Deans, faculty, staff, students, parents and friends: I am honored to address you today. Some of you might ask yourself, "What can this law professor, who has worked only in government and the legal academy, possibly tell us about the private practice of law, which is where I am headed?" I would answer you by saying, "Plenty." Let me explain. There are three keys to your future success.
The first is executing the desires of your client whatever they are. If you’re a baseball fan you may recall Jim Fregosi, the one-time manager of the California Angels. On this topic, he said: "My owners and I think exactly alike. Whatever they’re thinking, that’s what I’m thinking." As a baseball fan myself, I well recalled these words in 2003, when my clients were President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. I was working in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel then. They asked me to report on whether our government is allowed to "torture" people despite the so-called "treaties" that, at a glance, would seem to forbid it. I figured they wouldn’t be asking me to report on it in the first place if they thought the law put "torture" out of bounds. With that thought firmly in mind, I entered the library, or asked one of my interns to do it.
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