This is my eighth year as dean, and my twenty-second (!) as a member of the UVA Law faculty. The excitement I feel as the new year begins never gets old. What a pleasure to meet so many of you over the past few weeks, to see familiar faces flooding our hallways again, and to feel the energy that permeates the Law School at the start of a new semester. There is so much discovery and growth ahead—I can’t wait to see all of the remarkable things you will do this year.
Chief among them is the transformation at the heart of your legal education. As I said during orientation, going to law school is always a good choice. In my view—and I may be a little bit biased—it may be the best and most important thing you can do right now. You are studying the law at a moment of intense and wide-ranging contestation, both in this country and globally. In a world that seems full of discord, you are entering a profession that is committed to resolving conflict through dialogue and persuasion. As you read your first cases and prep for your first cold calls, you are transforming how you think and preparing yourselves to transform the lives of your clients and the trajectories of institutions, companies, organizations, and governments. You are already learning how to make arguments and dismantle them, how to find the root of a problem, and how to test ideas—whether your own or those of others.
Law school 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. Nor will it be easy intellectually. You will encounter new, and sometimes discomfiting, ideas and ways of thinking. But it will no doubt be rewarding, both in the short term and throughout the amazing, varied, as yet unknown careers on which you have each already embarked.
Over the course of your time at the Law School, I encourage you to do three things. First, make the most of your time here, knowing that we will offer you more opportunities than you can possibly take. That is the beauty of a law school that boasts students who are the best and the brightest in the nation, world-class faculty engaged in groundbreaking and interdisciplinary research, and experiential learning that provides opportunities to put your classroom knowledge to work. Join a journal, take a clinic, do moot court, engage with the Charlottesville community, take on leadership roles in student organizations. As you do so, you will encounter some of the many career paths available to you, from trial lawyer to corporate executive, cause crusader to policy wonk to dealmaker. Imagine what these paths might look like for you. Try several on for size.
Second, take ownership of the education that lies before you—raise your hand, talk in class, and keep an open mind. Learn from, challenge, and collaborate with the professors and peers who surround you. What a gift to us all that the Law School is more diverse—in background, experience, identity, perspective, politics, and religious beliefs—than it has ever been before. I encourage you to see that diversity as a source of institutional strength and intellectual stimulation. Engage with and learn from each other in classrooms and across lunch tables, during office hours and in late-night study groups. That we are a big tent enables you to practice the skills that are so critical to lawyering: active listening, fostering productive and open exchange, and building relationships that bridge our differences.
Which leads me to my final encouragement: Invest in the relationships you will make here. Getting to know your classmates, professors, and staff will enrich your time at the Law School intellectually, professionally, and personally. Knowing each other as real people—as friends, mentors, and colleagues—will make possible the difficult conversations that are a key part of your education, carry you through the hard times, and provide no end of joy in the good ones. The relationships you make here, the community you build, will also sustain you in your life and career for decades to come.
I look forward to the year ahead, to all that we will learn and do together. Welcome to the Law School, and enjoy!
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goluboff@law.virginia.edu