At Convocation on May 20, NYU Law saluted the achievements of the Class of 2025—more than 900 JD, LLM, JSD, and MS degree recipients—as friends and family cheered on the graduates in the Theater at Madison Square Garden.
Breon Peace ’96, former US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, gave the keynote address for the JD ceremony, and Rosalie Silberman Abella, retired justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, was the keynote speaker at the ceremony for LLMs and graduate degree recipients.
While Peace, Abella, and other speakers acknowledged that members of the Class of 2025 are emerging into an uncertain and divided world, they welcomed the energy, purpose, and creativity of the Law School’s newest alumni. “The good news is that you have been given the tools to make a real difference at a time when your country and our world desperately needs you,” said David Tanner ’84, chair of the NYU Law Board of Trustees. “You have learned how to speak clearly, how to reason thoughtfully and persuasively, how to read between the lines. Those skills bring with it an extraordinary power. What you do with it is entirely up to you. Our sincerest hope is that while you pursue your careers, you help defend the rule of law and the foundations of our democratic society.”
Noting the tumult of current events, Dean Troy McKenzie ’00, Cecelia Goetz Professor of Law, challenged the graduates to channel their emotions wisely. “In this particular moment, we need passion, passion that grows from challenging circumstances,” he said, adding, “I genuinely believe that never before in modern history has there been a more profound need for principled, tenacious, and yes, zealous lawyers.”
Brenda Maritza Mendez ’25, The Voice of Class of 2025, urged her classmates to feel empowered to make change throughout their lives. “I want us to feel personally responsible for the world that is about to be,” Mendez said. Individuals create community by practicing kindness and helping others, even on the smallest scale, she reminded the audience.
“Believe that you have immense power and ground yourself in your values, then go and do something important,” Mendez said. “Build your family and your community, take on the hard cases, run for president, anything. This world and our culture are not unchangeable. It is our job as lawyers to be hopeful and to make trouble.”
In his remarks to the JD graduates, Peace also encouraged the Class of 2025 to seek out ways to make a positive impact. As US Attorney, he said, he prosecuted wrongdoing—and also formed his office’s first unit to address claims of wrongful convictions. In private practice, he handled a range of pro bono cases, including the exoneration of Clifford Jones, who served almost 30 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. “Wherever your career takes you, there will be opportunities to make a positive difference in the space where you live, and in the spaces where you work—from pro bono work and private practice, to mentoring, to volunteering, to philanthropy,” he said. “Through each, we give to others and make our communities and our nation stronger.”
Peace urged the graduates to take seriously their bar oath to uphold the constitution and abide by the rules of professional responsibility and ethics. “We should all recognize,” he said, “that no matter your personal or political views or what side you believe you’re on, the rule of law and our Constitution are worth fighting for.”
Addressing the audience during the graduate ceremony, Yuxin Feng LLM ’25 noted that divisions in the world threaten to sever human connections. But Feng found grounds for optimism near at hand. He cited the friendships formed during his past year at NYU Law among “people who grew up in different countries, who have different habits and customers, and who are even at different stages of their lives—but people whose conversations are not any less meaningful or whose understanding of each other any less complete.
“Beyond the cases and statutes, if the LLM has taught me one thing, it’s that if one looks beneath the surface of conflict and unhappiness, there is hope yet,” Feng added.
Justice Abella began her remarks by asking the audience to give the Class of 2025 a standing ovation for their achievements, and then invited the graduates to return the favor as a thank-you to their family and friends. Then she told her own story of how and why she became a lawyer. Born in a displaced persons camp in Stuttgart, Germany, to parents who were Holocaust survivors, she immigrated as a child to Canada, where her father, despite his legal training and experience in Germany, was not permitted to practice law. That spurred her to choose law as a profession—“the noblest thing you could be,” she said.
Today, she said, justice is under attack around the world, and she spoke strongly of the need to protect democratic values and judicial independence. “My life started in a country where there had been no democracy, no rights, no justice,” Abella said. “It created an unquenchable thirst in me for all three. No one with this history does not feel lucky to be alive and free. No one with this history takes anything or anyone for granted. And no one with this history doesn’t feel that lawyers have a particular duty to promise our children that we will do everything humanly possible to keep the world fairer for them than it was for their grandparents.”
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Posted May 30, 2025