NICOLE MILLER/Daily Bruin Soon-to-be graduates listen to former
Secretary of State Warren Christopher speak at the
2002 UCLA Law School commencement ceremony Sunday.
By Dexter Gauntlett
Daily Bruin [email protected]
Former secretary of state Warren Christopher addressed the 2002
graduating Law School class Sunday, even though his message could
be taught in elementary school. “It’s that type of
ceremony when a seventy-year-old talks to twenty-year-olds about
things every ten-year-old should know.”
“Trust,” he said.
But the country, Christopher explained in his speech, will have
to work hard to regain people’s trust in major corporations,
religious leaders and even those meant to enforce the law, such as
the Los Angeles Police Department. A responsibility Christopher
attempted to inspire with practical advice from a man who, besides
serving as Secretary of State, worked as a lawyer for social
justice for over 50 years.
Citing the Enron debacle and recent charges of sexual misconduct
by members of the Catholic church, Christopher said those involved
“exacted a terrible toll on the persons and institutions
involved.”
“Those betrayed become cynical, hypersensitive, and
unwilling to trust again,” he added.
Christopher, who made his fourth return to the Los Angeles law
firm, O’Melveny and Myers, in 1997, urged the graduating
class to build trust with their clients, judges and fellow lawyers,
and to have confidence in their own judgment.
“Resolve…to nurture and honor the trust that is being
placed in you today,” Christopher said.
Christopher’s speech on law echoed of relevance to his own
diplomatic career that sent him around the world to make attempts
at peace between countries that had been feuding for
generations.
“There are many lawyers in this city who have sharply
divergent ideologies, who regularly represent clients with
radically different interests, but who get along famously because
they trust and respect each other,” he said.
Christopher was given the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s
highest civilian award, by former President Jimmy Carter in 1981
for the negotiation of the release of 52 American hostages from
Iran and was entrusted by Bill Clinton to handle major political
crises in the Middle East and Balkans.
After diplomas and awards were handed out during the three hour
ceremony at Perloff Quad, Christopher spent a few minutes offering
insight into the relationship in today’s world between the
legal system, trust and politics.
Christopher said the most successful people are those who have
built up a strong sense of trust. He cited the high rate of
incumbency as evidence in the general public of trust in
government. And regardless of whether lawyers are trusted by the
general public, Christopher said, “When someone gets in
trouble, it’s a lawyer they want to turn to.”
But Do Hyung Kim, one of the student commencement speakers who
represented a more cynical approach to the law, said in his speech
that after his study of discrimination while at UCLA, the legal
system’s claim at objectivity is discredited.
The next generation of young lawyers needs to work to regain
this credibility, he said.