This past Commencement, the first JD class that I have accompanied since their 1L fall semester graduated. What a meaningful opportunity to see everything they have accomplished, and to reflect on the tremendous professional promise they hold. The Class of 2026 is not entering the legal profession at the easiest of moments. There is real pressure on judicial independence, higher education, and governmental effectiveness and integrity. The rule of law, and sometimes the legal profession itself, can seem under threat, both globally and here in the US.
But here is the good news. BC Law has prepared our graduates to do something about it. As students, they spent their time learning to use the law and to think critically about the law—to find its gaps and contradictions as well as its boundless potential. Their professors have taught them both hope and a healthy skepticism, with an ability to ask hard questions and to ground their thinking in care for others.
And they understand that they have now crossed from studying the law to being truly responsible for it—and, indeed, part of it. When they sit across from a client, stand before a judge, advise an organization, or advocate for a community, they can become the best elements of the rule of law personified. And, in a world of so much uncertainty and injustice, they will have the ability to make that otherwise abstract concept mean strength, excellence, integrity, and hope in every room they enter.
“The deepest value lawyers bring—the value that justifies the trust placed in this profession—is human. It is our capacity for judgment, conscience, connection, and care.”
Dean Odette Lienau
They join the profession at an unprecedented moment for another reason as well: They will be part of the generation that truly defines how the legal profession lives alongside artificial intelligence—and decides what we gain or lose within it. We need them to properly use and evaluate AI, understand and regularly assess what it does well and what it does not. But we also need them to hold firmly to the ethical dimension of their work and to the central place for human judgment and compassion within it.
As part of this, they need to stay keenly aware of the ways in which using AI can anchor and shape their own thinking: Once we have seen or heard a framing or first answer—including one generated by AI—it can become more difficult to think past it. So, our new graduates—and, indeed, all lawyers—must protect the space for their own independent analysis and reflection. They will need to find a balance of harnessing the power of new technologies without letting a machine, or anyone else, dim their capacity to reason. The deepest value lawyers bring—the value that justifies the trust placed in this profession—is human. It is our capacity for judgment, conscience, connection, and care.
At a broader social level, it is essential to remain cognizant that if the most sophisticated and efficient legal tools remain disproportionately at the service of the privileged and the powerful, this technology will only widen the justice gap. So, whether our graduates practice in BigLaw, a nonprofit, government, a clerkship, or any other space, they have a responsibility to ensure that these potent, world-shaping tools serve everyone.
BC Law’s mission, grounded in the school’s Jesuit heritage, calls us to excellence, compassion, and to standing with those at the margins. That call never assumes a perfect world. Indeed, it assumes imperfection, and it requires us to show up with conviction. I am excited to see our new graduates embody this conviction—and our principles—throughout their careers.