Saturday, May 18, was the perfect spring day in Cleveland for Case Western Reserve University School of Law graduates to celebrate their commencement. In the 132nd year of the venerable law school, 151 JDs, 42 foreign LLMs, 20 Master students and 21 SJDs from 27 states and 13 countries walked across the stage at the CWRU Veale Convocation, Recreation and Athletic Center and received their diplomas.
During the ceremony, the graduates and their families heard from Jessica Berg and Michael Scharf, who made their eleventh and final graduation speeches as Co-Deans. Scharf began by congratulating the graduating students on all they had achieved despite the local, national and international distractions of these extraordinary times. Going off script, Scharf said “If you could meet the challenges of law school despite these distractions, you can accomplish anything!”
Nicole Braden Lewis, president of the Law Alumni Association, then urged the graduating students to provide support to the generations of law students that follow in their footsteps, as our alumni have done for them. Law student commencement speaker Kayla Tharp spoke about how accepting the school had been of differences among students and what a special community it had created. And then, 34 years after his own graduation from CWRU School of Law, the Honorable Charles Fleming, judge of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, delivered an inspiring speech about the importance of “showing up and taking swings.”
In concluding remarks, Dean Berg extolled the graduates to consider the words of Maya Angelou: “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” She added, “you will not choose the challenges you face—you certainly didn’t choose the ones you faced these past few years—but you will choose how you react to those challenges and the pathways you choose in response.”
A video of the Law School’s 2024 commencement will be available in Summer 2024.