OSGOODE HALL LAW SCHOOL
2012 – 2015
It is a beautiful coincidence that two of the last three film reviews published in the Obiter Dicta during the 2014-2015 academic year are Wild Tales and It Follows. The latter reinforces the significant impact that Osgoode will have on our future lives and careers moving forward, while the former rather accurately captures our experience over the past three years, regardless of what path each of us charted during our time walking these halls.
Three years. Six semesters. Twenty-four months (of classes). Even the temporal description sounds completely surreal. It feels like yesterday that we were standing in front of Osgoode Hall in brightly-coloured, Lego-themed t-shirts, basking in the warm September sun, filled with anticipation and trepidation about what lay ahead. There was a nervousness in the air that was palpable, mixed with a sense of awesome discovery. What would Osgoode hold for us? We were ready to find out.
Well, I’m pleased to say we made it (almost).
Our efforts—the long nights, the sleep deprivation, the coffee guzzling, the exam cramming—have paid off gloriously. Very soon, we will be receiving certificates worth $75,000+, entitling us to call ourselves Juris Doctor graduates. It is a massive accomplishment, and one of which all of us should be proud. It deserves smiles and tears, hugs and high fives, and at least seventeen rounds of shots when it is all over.
Yet the moments, large and small, lodged in between classes—pub nights, Passy fire alarms, mooting competitions, Ski Trip, Law Games, Mock Trial, Journal Symposiums, the Wendy Babcock Drag Show, Dean’s Formal—will be the ones remembered forever. The Class of 2015 has spent hours and days and weeks together at events and social gatherings, at bars and banquet halls, in ice storms and blizzards, laughing, learning, and lunging for greatness.
If you were to have asked me back then what my primary psychological and emotional state would be so close to convocation, I doubt I would have mentioned satisfaction. I may have predicted exhaustion (true), exhilaration (true enough), or nostalgia (so true). Yet here we are, and satisfaction is undoubtedly the best description for it.
Satisfaction, like the feeling at the end of a hearty meal, where you’ve struck the right balance in the amount you’ve consumed and are content to lounge in an easy chair for the evening. Satisfaction, like the feeling at the end of a long book, when you’ve been brought to understand your mother or brother or wife by gazing temporarily through the eyes of another. Satisfaction, like the end of a great film, when you’ve been nudged to appreciate the beauty and wonder and terror in the world in a more comprehensive way.
We’ve struggled, and we’ve survived. We’ve conquered our fears. We’ve become more disciplined. We’ve met strangers and transformed chance encounters into lasting relationships. We’ve honed our analytical skills and attention to detail. We’ve learned the value of receiving a good summary at the last minute, and how much can be achieved in the six hours before a paper deadline.
And now we’ve adapted to the challenges of a strike: we’ve proven our flexibility, our compassion, our resilience in the face of uncertainty. Regardless of each of our career objectives, these are qualities that will serve us well as we embark on our respective legal quests. The legal profession demands persistence, dedication, passion, and hard work, but it offers one the opportunity to make an eternal mark upon the world. Lawyers have the power to be facilitators of fairness, fashioners of justice. Oliver Wendell Holmes perhaps says it best:
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
So on this auspicious occasion, let us leave behind the low-vaulted past. Let us build more stately mansions. Let us never turn our back on our dreams. Let us pay tribute to those that have helped us get here: our friends and families, our orientation leaders, our upper-year mentors, our colleagues, and, most importantly, our professors. It is not a journey navigated easily without support. These people have been, and will continue to be, critical to our success and effectiveness, and our ability to lead those notoriously elusive balanced lives.
Here’s to us, who we’ve been, who we are, and who we’ll be. Believe me when I tell you: we’re just getting started.