It's April, which means law school commencement season is almost upon us. We can debate the characteristics of the ideal law school commencement speaker as PrawfsBlawg did earlier this year (I, for one, would be pretty stoked to have Steve Young speak at my graduation, and would be less enthusiastic about Peter Garrett), but most of us will probably end up with "a lawyer who has 'made it to a prominent position in public life.'"
Northwestern set the bar high last year with Jerry Springer, and so far the 2009 season hasn't included any selection so inspired. There are still a lot of TBAs out there, but below are the results of a quick search:
- Berkeley Law - UC Irvine Dean Erwin Chemerinsky
- Boston University Law - Governor Howard Dean
- Brooklyn Law School - Chair of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board Paul Volcker
- Case Western Reserve Law - Ohio Supreme Court Justice Robert M. Duncan
- Indiana Law - Deputy Director of the FBI John Pistole
- Lewis & Clark Law - trial lawyer Robert S. Bennett
- Pace Law - NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg (Ed. Note: A strong contender for most interesting person on this list.)
- Santa Clara Law - Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative Bryan A. Stevenson
- UC Davis Law - President Pro Tempore of the California State Senate Darrell Steinberg
- UC Hastings - Congresswoman Jackie Speier
- U of Pittsburgh Law - President and CEO of the NAACP Benjamin Todd Jealous
- U of Minnesota Law - Chief Judge, U.S. District Court Michael J. Davis
- UNC Law - former Attorney General Michael Mukasey (complete with requisite controversy)
- USC Law - California Attorney General Jerry Brown (Ed. Note: Are we sure he won't farm this out to a lower-level employee?)
- USD Law - Qualcomm President Steven R. Altman
- USF Law - President of the Children's Defense Fund Marian Wright Edelman
- Vermont Law - Natural Resources Defense Council President Frances Beinecke
- Whittier Law - U.S. District Court Judge for the Central District of California David O. Carter
Its early, so I'm still hoping that one of those TBAs will become the Jerry Springer of 2009.
Also, this is obviously not a complete list. I'll update it as commencement speakers are announced in the coming weeks. Let me know in the comments or via email if you hear of any new additions.
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