I must say that my favorite speeches at the Columbia Law School graduation ceremony were made by student speakers – Max Miller, president of the student senate, and Andrew LeGrand, nominated to speak by popular vote of his fellow JD graduates. Trying to pinpoint what I enjoyed about their turns at the podium, I come back to one common theme: rather than waxing poetic about a lesson they learned years ago, they spoke with passion about taking action in the future.

Miller, while taking the first half of his speech to thank various parties and look back on fun memories, eventually landed on a memory from law school that stood out most to him. It stood out because he took pride in the work done by his fellow Columbia Law students and the actions taken as a result by his home state of Iowa. He was proud of his affiliation with these groups because they were using their knowledge to take action. He talked about it as a power and responsibility to take action:

This power we now possess may be the source of why lawyers are cursed by some and tend to be the butt of unflattering jokes.  As lawyers, we will have the power to make a difference, and not everyone will agree with the differences we try to make.  It reminds me of what Winston Churchill once said: "You have enemies?  Good. That means you stood up for something, some time in your life."

Immediately following Miller, LeGrand built on the call to action, saying, "we must do the work, a work that begins with service. For, we cannot change the world if we do not serve the world, and our commitment to that cause must be greater than our desire to benefit ourselves." Throughout his speech, LeGrand named injustices in the world and gave examples of famous former Columbia Law students who went on to fight for such causes – figures such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Jack Greenberg, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

LeGrand ended in a grand way, first posing questions to his classmates:

What might be said of your body of work? What might be written? Will you have brought honor to your degree? Will your legacy be worthy of emulation?

Then he called on them to stand up and do their part to engineer a better world.

It was an interesting contrast: the speakers who had established careers based on their work and outcomes spoke most about education and continual learning, while the student speakers who had been so focused on learning and debating new ideas were the ones to talk most passionately about taking action. And that is what stood out the strongest: take action.