Just returned from graduation, held outdoors at “The Horseshoe,” an old and very beautiful part of campus. The weather was cloudy but happily the rain stayed away, and it was nice not having the sun beat down on us, given our heavy gowns and hoods and mortarboards. Tradition dictates that one should don the academic regalia of the law school that she graduated from, but I don’t. I prefer instead to proudly wear the colors of the University of South Carolina, in honor of the graduating class. I really like the vast majority of our students, and I think they will make fine attorneys. In time, many will become judges or elected officials in this state, and elsewhere. They have been through three years of high stress and hard work, but I hope they will carry some positive law school memories with them as they begin legal careers, or as one graduation speaker put it, make the transition from answering difficult questions with the tremulous “I don’t know” of first year law students, to the much more erudite and authoritative “It depends,” of practicing lawyers.
Congratulations Class of 2006! Go out and become the kinds of lawyers that you’d want to have!
–Ann Bartow
