Risa L. Goluboff ‘00
Dean of UVA Law
Photo Courtesy of virginia.edu
To say that we begin this school year at a challenging moment is an understatement. The unprecedented COVID-19 global pandemic continues, and it has ushered in an economic crisis unprecedented in its own right. We are in the middle of a national reckoning with racial injustice. A hotly contested election fast approaches.
As we navigate these challenges together, this year will certainly differ from any that has come before. In your first week of classes, you have already seen many ways in which that is the case. You wear masks, take some or all of your courses online, keep your distance from one another, and watch your professors through Plexiglass. You monitor your health and worry about both your own health and that of others. You are being asked to fulfill obligations to each other and this community that no class before you has had to contemplate.
So much remains the same, however. This is your first year of law school, and that means it is the start of an exciting intellectual, personal, and professional journey for each of you. That is, as it always is, a joy to behold.
This year will transform you, as the first year of law school always transforms 1L students. The opportunities before you—both during your time here and in the careers that will follow—are almost limitless. Our faculty, administrators, 2Ls, and 3Ls are eager to help you begin to take advantage of those opportunities and to find your way around the Law School. I mean that in the literal sense: Note, for example, that there are two Caplin Reading Rooms—the one in the Library and the one off Scott Commons—as well as both a Caplin Pavilion and a Caplin Auditorium. (Mortimer Caplin ’40 was an alumnus, a member of the faculty, and a loyal and generous donor.)
I mean it in a figurative sense as well. Our world-class faculty is dedicated to initiating you into the mysteries of the law and bringing their innovative research into their instruction as they do so. Outside of the classroom, fellow students, faculty, and staff offer countless ways for you to connect with each other and dive into our community, both virtually and in small groups. We are here to help you navigate the intellectual challenges ahead of you and identify the aspects of the law and law school—areas of study, service projects, political causes, student organizations, extracurricular activities, research opportunities, career paths—that give you a sense of purpose and belonging and enable you to thrive. We are here to help you find your path and to support you at every step along it.
It will not always be easy, for the reasons made (in)famous in popular culture and mythology: required classes and cold calls, oral arguments and journal tryouts and job searches. But it will no doubt be rewarding. This year will prepare you not only for the rest of law school, but for the amazing, varied, as yet unknown careers that you will each make your own.
You will spend hours each week with your new classmates, over screens and otherwise. Take advantage of opportunities to connect and engage with each other. As I said during orientation, the legal profession is dedicated to testing ideas with argument and persuasion. Lawyers both ask difficult questions and must hear difficult answers. It is not always easy to speak so that others can listen or listen even when the message is hard to hear. It may be even harder to do those things this year, when we are coping with a new normal that feels anything but, engaging in important and difficult conversations about race, and witnessing and participating in that most central of our democratic institutions: voting.
I am confident that we are up to the task. We are a community that cares deeply about each other and makes dialogue across difference a hallmark. We come from different races, religions, nationalities, ethnicities, and cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. We have had different life experiences and live different identities. We hold different beliefs, attitudes, and interests, and subscribe to a wide range of political views. We each have our own unique hopes and dreams. We bridge these differences with a shared commitment to this community, a shared aspiration that our differences serve as a source of humility and strength, empathy and intellectual stimulation. The community of trust and belonging to which we each contribute takes real dedication and effort to maintain, and it is worth every ounce of such effort. It is essential to all we do here and to becoming the exceptional lawyers you are all here to become.
This moment in our nation’s history calls out for exceptional lawyers. Lawyers will lead our government, our institutions, our businesses, and our communities through the many changes on the horizon in ways that comport with the core values of our Constitution and our profession. You will follow in the footsteps of a learned profession committed to justice and the rule of law. You will become those lawyers.
As you run through what can seem the gauntlet of 1L year, you will gain new skills, new ways of thinking, and new intellectual resources. You will also make new friends and colleagues, connect with new mentors, and have new experiences that will enrich and transform you. You will become essential members of this community. Through it all, you will find here the joy and humanity that is at the core of UVA Law and that, more than anything, remains very much the same as it always has.
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risa.goluboff@law.virginia.edu