Enough of yesterday. There are things about tomorrow worth heralding. Among them are the ambitious and the caring individuals in our broad community who have tied their futures to the rule of law.
What that translates into in these pages are the stories of adversity and overcoming, of accrued wisdom and determination told by five new 1Ls in their admission essays. It manifests in the rather uncommon choice—for risk-averse lawyers, at least—to embrace the tumult and disruption of a startup culture built on innovation, which, by definition, is focused on the horizon. It is felt in the heat of a guest lecturer’s declaration: “In the overall discussion of racism, we have three tasks: naming racism, asking how racism is operating here, and organizing and strategizing to act in ways that will propel us forward.”
Boston College Law School is a place, a pipeline, and a professional touchstone. That is what makes educational institutions like this one powerful—their very job is to find, nurture, then launch people prepared not only to handle whatever comes next, but also to do so in better and more imaginative ways than ever before. A tall order, yes, but particularly important in times such as this, when democracy faces new challenges that require inspired solutions. As third-year student Matt Burton said an interview: “It’s foolish to think any of us will die in a just society, but important to look back knowing we did everything we could to make this a better world.”
The propulsive nature of BC Law’s mandate to educate toward the greater good creates energy attractive to prospective students and seasoned alumni alike. It is energy with its eye on the prize of a word inherently future-focused: leadership.
Dean Vincent Rougeau understands that. For his year as president of the American Association of Law Schools, he has chosen the theme, “Freedom, Equality, and the Common Good.”
David Simas ’95, CEO of the Obama Foundation and a frequent speaker at BC Law, also understands that. His talks always point toward better tomorrows. “Our North Star is all around civic leadership,” he said at the Reunion 2020 keynote in November (page 40). “I can think of no one better than people who have gone through Boston College Law School—with the ethos and the values that it has—to be part of [the] solution” to the nation’s problems.
Vicki Sanders, Editor
vicki.sanders@bc.edu