RALEIGH – Campbell Law School conferred 123 Juris Doctor degrees at its 40th annual hooding and graduation ceremony on Friday, May 11 at Memorial Auditorium at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts. United States Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein delivered the commencement address.
View the graduation photo gallery on the Campbell Law School Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/campbelllawschool.
“You start your careers at a paradoxical time,” said Campbell Law Dean J. Rich Leonard. “Although it is indisputable that fewer people on our globe now live in abject poverty and standards of living are rising everywhere, nonetheless, powerful autocratic movements and rulers are ascending in influence. It sometimes seems that the very idea of a democratic republic is under attack. As a student of history, I tell you that it was the skills of analysis, debate, advocacy and compromise of our lawyer forefathers that gave us our nation, and it will be the same skills of your generation that, God willing, will allow us to sustain it.”
Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein’s remarks touched on the importance of integrity and taking “ownership of consequential decisions.”
“Members of the Class of 2018, you are talented and well-trained young lawyers with much to offer our profession. You’ve spent the last three years of your life immersed in the law, but you are beginners. Most of the law you need to know remains to be learned. Most of the wisdom that you need to exercise has yet to be developed. So maintain the intellectual discipline that brought you to this moment. Set aside time each day to study and grow as a lawyer and as a human being.”
Campbell Law also formally honored and bid farewell to retiring professor Bob Loftis after more than 30 years of service to the law school. Loftis provided the benediction in his final act as a member of the faculty.