Home > Journals > JCRED > Vol. 37 (2024-2026) > Iss. 4
Abstract
(Excerpt)
It is a privilege to gather today with colleagues and students in our home, to spend time exchanging thoughts about the role of legal scholars and scholarship at this critical juncture in our school’s history and in our country’s history. I decided to focus my remarks today on the future of our country and our profession—and that is our students.
Let me start by sharing my own journey as a legal scholar. If you had told me when I was a law student or a young prosecutor that, one day, I would become a legal scholar, I would have said, “No way.” Sure, I had been researching, critically thinking, and even writing for years. I was on my high school debate team. I had written a very mediocre undergraduate thesis. I was even on Law Review in law school. So yes, I had some skills. But during those years, my entire focus was on acquiring lawyering skills, or mastering the technical knowledge that lawyers possess.