At a ceremony at NYU Law on April 9, former US Attorney General Eric Holder accepted the dedication of the 82nd volume of the New York University Annual Survey of American Law and reflected on the challenges facing the nation, including misinformation, injustice, and threats to the rule of law.
“We are the guardians of a nation worthy of our protection,” Holder said in his remarks. “Always remember, positive change is not promised. It doesn’t just happen. It is the result of hard work by committed people like yourselves. Our success against the dark forces in this time will not be a function of timidity, fear, nor cowardice. Nor will it be a result of resignation, appeasement, or capitulation by people, by professions, or by institutions…. Let us commit ourselves to this trying time, to our cause, and to one another. I will treasure this day always and use it as a reminder that my commitment and belief, and yours, will never flag.”
Each volume of the Annual Survey is dedicated to a lawyer who has made significant and lasting contributions to the legal profession. The April 9 event, held in Greenberg Lounge, honored Holder as a lawyer, public servant, and advocate whose career has spanned four decades and helped to shape American law and justice.
In his introductory remarks, Dean Troy McKenzie ’00 described Holder’s career, which has included serving as US attorney for the District of Columbia, deputy attorney general, and the 82nd attorney general of the United States from 2009 to 2015—the first African American to hold that position. Other speakers included NYU Law Distinguished Scholar in Residence Vanita Gupta ’01, former associate attorney general; Sally Yates, partner at King & Spalding and former deputy attorney general; James Garland, partner at Covington & Burling and Holder’s former deputy chief of staff and counselor; and John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
Gupta emphasized Holder's efforts to address mass incarceration and protect civil rights, recalling the experience of hearing him at a 2014 Georgetown University Law Center conference. “I heard a leader speak urgently and forcefully about a problem [mass incarceration] that was not just about the dehumanization of thousands of people and their families involved in the criminal justice system, but a problem that really called into question our country’s very commitment to the promise of equal justice before the law,” she said. Those remarks, Gupta added, signified Holder’s “courageous commitment to making real the promise of our nation’s civil rights laws that defined his tenure as one of the longest-serving attorneys general in American history.”
Yates shared anecdotes illustrating Holder’s ability to inspire those around him. “At a time of cynicism and distrust, if not outright disdain, for the government, I wish the American people could see and know the Justice Department that I knew under Eric Holder,” she said. “It was the kind of place that you were proud to be part of.” She highlighted Holder’s Smart on Crime program, which altered the existing approach to charging and sentencing non-violent drug-related offenses and placed restrictions on the use of mandatory minimum sentences. Holder discussed the program at a conference of drug and criminal chiefs from US attorney’s offices across the country, she recalled.
“He laid out his thinking for them, and he answered their questions, some of which were pretty darn hostile, candidly,” said Yates. “And everybody left there understanding what he was trying to achieve by Smart on Crime. Even if they didn’t necessarily agree with it, they absolutely understood. You know what else they understood? They had to do it.”
“At his core, Eric is a lawyer. He loves practicing law, whether as a prosecutor or as a defense lawyer, a corporate strategist, or a civil rights champion,” Garland said. “He is creative, analytically incisive, savvy, strategic, and annoyingly knowledgeable.” Garland remembered a meeting of national security lawyers struggling with where to bring a prosecution for piracy on the high seas, a charge not pursued by the Justice Department in more than a century. It was Holder who, overhearing, noted that the proper venue was the judicial district in which a pirate is first brought ashore.
Bisognano highlighted Holder’s work to combat gerrymandering as chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. In 2012, Bisognano said, Congressional Republicans received 1.4 million fewer votes than Democrats and still won 33 more seats—but in the 2022 and 2024 elections, the popular vote and seat wins aligned almost perfectly. “When we work with Eric every day and he transitions seamlessly from legal work to political meetings to cable news, it becomes easy to take advantage or to take for granted his immense talent,” said Bisognano. “Why? Why shouldn't there be someone, a modern version of Batman, able to tackle complex legal issues by day and spar with political news pundits at night?... This is Eric Holder’s superpower: his courage to take on big challenges and fight systemic inequities over and over, ceaselessly.”
Posted April 30, 2025. For updates about the Annual Survey, sign up at this link.