song?

This Saturday I graduated from law school in the United States. As luck would have it, I was honored to serve as our class's student commencement speaker! Our keynote was given by Senator George Mitchell, and I gave a speech where I did my best to connect Ireland, my law school, and Senator Mitchell. Here's a link to the local news coverage.

Believe it or not, a few people wanted to read my speech again afterwards. So here is the text. And although I didn't sleep the night before, vomited the morning of, and at the risk of being immodest, I killed.

...

I was very excited to learn that Senator George Mitchell was going to be here to speak. It was funny, one of my relatives asked me if I knew the order of the speakers on the program and I said, well I hope to God I’m not following Senator Mitchell! I mean granted, I have been learning about how to be a self-assured, confident attorney, but come on – we’re talking about the former majority leader of the US Senate, the man who helped bring peace to Ireland, and who is currently charged with finding out how Barry Bonds’ head grew three sizes in his 40s.

What I would like to do though, is extend a sincere thank you to Senator Mitchell. You see, I spent one of my law school semesters abroad at the National University of Ireland at Galway. In addition to learning about Irish law, of course, I wanted to learn about the people of whom I am a descendant. One of the best ways to do this is in Ireland’s living room: the pub. It’s the one place in the neighborhood where everyone comes, not so much for the drink, but for the sense of community; to socialize and interact. And being as the Irish are extremely friendly people, I’d often meet new people in pubs. A lot of times, after hearing me say “my name is Pat Thoa-ton,” their first question was ‘what part of the States are ye from, Paddy?’

I’d say Maine, and they’d give me a look, and I’d say, you know, noa-then New England ... up nea Canada ... couple ow-ahs noa-th a Boston ... eventually they’d get it. Usually Boston did the trick. But I don’t know, if you’re like me and you’re from Maine, you’re not all that excited about being associated with Massachusetts. Of course we’re Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins and Celtics fans, talking about Tom Brady and Theo Epstien as if we see them every morning at Espan’s for breakfast, but no, we aren’t Massachusans. Heck we even have our own curse word for them! I won’t repeat it here, but every Mainer knows it, especially after being cut off by someone from Massachusetts.

At any rate, after I’d been there a few weeks, I hit upon a better answer to ‘where’s Maine now?’ I started answering that question with a question: Do you remember a man named George Mitchell? Every single time, I got a yes, and then I’d proudly explain that he was from my home state of Maine. As you can probably imagine, that afforded me the chance to have conversations with the Irish in a completely different way than hearing ‘my cousin lives in Boyslton – isn’t that near Boston?’ So I would like to thank Senator Mitchell, for myself personally, that is, for enhancing my experience in that country, as a Mainer, for giving me something to brag about, and as an Irish-American and a Catholic for his amazing and meaningful work that resulted in the Good Friday Agreements.

In one of my early versions of this speech, I wrote something snappy about how Senator Mitchell almost literally put Maine on the map. But going through in editing, I realized that wasn’t true - most Irish still couldn’t find Maine on a map. But I suppose the point I’m getting at is something more important ... hopefully, they got some idea of the character of this place.

One of the things I did while I was in Ireland was keep a blog. It was a good way for me to keep in touch with everyone stateside all at once. An entry I wrote near the end of my time there might give you an idea of the character of that place:


I was at the pub last night when an older man came in. This is what I love about Ireland: it wasn't 15 minutes before we were trading stories and jokes. He was 83 years old, or at least that's what he claimed. Yet he didn't look a day over 60. The secret to his success? According to him, "good eating, a little drink every day, and a lot of sex whenever you can get it."

There may not be many things in the world better than trading raunchy jokes with a man in his 80s.

As the night progressed, and after my new friend had left, I noticed that the staff was nice enough not to ask me to leave. I say this not because I was being a pain, but because after closing time, the staff did ask everyone else to leave, except me and two other regulars. Much after I was sure I had worn out my welcome, I excused myself to go home. As the barman went to the door to unlock it and let me out, he said "good to see you again." As the words hit my ears I thought, nice of you to say, but it's just not so; you're happy to get rid of me more than anything else. But when I turned to say thanks, an earnest hand was pressed into mine, accompanied by a big smile and "Paddy, it was a pleasure." And although I can be a cynical American much of the time, I believed him.

As I was walking home, I was reminded of a professor I had in undergrad, Gerry Peters. He was big on Freud in particular and German in general. One day he got going on the German word that gives English the word "uncanny." I don't remember what the German word was, but his point was that we had lost the meaning that was supposed to go with 'uncanny.' In German, it meant to have both a normal and an abnormal feeling or sensation at the same time. In a way, it meant that only the familiar could really make you feel uncomfortable. So, as I crested Taylor's Hill, I had to stop and look twice at the road that I had walked down so many times. It just didn't look right. After a moment I figured it out. The mixture of a clear night, with a lot of moonshine and a red stoplight against the street surface produced an eerie purpleness on the road. At the risk of sounding effeminate, I'd say that it was quite pretty. And in that moment, I realized that I wouldn't have noticed it unless I was familiar with the road; I did get that uncanny feeling that my professor was talking about. Part of it, I think, was the idea that I have come to know certain parts of Ireland as my own, but all the same I am not from here and never will be. It was both familiar and unfamiliar at once.


I like that entry (if I do say so myself) because of what it says about Ireland, but also because it reminds me of where I really am from – Maine. I don’t think there are too many people who can say they went to elementary school and law school on the same street, but I did. I used to walk by the funny looking white building that houses the law school every day on my way home from Nathan Clifford. I’d stand at that massive intersection waiting for the crossing guard to give the signal that started my race the rest of the way home to Dartmouth Street. And now here I am, quite a few years later, about to try and give you an idea of the character of the place and of the people with whom I experienced it.

I think that, by almost any measure, this is a group of students I am very proud to be associated with. There are the objective measures – this is a class of achievers. Members of this class clerked at, and are going to work for, every firm you can name in Portland, and another whole list that you can’t. We placed people at the D.A.’s office, in clerkships for all manner of judges and courts, from the district and superior courts in Maine and Massachusetts to the Maine Supreme Court and the First Circuit. My classmates won the annual Tri-Lateral competition, and reached the round of 16 in a national competition in bankruptcy law. And there are subjective measures that are probably even more impressive. I remember before law school my friend Liz bought me the movie The Paper Chase, with John Houseman as the brilliant and standoffish Contracts professor. There’s a famous scene at the beginning depicting the first day of class, and the main character gets dressed down for not having read the first day’s assignment; at the end of class he runs to the mens room and vomits.

Granted, we don’t have a Professor Kingsfield, though Professors Petrucelli and Freidman occasionally come close, but I remember during first year wondering who would be the first one to catch a sardonic lecture from a professor. When would it happen that someone who was so ill-prepared that it would be torture to observe the awkward fumbling and mumbling. I actually got anxiety about it. There’s something terrible about having to watch someone else struggle and not be able to help out and yet not being able to avert your eyes. I waited for that moment for all of first year – and that moment never came, because we all did the work.

And one of the things that’s especially impressive about that, to me, is that as a single guy living just a town away in South Portland, I had a tough enough time getting myself ready for every day of class. Lots of the people behind me did it while having additional responsibilties of spouses and young children, or the hurdles of commuting or balancing a busy work schedule. I’m thinking in particular of Erica Fuller, who’s married with children and who commuted from Massachusetts to graduate. But theree are plenty of others who had things that demanded their attention outside of law school, and still got it done.

I know this will sound a bit corny, but it’s also true: going into that building for three years was energizing and enlightening. I honestly don’t know when I’ll again be part of a collection of so many bright, dedicated, and hardworking people.

But beyond the brain power and the work ethic, I’m proud of how this class treated one another. It may be something of an urban legend, but we often hear that at other very competitive law schools, students sabotage each other by hiding books in the library or misleading each other about what might be on the exam. However exaggerated those stories might be, my instinct is that they come from at least a grain of truth, and I find it stiking how much the opposite was the case for me here at Maine. Once I was telling a friend about giving a classmate a copy of my outline for a class, (‘outline’ is law student speak for your organized notes for the semester). The friend thought that seemed like a pretty dumb idea, since we are graded on a forced curve, and helping someone else was essentially hurting yourself. I guess that’s true, but I know that I have relied on others for different things throughout my law school career. I can remember during the first weeks of school when Heather Sanborn, whom I then hardly knew, spent 15 minutes answering my questions about option contracts. And even beyond any quid pro quo motivation, sharing an outline, or a day’s notes, just seemed like the right thing to do. And it certainly wasn’t just me – we all did it as a matter of course.

I also remember during first year that one of our classmates stopped showing up. One of the things about Maine Law you have to understand, is that for the first year, you have an assigned seat for the year. For every class. One seat. So if you’re not there, others notice. Anyway, after a few days in a row of this person missing all the classes, I turned to Carrie Wilshusen, who sat next to me, and said, what’s going on with that – do you suppose someone should say something? Carrie answered that she and Carol Copeland had talked about it and gone to talk to the dean about it the day before. I did the math. That means that after missing just two days in a row, these classmates were into the dean expressing their concern. A couple of days after that, the person, who had been overwhelmed by the stress of first year added to some personal stress, showed back up to class, graciously thanked those who showed concern, and is graduating with us. I don’t think happens everywhere.

I’m even proud of our class gift. We had a class meeting about graduation, and after we had kicked around a few ideas – some new furniture, new art, a couple other tangible things, Matt Mehalic spoke up and pointed out that one of the toughest things in law school is getting a job after first year. Law firms aren’t interested yet, and getting a job just for the summer can be tough, and those that are out there are more in the nature of waiting tables. Why don’t we fund a grant, he asked, to allow someone finishing first year to work at an unpaid legal position over the summer and really do something positive for their community, and for their resume. They could make an application, and a few members of the class could pick a winner. Prof. Khoury was there and pointed out that this was a big financial commitment, especially if we wanted it to be an annual thing; something that would be around for years to carry our names. Well I think we came to an agreement in about three minutes that we were going to make this work. And we’re not all the way there yet, but I’m happy to report that we are more than three quarters of the way to funding the Class of 2007 Grant.

Now, that being said, I’m also proud that we weren’t a class that took itself too seriously. I’m reminded of my rapport with Amy Robidas, who sat in front of me throughout first year. Amy is perhaps the most left wing person I have ever met. I like to think of myself as a bit right of center, but she’d tell you I’m some kind of right wing wacko. Actually she tells me that every chance she gets. When I got back from Ireland we hadn’t seen each other in a while and she asked me if was able to oppress any poor people or pollute any expanses of green. I think I replied that somewhere a tree was missing its hugger. But the thing is, like so many others in class, we’re completely friends. I’d do anything I could for her and I’m confident she would do the same, except vote for John McCain. I know with her passion she’s going to make a terrific advocate very soon – sooner than the rest of us, heck, she’s already graduated early and passed the bar. She was telling me though, that her first clients are giving her a hard time, not signing a retainer agreement. Apparently she’s having the toughest time getting the baby seals to hold pens in their flippers.

I’ll also remember a certain morning in Civil Procedure with Professor Petrucelli. Now, if you’ve never head the pleasure, and sometime pain, of being in Civ Pro with Petrucelli, I’ll let you know that it can be a pretty intimidating experience. Here is a guy who has been a professor of law since he was in his 20s, and starts each day by calling on someone cold and asking, “Mr. Thornton, Pennoyer v. Neff: who is suing whom for what?” On this particular morning, my friend Maggie Wood was the victim. I don’t remember the case, but I do remember Prof. Petrucelli starting one of his series of open-ended questions in rapid succession, where you’re not sure at what point to jump in, if at all. That day, it went something like this:

“Ms. Wood, why is the plaintiff here being refused recourse?
Why is the court distinguishing between equity and law?
Why should it matter if the plaintiff has phrased his question to the court wrongly?
Shouldn’t the court do the right thing?
What is the right thing?
What does it mean in court to be ‘right’?
Does it mean what is equitable?
Does it mean what is legal?
Is there a difference?
I ask you, Ms. Wood: what is equitable, and what is law?”

At this point the no one in class is making eye contact with Prof. Petrucelli. And we were all secretly thanking God that today had not been our day to be called on. And you would think this would be the moment where someone in our class would stumble. But Maggie took a breath, looked at Prof. Petrucelli and said, “I feel like I’m in the middle of a game show.” Even Prof. Petrucelli had to laugh at that. Completely disarmed, he said, “in that case, how about you tell me what the court did.” I actually think it disarmed him for the rest of semester, and we should thank Maggie for it.

I’ll remember some of the members of our class who, like me, are older than our average age of 30. I’ll miss listening to J. Kimball Hobbs, a former international bank examiner, quizzing our professors with his hypotheticals. The best part is he came up with them on the fly. I’m pretty sure he’s the only person I know who could formulate a question that would take two minutes to ask, and still hold my attention. “Ah, bear with me here, but I’m comparing this case with one we read three weeks ago in Torts, and I just can’t understand...” But our professors would always hear him out.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t say a kind word about what we learned from the faculty, or at least take this opportunity to poke fun at them.

Our first experience at law school was Professor Zarr, from whom I learned that whenever I am presented with a yes/no question, there is one correct answer: object to the question as a trick question. From Professor Ward, we learned that we were all insane for buying Poland Spring water, since the bottles cost the company 45 cents and the water costs 3 cents. That got him so fired up, he was like Phil Donahue, racing up and down the aisles of the classroom shouting at us: “you’re laughing but it’s true!”

I think most of us had Professor Maine, he’s kind of taken a beating as the favorite punching bag at the first year skits. That’s where, at the end of the first semester each year, the first years are on the hook to put together a bunch of skits to make fun of the professors and make the rest of us laugh. I’m not sure if it’s the Texas accent or the fact that we all love his classes, but Professor Maine gets impersonated every year, so I won’t hit him too hard today. But I can’t forget one day in Tax. We were talking about hobbies.

“Did y’all know you can write off hobby expenses? Says right here that you can, to the extent of hobby losses – whatever that means. Any of y’all have a hobby? No?” After no one volunteered, he said, “I have a hobby. Yes, I clog. Y’all suppose I can write off my clogs?”

And we all had Professor Wanderer for Legal Writing. This is a woman who once wrote and article with the title, and I swear I am not making this up: “Citation Excitement!” Actually I think all you need to know about Prof. Wanderer can be summed up by the skits by the class that graduated last year. They did a parody of the Survivor show, with all the professors on the island. Prof. Wanderer cares so much about other people, is so concerned with doing right by others, that in the skit they had her elect to vote herself off the island so as not to put anyone else out. Of course, she’s oh so cuddly. ... That is, until you get your grades. But, in all fairness, I can say that that is something that can be said for all the faculty – on the one hand they are the kindest and most giving I can imagine, so accessible and willing to meet and talk that you start to worry that they’re a bit lonely, but on the other hand, they worked us, hard. But, we did the work. And, that’s why we’re all here now.

...

Hopefully I’ve given you a glimpse of that place: what it’s like inside that odd white building, and of these people: the ones I journeyed through law school with.
As you can probably tell, I’m proud of us. I’m proud of what we’ve done, and of what we’re going to do. I’m proud of the character we have, and the characters that we are. I’m born in Lewiston and raised in Portland, so I know a thing or two about what Mainers are like and what they like. I have an idea of the reputation of the Maine Bar – much like that of Mainers as a whole – it’s one that’s known for being collegial, hardworking, and practical. I’m confident that those of us staying here in Maine are going to make a perfect addition to that bar. I’m also confident that all of us, wherever we go, will always carry with us a sense of this place – the law school, each other, the State of Maine. I guess what I’m saying is that these things; collegiality, work ethic, and pragmatism are the marks of a Mainer, and we can all put them to use to do amazing things, maybe on a small and local scale, or perhaps, on a broader one. Just ask Senator Mitchell.

Cheers.