Transcriber: Ohlala_ J'adore
Reviewer: David DeRuwe I once had a law professor
that offered to make the joke that the entire reason
why you go to law school is just so you can learn
a handful of fancy Latin phrases to impress people at dinner parties. (Laughter) It's not the fanciest
or most Latin of words I know, but today I want to talk to you
and try really hard to impress you, talking about zeal. "Zeal" is hands-down
one of my favorite words, one of the most important words for me. Zeal: great energy or enthusiasm
in pursuit of a cause or an objective. It's not the only way
to get at this point; it's probably more common
to talk about having passion, enthusiasm. There are other fun ways
to talk about having gusto, but I'm talking
very particularly about zeal. And zeal is the very particular word
that I'm choosing today, and it's so important to me
because I'm a lawyer. So going back to that
dinner party example - Whether you're making small talk
with a stranger at a bar, whether you're at a dinner party, it's pretty common
to ask people "What do you do?" and talk about your profession. And when people find out
that I'm a lawyer, it's pretty common that people want
to ask me about their legal problems - something they've had before, something they think is around the corner, or better yet, their cousin's aunt's sister
halfway across the country is in this mess. What can they do? And odds are, you know, for lawyers
that face this type of situation, it might be that they ask you
a very specific question about the type of work you do, and maybe you can help them a little, maybe you can point them
in the right direction. But if you think about it, odds are, whatever a lawyer gets asked
in this type of situation, the most likely correct answer
is "I don't know." People hate to say "I don't know." Grinnellians hate to say "I don't know." But if you think about it,
that's probably true. Okay, so we have 50 states. Every state has a bunch of different
cities and localities with their own laws. The 50 different states with laws, a complex federal system
on top of it of laws, and these laws are changing all the time. If you become a lawyer,
you probably become specialized. You don't really go to law school
to learn everything in every situation and not just to impress
that person at the bar. So what you do instead
is you learn in law school how to think like a lawyer. That way you can kind of
be a professional chameleon. Whatever situation you end up in, wherever you practice, whatever you decide to do, however things evolve, you can do what you need to do
to get up-to-date, to be adept, to be a professional. Now, whether you're
a current student here, considering law school, or whether law school
was never in your cards and you just might want to brush up
on your logic skills for some reason, self-improvement, or I once had an ex-girlfriend tell me
that it wasn't fair dating a lawyer, because I won every argument. So you know. But for whatever reason, if you want to learn what it means
to think like a lawyer, you don't have to go to law school. There's plenty of books and websites
and videos out there on this topic. And if you dive into it, probably the most common things
you're going to see are sort of on this list. So like the first thing, especially if you're gearing specifically
for things for law students, you'll be taught IRAC:
- Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion. So in law school, most exams
are what we call "issue spotters," like a big, long fact pattern
where you're supposed to read it, and the idea is that you do this - you spot the issue, you discuss what the rule is
that applies to the issue, you show your work,
your analysis, your application, and you explain the conclusion,
the result that should come from it. And all the while,
while you're doing this, you're also taught these other techniques. You're taught to avoid
emotional reactions and distractions. Don't let a red herring take you off-topic but focus on the logic,
the core of the issue. You learn how to argue and see both sides. Maybe you're assigned a side
you don't personally agree with, or maybe you need to see the other side
to anticipate and get out in front of it or respond to it. You learn how to infer rules
from patterns. You see what's happened
time and time again to anticipate what happened next, what will happen next. You compare situations using analogies. If you come before a court,
you might want to say, "Hey, this is just like this thing
that's happened ten times before - the same thing should happen today," or, "It's not like that thing,
and something new should happen today." And at the same time, you learn to accept ambiguity
and question everything. And these are all fine, useful skills, and I'm guessing these are all skills
that you learn as Grinnellians and in all different fields of work. And you don't have to be a lawyer
to use these skills, and I have no problem with this idea
of what it means to think like a lawyer. But when I think
about what it means to me to think like a lawyer
and how I hope my clients view me, these aren't the first things
that come to mind. Think about it. If you're asking a friend,
"What do you think of the lawyer who handled your divorce
proceeding last year?" they're not going to say, "Oh, they were so great at IRAC.
I really love that." No. Instead, I'm going back
to my word about zeal because to me what I hope
to be is a zealous advocate. The idea of lawyers as a zealous advocate
has been around for a while. One of the first ways it was written out was in the American Bar Association's
Canons of Professional Ethics back in 1908. So this is basically - this organization wrote
a draft of ethics rules that they suggested
that other states and other courts kind of adapt and make their own
kind of a sample. And under Canon 15, they wrote - you know, under Canon 15 - which is how far a lawyer may go
in supporting a client's cause they wrote, "The lawyer owes entire devotion
to the interest of the client." Warm zeal - not just zeal - "Warm zeal in the maintenance
and defense of his rights and the exertion of his utmost
learning and ability to the end that nothing be taken
or withheld from him, save by the rules of law,
legally applied." All right, so let's break
this down for a second. So, the first part of it - "The lawyer owes entire devotion
to the interest of the client." Basically that's meaning is - a lawyer, the one you hire,
the one that's appointed to you, should be on your side. They're not playing the other side.
That makes sense. Next part - "Warm zeal in the maintenance
and defense of his rights and the exertion of his utmost
learning and ability." Basically, meaning that you should use
all of your knowledge, all of your experience, to fight as hard and do
whatever you can for your client. Now, obviously there are limits to this. You can't go out and
"Better Call Saul" the situation. You have to stay within the ethics rules. But even if something
may be unpopular or unconventional, whatever is best within the context for your client, you should do to the utmost
of your abilities. And in the end - "To the end that nothing
be taken or withheld from him, save by the rules of law." Meaning that we hope that if both sides have people
playing on their side and playing as hard as they can,
fighting as hard as they can, that we should have just results, that we have fair results. I want to talk a little bit about how I learned what it means
to be a zealous advocate in the context of my first job
after law school. So after I graduated law school, my first job was with this great
organization in New York City called the Center
for Family Representation. And what CFR does is - it's about half attorneys
and half social workers, and we were court-appointed to parents
and child abuse and child neglect cases in Manhattan and Queens. And so, basically, if social services in New York
was considering intervening in a family, supervising in the family, maybe removing the child
and placing the child in foster care, we were people appointed
to help them make the arguments that they should keep
their child in their home or that they've done enough to have
the child returned back to their home. And as you can imagine, people don't end up
in this type of situation or in family court in general for really sunny or rosy reasons. You know, unfortunately,
the majority of my clients were dealing with things
like substance abuse and drug addiction and alcohol, mental health,
poverty, domestic violence, and too often, a combination
of many of the above. But I was doing the type
of work I wanted to do, and I learned what it means
to be a zealous advocate, regardless of the situation I faced. I mean, to use a poker analogy,
you play the cards you're dealt. Sometimes, I was dealt great cards;
sometimes, I was dealt not-so-great cards. But regardless, my responsibilities
and my duties were the same: to be a zealous advocate
and do everything that I could for them. And while I was going through this process and learning what it meant to be
a zealous advocate for them, I also witnessed that these parents, more often than not, regardless of how good or bad
the situation was that brought them to work with me, were often a zealous advocate
for their own children. They had strong, passionate feelings about how their children
should be treated, and it was really encouraging to me. But I also sometimes noticed that they didn't always
apply that same level, the same high level of standards
of respect and treatment, to themselves. And it kind of dawned on me
that it's often easier to be a zealous advocate
for those around you than for yourself. It's often easier, you know,
to speak up for your friends and family, intervene on their behalf, than maybe face
some hard truths about yourself. And I'm not saying
that solutions and issues like domestic violence
and substance abuse are easy. You can't just flip a switch and fix them. But understanding your self-worth
and demanding more of yourself is one of those first steps. And I don't want to sound
like a hypocrite up here talking about it because at the same time, I began to realize that I
was kind of guilty of this myself too. And in particular, one day
just about two years ago, I was on a crowded, busy New York subway on my way to work, and suddenly, I had the first
full-blown panic attack of my life. And to put in context,
I want to think a little bit about where I came from
to get to this point. See, I'm the oldest
of three kids in my family. We're the first generation
in our family to go to college. I did well in high school. I did things like Mock Trial. I successfully fought and overturned
a book ban at my high school. Things like this made me think, "Oh, maybe law - maybe
being an advocate would be fun." I came to Grinnell; I did well here. I went to a law school; I did well there. Passed the Bar,
got the type of job I wanted, and I was being an actual lawyer. But to use another metaphor, I kind of realized that morning,
having that panic attack, that I was sort of like Wile E. Coyote
chasing the Road Runner. And I was going so fast
from goal to goal and step to step. At the time, I'd started doing
what I wanted to do, and it was the end goal all the time. I was a mile off the edge of the cliff and just falling
all the way straight down. Now, thankfully, that situation -
I used it as a wake-up call. I started things
like therapy and medication. I got a lot better
about diet and exercise. I got a little bit better about sleep - I know that's crazy for Grinnellians,
but good sleep helps a lot. And I'm not perfect. But it's something
I've worked on every day, and I think I've come a long way. And it's something I think
I'm heading in the right direction about. And this whole time
over these last two years, it also helped a little bit to realize that I'm not the only one
who struggled these last two years. I mean, a lot of people in this room,
across this country, have had a real hard time
the last couple of years. And it's kind of hard for me
to think about this and not also connect it with things
like "Black Lives Matter" and "Me Too" and these other situations
where on these issues that people often would speak out
about regarding others but are also speaking up and saying, "Hey, I deserve
to be treated with respect. I deserve the best too." So, I'm not sitting here and pretending
that I have all the answers about myself. I don't have the answers for you. I don't have the answers for this country. But the only small piece of advice
I can try to end with today, so you can take away from here, is to learn a lesson I learned and keep being a zealous advocate
for those around you, for those you love. That's a very Grinnell thing to do. But in the process, don't forget
to be a zealous advocate for yourself. Thank you. (Applause)
