 Good afternoon everyone and thank you for being here for this special installment of the Professor Anthony J. Santoro business law lecture I want to welcome especially Tony and Pauline's family members who are here with us, and I know you will be joined By more later. Thank you for being here President Farage Members of the university trustees law school board of directors faculty staff Alumni and particularly our panelists this lecture series which is funded by Tony's admirers and there are many Has brought to the law school leaders in business and in government to talk about the gaming industry to talk about the regulatory environment for startup companies To talk about disruption in the market for the delivery of legal services the FCC and consumer protection the SEC and securities regulation And for today's lecture, we are joined by a remarkably accomplished group of RW law alumni whose careers in business and business law have been Shaped by Tony and his work. I want to congratulate them on their successes and thank them for taking the time to be with us today to help honor Tony so Without further ado, I would like to welcome to the podium the man of the hour hours I suppose Professor Santoro to say a few words Tony Thank You Michael. I noticed that when you said admirers of Tony Santoro my entire family started giggling We're gonna be careful what we say seriously. I am absolutely excited to be here this Lecture series was started by an alum Brian Ali and his colleagues and it's just been a wonderful Series, but I'm especially proud to be here today because I've got five former students here Who are going to give this lecture and I am deeply appreciative of? They're taking the time out of their busy schedules to do this, but I will grade them in any event and Can we revoke the a degree? Seriously, I don't want to take any time. Thank you very much for taking the time to be with us And I'm looking forward to a spirited Panel discussion. Thank you We're gonna jump right in so we can figure out who's gonna get the Cali on the panel today So as much as we know that you all love hearing people's bios The panel in its infinite wisdom has decided that we rather jump right in and skip that portion You do have the bio the very impressive panel members in front of you If you'd like to read that but we're actually just gonna kick it off with each panel member briefly introducing themselves And if there's any fun stories embarrassing moments favorite lessons about Tony They'd like to share Encourage them to do that as well And can I start down on this this Corey side of the table? Sure, Corey Hielbart currently the chief legal officer of a boutique economic consulting firm that focuses on expert testimony for gender pay equity discrimination cases Again enough about me. We're gonna start with a little bit of Tony or Professor Santone Santoro as I say at a deference I started my new role a year ago. I walked in my direct reporting line is to the CFO at the company After our first conversation. I realized very quickly. I had to go back to my notes from 2006 Business and partnership tax to understand the macro of the company and to understand what was important to my now boss the CFO But I want to say just one thing more macro level about the school and Professor Santoro's influence I think when I think back to my time here, and I think of Professor Santoro I think about being a young school and Going into an industry entering industry whether I knew it or not that as we discussed earlier barters a little bit in prestige almost inordinately and as a young school within the first ten or so graduating classes you haven't really built up that Network that market penetration that history to build upon and you know, I think it was really Important for us whether we knew or not to have mentors like Professor Santoro who've ended credibility to our pursuits and I think I can speak particularly on behalf of a lot of the Tax LLMs. I mean, I don't know if we'd have such an extensive network at the big four right now if it weren't for Professor Santoro, so I think it's For me, that's quite important and more so for the community as a whole I think to take that exemplar and Apply it in our pursuits to kind of better at the community better than that work and further that It's really going to benefit us all individually, but as a community as a whole I am Jim Coughlin currently I'm the Dutchess County Comptroller. It's an elected position one of seven in New York State I'm a little freaked out. I'll be honest right now It's the first time I'm back to the law school since I graduated in May of 2006 a lot of changes Calling Corey on the phone dial a friend like I don't even get here. What's going on and the town's gentrified it's kind of changed and You know, we spend such a critical part of our lives here In the crucible under a lot of stress and so there's a lot of emotions if I get a little flimped today I hope I ask everybody to pardon me my first came here I Professor tights for civil procedure 1L and Scared to live in hell out of me every day. I Sat there afraid every day don't call me don't call me I Then had her as a 3L in conflicts, and I'm sure it changed and she probably was saying please don't talk today Coughlin I Had a sense of business experience working overseas Before I decided to become a law student late in life So it definitely was more interested in the business side of law here And so it's natural that I acclimated to Professor Santoro What an amazing mentor Building upon Corey's thoughts though. I don't know why He and his lovely wife pony would ever let a degenerate like me into their inner circle. I thank them for that It's made such a difference in my professional and personal life We'll get into a lot of good stuff today to talk about but you know just want to say that My first time when professor Santoro's class he announced everybody that he doesn't believe in bumping up for participation and being a cocky young kid I said well Professor then what's my motivation to participate? thinking I had won the argument and The sparkle in professor Santoro's eye that we all know well look to me about a second said well mr. Coughlin I reserve the right to bump down But regardless I'll pass it on I I'm Elizabeth college Giovanni. I'm a lecturer now at Bentley University teaching business law tax law Following in my mentor's footsteps my weird background I started as a pre-med major here at the undergrad Roger Williams when Professor Santoro was actually president Santoro And my funny we well a couple of weird stories Is I actually the this building was just built on dating myself as Mandagrad? and I Was a junior and I was being inducted into the honor society and president Santoro came up to me Because he knew my dad because my dad taught here at the math Department And he was like I just wanted to come up to come up to you and say that I'm sure your father is pretty proud And I'm proud of you and this is the president of the university saying this to me as a junior in college and I never forgot that and He every time I went to events. I would always talk to him. He remembered my name Out of thousands of students in the undergrad. He remembered my name and that just impressed me And I diverged and instead of going into medicine I went out to LA and said I'm gonna go into the film industry Don't know why I did that And didn't like it and wanted to come back Well, I did like it in a way because I learned business. I was learning business law I was actually working with a lot of lawyers and agents and actually liked it And I was thinking of going into contract law and I called him up and I said I think I'm gonna come back home And go to law school. What do you think and he took me on a tour of the building and Got me hooked And got me hooked on tax. I thought I was gonna go contract And he was like, well, I think you need to take Fed tax You're gonna take Fed tax if you want to go into business and I was like, ah as every other student is like tax And I took the Fed tax and I took every tax class He ever taught here afterwards and so so he I'm trying to at least follow in his footsteps Minimally because I could never fill his shoes. He's amazing My name is Corey Billidow. I am a tax attorney. That's what I do. So I guess I'm I followed in his footsteps as a practicing lawyer I worked at a large law firm of 50 plus lawyers and we did everything Immigration law tax law all that stuff, but then I ended up leaving and joining a smaller I don't like to use word boutique, but it's a boutique tax firm and one of our other attorneys Katherine Windsor who's a Student former student of Professor Santoro and got her LLM and tax law as well But so I moved over to a small firm. There's eight lawyers. That's pretty much all we do 90% of my work is all tax law It's transactional tax law. I like to tell people I I help people. I say, what do you do? I say, well, I help people avoid paying taxes I help them to defer taxes and I help them convert ordinary income to capital gains and and so That's what I do. I also do a little bit of tax controversy work But Katherine runs that department at the firm. That's people who Have problems with the IRS who need help and assistance and people there Why don't you do that anymore? And I say well, most of those people don't have money They're you know, they're not the people I like to work with I will say Yeah, maybe I'm not supposed to say that I will say I can say that I would not be here today without Professor Santoro because I when I was about to graduate He said I took all his tax courses everyone. There were six of them. He even taught tax stories, which was Painful We made it through it was a one credit class and I was like, well, let's take this when he ever needs a credit to get out of here We took that class but then after I he said, well, what are you gonna do? I said, I don't know I said I like tax. He said, well, why don't you get your LLM in tax? I said, I don't even know what that is. What is that? I didn't know there's such a degree as an LLM in tax So I ended up doing that went to BU in 2007 went full-time and Got my master's in tax law and since then just have been working in that area So I was saying my one story funny story because About Professor Santoro is we have the I don't they still have the auction every year And so he bids the dinner and so the group of us Me and Jimmy and a few others bid on it and we said we're gonna pick you up in a limo And so we went to his house in a limo and so he's showing us the house and we're like this is great And so then the best part was he opens up the closet and he has a bar in the closet And he says well, let's drink Okay, here we go. So we thought that was the coolest thing that is a bar in the closet So that's my funny Professor Santoro story we need to go back I Love that tax stories class. I think we spent we were in a lot of the same classes Actually, I also took I think every single class. I could which is at least six of them So as I was preparing for this I was thinking back over all the lessons that I've learned from Professor Santoro And of course there are many many many substantive Lessons I still have my notes as well. I took them with me from law school through my LLM program kept building them Still have them through several computers, right? They keep getting transferred over But also there were a lot of lessons about lawyering and lessons about life as well Some in the classroom some over glasses of wine and at various Italian restaurants throughout Providence as well So I think Tony was the first person who really taught me how to take all the different pieces of what we were learning in other classes All the different legal knowledge and the skills we were developing to put that together With the business insight that we needed to have And the goals of the clients had to really be a valuable member of that client team And there are many life lessons along the way as well I was remembering how when I first started in Tony's classes I learned much more slowly than I'm proud of that I had a terrible poker face when I started in law school because I was having these moments regularly where another student would be speaking and Tony would point to me and say miss a her and disagrees with you, and I was quiet as a And I thought not only does he know the internal revenue code by heart. He also is telepathic I mean it took me a little while to learn that that's not in fact. It was happening and I've worked on that somewhat overtime All right, so let's Dig in to some of the questions that we have from our panelists So first we want to hear about what are the advantages of a legal education? What is it about the way we're trained to think as lawyers and as business lawyers that really Translates and gives us a professional advantage or we're going to ask Cory and Cory to give us some insight into that topic Sure, I can jump in I think it's something to be careful of when you're talking about the skill set you're learning as an attorney in law school You're learning a lot. You're getting a more macro view of a business But you're getting it in the academic sense So I think one way to view this question is to talk about what aren't you learning and what you should be asking now as you pursue These classes whether it be business partnership tax biz or that sort of thing For me coming out of college. I went straight to law school. I lack business experience It's easy to go into an organization with all of the academic background, but not have any of the functional So I think if you can harness the academic the intellectual side and be inquisitive On your first day be open You have a much more pragmatic holistic view of a company For instance when I go in I've never been in house per se with a company I've been on second minute a few, but I wasn't a per se corporate attorney in house My first role being in the last year I knew exactly where to step in what questions to ask and that adds a lot of validity to your position from the start Especially when you're a corporate attorney You are a non-revenue generating attorney. You're a cost center So you have to show you understand what the business is doing. What is their end goal? You have to achieve their objectives. So I think bringing that all together what you're learning a lot in law school is core business skills risk management critical reasoning I Noted corporate structure being a huge one. I mean, we're a small organization We have about 90 full-time employees revenue-wise. We have big corporate issues So it's for me. It's how do you? measure that between The legal knowledge I have but also respecting the business and how do I integrate with the business and I think if You attend these classes you have one piece Ask the questions and put it together as a whole by the time you get out of here And you'll you'll understand how to navigate through the system as you go Yeah, I think that what I learned is a lawyer that I took As a law student that I took out from here is it really teaches you how to ask questions of your clients Because most of your clients don't tell you everything a lot of times they tell you very little and so you really have to be able to ask probing questions about What they're trying to accomplish Gathering information pulling it out of them because sometimes and I always tell my clients I say look what you think may not be important May be important and so you got to tell me everything and so it's it's the process of asking those questions Making sure you get in the information you need and that was critical learning that in Professor Santoro's classes particularly is it? I mean I transactional tax lawyer Most people are saying I don't want to pay taxes. I mean, so that's what I do I tell I've got to figure out what they're trying to accomplish and how can we Eliminate taxes accomplishing what they want to accomplish because sometimes most of the time you can figure it out if you have the right information But it's just getting that out of the client and I worked for three years before going to law school I worked in the financial services world, so I I didn't come into law school right out of college and so I kind of worked I worked with business owners before and that's why I gravitated towards the transactional side Also, I clerked in a litigation firm and couldn't stand it. So I I went that direction and thankfully We had someone like Professor Santoro who taught all those tax courses because without that I Probably I wouldn't have gone to BU and got my masters where I wouldn't have been able to wave out of classes or learn from him and Understand what people are looking to accomplish as a business owner and you come to you get clients in all different phases of their lives They could be starting up They could be in the middle of their their lives operating their business or it could be their exit planning and and so Understanding what they're looking for what they're trying to accomplish Knowing the questions you need to ask and kind of digging into it and and prying that information Was out of them it's critical and you learn all that as a law student in all the classes not just the tax courses And I think there's a theme developing there we're focused a lot on objective and Taking that holistic view of whatever situation you're in It sounds intuitive, but it really is a core part of kind of the Socratic method is being inquisitive Understanding empathy kind of emotional intelligence. So I think that's important to focus on on the soft skills You're learning in law school And I just I wanted to make that point and bring it together. I think it was a well said by Corey. I Didn't say which Corey So in the business startup clinic that I run we work with a lot of Entrepreneurs and I have a friend from my class who is a lawyer But also runs a very thriving real estate business And I put a question to her that I hear from a lot of students who are aware that sometimes lawyers will Pursue an entrepreneurial path whether it's something outside of the law or we have a lot of Discussions about how being an attorney is actually is being an entrepreneur whether or not you're in a firm And that question that I hear is the way we're trained to think as lawyers the way we identify risk I mean, maybe we're not a good match for entrepreneurship because we're constantly worried about that risk And that's a big part that you have to embrace if you're going to be an entrepreneur And I love her answer that no you should be less intimidated It's actually a wonderful match because you're going to always see these risks coming that no one else is able to To identify so talking about alternative career paths What types of paths do you think are a good fit for law grads? Maybe working in some of your own Experiences especially those law grads that are focused in business law and we're going to ask Jim and Liz to chime in on this topic Thanks, um I've always been a weird eclectic person, so I I Got my LLM after right after law school With Santoro's encouragement We actually a bunch of us did about four or five of us right from our JD Went to be you to get the LLM and the LLM kind of teaches you which tax because you know tax in and of itself There are niches within tax and even within those tax niches are more niches And I went even I went further down the rabbit hole I went into international tax law, and then I even went further down the rabbit hole and went into corporate international tax law And I went the accounting firm route. I didn't do the traditional law firm route and Went to EY went to Ernst and young up in Boston right away Right after the LLM and I worked there for a few years. I actually kind of Slowly worked my way out Accounting firms, but what I found there is that there's a great need for lawyers in accounting firms in fact Especially with the whole Arthur Anderson thing they know they need them But there's this kind of especially when it comes to tax there's kind of this banter between tax attorneys being there and tax accountants being there because tax accountants don't understand law and Lawyers can't really speak accounting. So there was there's this constant Kind of bump in your heads all the time and there's always you do try and find that middle ground and my weirdness was I worked in accounting firms for about six years and then Moved on to adjunct teaching and now teaching full-time and I actually have the best of both worlds because I actually have business students now So being at Bentley they were all business and they come in with the business mindset So they're expecting facts figures and they're they want to be right on there And when I start teaching tax law and having to teach them code and having them to understand how to Really break apart the code and analyze That's a process in and of itself and I think lawyers have that advantage in that they can look at the code And know how to read it and know how to break it down and know how to make an analysis off of it Whereas people coming in from the business side just want the answer. And so I think there needs to be Both I mean you need to you need to have the law degree to understand where they're coming from it as well And then also in my consulting practice being bringing up on true entrepreneurship One thing that Bentley does encourage, which I really like is they want a lot of their lecturers to be in the world Be consultants or be tax attorneys Because they still want us to bring in what's really going on. They want us to be fresh They want us to know what's going on in the law and they want us to bring that to our classes And so now that I have my I have a small consulting practice in the side Which I like because I don't have to do tax returns anymore Which I hated doing in the accounting firms And I can I can sit down, you know with my clients and really say okay Let's let's walk through this and let's see what you really want out of this What do you want? I do small business and high net worth individuals because they really kind of know where they want to be in 10 years And so that's kind of working with them, which is really great, but I mean there is risk I mean I got the first year out. I was scared to death because I knew the risk I knew about liabilities. I knew that they could sue me at any moment and I had to be on my game But at the same time, right? I knew those risks and so I was ready for him at every every step or hopefully Yeah, I When I was graduating I sent out a boatload of resumes and I was very shocked when didn't get a response back from a single one We all come into law school with a romantic notion that You know, we're gonna be in that law firm and work your way up and someday you're arguing that amazing case You're getting the the corner office the law partnership and all that sort of stuff the reality is only for a select few and the realistic aspect is you're Taking the bar, you know, I'm a job. I passed in New York in the mass bar and I'm like, what am I gonna do? I'm on the different websites of stuff and I was so Clueless and naive. I didn't understand what a contract attorney was. I thought I was for an attorney that wants to do contracts And I didn't realize this because you just you know are getting taken in for a short time to firm for this particular project Eventually I reached out to somebody and said what the hell is this contract stuff because Joe Farside was doing a few other people Were and I couldn't figure out what what I was missing So I got taken in by a law firm in New York City and soon afterwards I got on the business side of discovery, which is you know, something that maybe a lot of attorneys don't realize there's the nuts and bolts of doing law and then there's the operational side logistics and management of attorneys and the business process of law firms and it's something that maybe we don't stress in law schools because we're so focused on the love of the law and all this romantic notions of I'm gonna be doing this and Law firms need business people to run operations to stay successful and make money as that's really I wouldn't say what we're all here for but definitely what I'm thinking and So I ended up running at one point Contract attorneys I'd 75 contract attorneys in a room and my job was to run discovery for a multi Million-dollar lawsuit. We're going through 2 million Pages of documents and pairing things together and you got to keep people focused in a room. What's our goal today? What are we looking for? motivating people and then tying it in with what the you know Senior, you know associate that I got an interface with writing memos On how we're going to you know pair this group of documents to this particular motion Which has a deadline on this date and you're running? You know Microsoft project because we got a deadline coming up And I got to make sure that we find the right document that makes sure this thing has some value and way when we go in front of the Judge I found that fascinating only because that's a lot of stuff. I had done in previous in my life Was I disappointed that I wasn't a practicing attorney? Yeah, maybe initially, you know, what are you gonna say to people? I don't know what you tell your parents me. You're like, what are you doing? I'm not actually practicing law You know, but where was it exciting was it something that you get value from there's a lot of aspects of the legal world that doesn't deal with practicing law and It's something that you know, I would say when we're talking in this topic right here about alternative paths to Law firms or legal work is something to think about Definitely as he said, you know, entrepreneurship Bentley has the MBA program which my sister went to Being a legal mind and having your own business. Wow, you can cut a lot of corners on legal needs You know, there's so much open to any attorney who Goes through the crucible of law and especially in this great, you know, university that I've been so proud to be part of and associated with but the business thinking the logic and reason over emotion but not confusing Emotion with passion because you must be passionate about what you do But you can't let a motion cloud your legal thinking There's so many ways you're gonna apply that in so many aspects of life So many different career paths because everybody at the end of the day whether you're just you can just go to work for a company but they value the logic and reason that we learned here and You of course get promoted quickly. They they know they can rely on you You're already thinking like you said risk assessment liability did somebody forget that do we even have a procurement problem policy? It's it. Are we even an appropriation law highly and there's so many things now as a You know, I kind of back ended out of New York City because I wanted to start off a family with my wife And I didn't want to have to do a two-hour commute each way to the city and then sit in you know 12 hours in a law firm or 15 hours How am I getting out of my law firm in New York City? And I kind of fell into the comptroller world here near in New York State in Dutchess County but I was able to bring a very interesting perspective of a hundred million dollars of county Funds are paid through contract payments That's all clauses. Is that a legal payment that they even meet our objectives. What the hell is the scope? Just understanding everything about what we learn for the first definitely two years of law school here is applicable everywhere in the career world whether it's Hollywood or other places or I think you're all they value the critical thinking so it's just you know Don't think that your life is shoehorned into a law firm You ultimately potentially will be disappointed if you don't get that career path They're gonna just burn you up and spit you out and then you're then looking at well I guess I'm gonna be a sole practitioner practitioner. That's tough, too So, you know never let any just don't go into the cattle shoot thinking when you're taking the bar Well now I got to find a job in a law firm when you're doing resumes. So he was that probably took up too much Actually to say a little a little shout out to Don't think I always say like if you want to do business or any other law. I even says to my students You should take at least the federal taxation because I think federal taxation is the basis of every law You're going to be involved in I think the only law the only law I can think of that tax wouldn't be involved in would be criminal law Because whether it's property family law, which people don't realize Business law of course There's it touches every aspect and I think to be a good lawyer You need to let your clients know that we they're gonna be taxed on this or not And I think a lot of even in slip-and-fall cases Certain areas are taxed certain areas aren't and a lot of clients think oh, I'm getting a windfall I'm just gonna get this money and take it home No, there's a portion that you have to pay the Piper for so and I think that that Having a tax class is the basis really for anything not just even in business as well And even one further the business planning course that Preston Santoro taught was also one of the most Comprehensive and all-inclusive of everything, you know every day, you know from the start me like all right. Here's the hypothetical concept of a business. What do you do whether it's your form in a Corporation LLC a general partnership and you know every morning This is like a lob lobster pot. He's to put your money in hard to get your money Every day Jesus That whole thing we went through liability went through payroll went through fight Everything and you're sitting there and your head's exploding. You're like, how do I even form a company in this world of? American regulations and government and try to make a profit and so both of those I think if you're an attorney Any type of finance taxation and more importantly if you're actually thinking of not being a formal law firm You know person Some business planning so that you have that ability to when client comes to you if you can explain like what's your goal? Like Corey was saying well, what is your objective so that I know how to best? Represent you so I Just something to touch on that you said I you know as a practicing tax lawyer saying that it affects every area of law I mean it doesn't there any family law lawyers in here or anyone teach Oh, all right good so I can make fun of The biggest committers of malpractice I see For a tax law, you're gonna go there. I get so many calls What's it from family law lawyers talking about alimony and child support and property distribution? 401k trying to divide it up. It's just you've got to have a basic understanding of taxation in any area of the law So if you're mad at me, you're mad at me I got stuck in a sub hot spot I I have to pause and note that It's interesting that the better part of this panel actually is now down the teaching path as well as following in all these other footsteps, and I can't help but notice that Liz has clearly learned from Tony's methodology because as you heard repeatedly that there was a pattern to his behavior I was just take federal income back And it's try another one and let me tell you about this LLM program, right? So you're I like that you're laying the same groundwork. It's definitely So switching from alternate career paths to the law firm career paths I think it'd be helpful for students in particular to hear about how law firms is about I have evolves how law firms are Like a business even though we don't always think about it that way necessarily How has the partnership track change so go back to Cory and Cory and ask them if they would talk to us about law firms how they're Changing and what should students know about the law firms of today and what you might see for the law firms of tomorrow Sure, so I've worked at a large law firm and now I'm one of the partners at a small law firm that has eight lawyers there are three partners and I think the big law firms they've changed in that they've created kind of different classes of Partners that you have the equity partners and then you have what they call income partners or what I call fake partners So they've got the they've got the different classes, but they've they've done it in a way That it's still the same model in the sense that It's about dollars in the door You've got to be able to bring money in the door to get up to the equity level and If you're not I mean, it's not your career just you're not gonna reach that level You can make the living be a successful lawyer and you'd be a great lawyer But I always say to be a successful lawyer You really need one of two things and to be a great lawyer you're gonna have to I mean you've got to be able to Do the work Because the clients come to you with problems and they want them solved and you've got to be great at your Lawyering and you got to be able to bring money in the door So if you can do one of those two things you'll be fine if you can do both of them Then you will be very successful in your career as a lawyer Most people can only do one of them and and so those people you know They're fine. They're successful and you see a lot of lawyers who just bring money in but they don't really practice as much anymore They they're just they're kind of their job is to bring clients in bring revenue in because it's a the bottom line It's a business and the it's shifted from where probably used to be more considered profession Where today it's a business and it's run like a business and I would say I've been you know graduated in 2006. It was I have moved along in my career I started I was an associate and you just like you go to work. You get a paycheck I mean that was the bottom line I mean you just you did your work and you you were billing and and hopefully collecting the law firm was collecting But then as you kind of move up and you see okay Well, this is a business We've got people to pay and you have overhead and you have all this stuff that goes along with that and you know Worryed about keeping the lights on and meet and payroll and all that good stuff And then as you kind of become an owner you look at it all that becomes even more important because you're the last one to get Paid so you've got to run it like a business and I think that's one of the things is I've Kind of talked to other lawyers. It shifted from more of the profession to the business component and and running it like that And you know you still I mean it's still a profession, but it's it's pushed over to that side and You know that's been my experience and working at a big firm too. It's just I left Because I didn't I couldn't stay on the politics in the bureaucracy of the you know You got a management committee. I'm like oh my god. It's like it's like someone would say it's like a cruise ship to get anything done It just turns slowly It was it was impossible to make any changes and doing and to kind of do anything with the firm It just you go to the management committee and then you had to go to the partners And so it's just you know it's two years before anything change when you go to a smaller place It's much more you have much more control. It's a little bit more family oriented and hopefully Catherine's happy at the firm She's one of our great lawyers does a great job. So that's that's been my experience No, I agree. I think I'll add a little historical context here You know going way back I was fortunate enough in my time here to do the law program in London where I actually Was with a barrister for a month and a half or something like that and going back to the profession I mean I remember I actually put robes on in a wig at one point Barrister told me to They had a little pouch on the back Because this little pouch on the back of the ropes for it's because you couldn't touch the money as a barrister So they would tuck the fee into your pouch and it was more of a profession They didn't even negotiate their own fees. They actually had an outside party negotiate fees So I think up until recently it was viewed as a profession. It's just a historical part of the industry I point to the financial crisis as a major tipping point I Think for a lot of us we graduated in honor around that time What you saw between 0709 is big and law 100 and I point them out because we kind of look to them as the exemplary party in any law practice They gutted their mid-range associates. I mean large layoffs Creates two issues One who is the next generation to support the outgoing partners and sustain the business? You have basically no one for a five-year stretch the other part that I think of is It changes the roles and Corey alluded to people are more functional now at law firms The partnership role now is a client relationship and management role You have to have two skill sets develop relationships And you need to maintain revenue-generating relationships to make partner at a big law firm real partner not to say And there's a place for people who want to be non-partner track They don't call it non-partner track, but if you're not revenue-generating you need to be a thought leader You can do very well very stimulating, but if your goal is partner You're not going to practice long you're going to deal with people You're still going to ask the questions find their objectives You're going to lead a lot of things, but it's a different functional role and I'm being harsh I mean it's a little more nuanced than this, but I think it's important to see but What we're seeing now is around the time of the financial crisis law firms were investing big in other Aspects of law so we talked about contracting large-scale review a lot of firms invested heavily in large-scale data centers management review Created a huge cost center. They weren't passing through to the client. They were they thought they would build it in The problem is at that era you were operating as silos under partners partners didn't share too frequently What their billable rate was? Partners you have your rack rate which everybody knew the high-end rate You know it's called $1500 for a partner at a ham on 100 They were building much differently with their own clients. They wouldn't share that They just shared the overall revenue number. No one looked into margins too much That partner did great this year. He might have had a 20% margin, but he had x million in revenue What you're seeing now is firms becoming more savvy There is a role I see growing and has been growing for a while, which is like a legal operations officer You see it both on the corporate side and in the law practice These are typically attorneys. They typically have some understanding of the business organization partnerships and tax Um They are kind of the conduit bringing everybody together So not only does a partner who wants to be a real partner have to be revenue generating. They have to add cross functional value You can't just generate revenue to be one of the upper tier real partners You have to bring value to other practices and what practice have we discussed today that is connected with every practice It's taxation So if you were in position as a tax attorney, you can help a lot of people cross functionally sell cross functionally deliver So I think the key here is that There are business opportunities within law firms. That's one route legal operations officer is not a purely practicing role It can be a non-attorney as well but also Using that business savvy to be a cross functional leader in a law firm is very important going forward I think just to add to what corey said is That one thing they kind of don't prepare you at law school for is that The practice of law is sale. I mean the part of it is that the clients just don't show up at your door I I probably do 20 plus speaking seminars a year in front of cpa's Who refer me work? I mean that's mainly who I get my work from at cpa's who refer clients to me And so all of that, you know, you don't think hey, you're gonna I've got people go. Oh, I don't have any clients. I'm like, well, you're not going to get any clients sitting behind the desk You've got to get out there and meet people. You have to go to lunches You have to do the teaching and the speaking And the writing and all of the stuff as a tax lawyer that you want people to refer business to you for so It's it's sales. Yeah, nobody wants to call it that but it is that's what it is you know, it's sales marketing practice development is the The words the words they use at the large law firms to make it sound nice, but That's what it is. I think the saying is to bill 40 you have to do 80 That's that's the saying especially with the smaller firms. You don't have a built-in practice development team of marketers There's two things I wanted to touch on we had talked about on the call One of them being There's more specialization too now You know, as we see the actual practicing attorney pool shrink at big law firms They are kind of specializing and what we're seeing is these people are actually leaving the big law firms Long-tenured partners creating High quality boutique firms that have and law 100 clients It is a trend that's slowly creeping into the new york market, but Our clients at my firm are law firms I see our ultimate clients are corporate or largely financial institutions They are more increasingly going to these boutique firms because they know the people And the cost structure is different the billable rate is different So there is a trend towards the boutique Yeah, I mean I 100% agree that you have large practices at major law firms who leave And set up a boutique firm because it's just you can control costs control overhead And the financial crisis which you alluded to Really show that these companies a lot of the large companies are still concerned about costs and what they pay for legal fees And you can control that in a group And you also as to go in the boutique group you've seen law firms go away from the names It's you know, they'll call like morning star law or something so you don't get in a fight Well, I want my name on the Massed head and all that stuff so you you see that kind of creeping in and it's more building something that's generational And not you know five different names on them. It's it's an interesting question too Consulting firms are creeping into the law space And I think the quintessential example right now is I believe pwc just opened a It's organized separately, but it's part of pwc in dc It's a group of internationally credentialed attorneys that are providing international legal advisory services in dc for cross-border Consulting firms across the globe are the largest employer of attorneys period Not law firms law firms if you look at the us I think there are maybe 30 000 pure law jobs opening up every year. It's not much I think it went to the kind of alternative legal career as a real option But I think the point is our law firms ethically going to be able to compete by getting into other businesses That's a question. We haven't seen on that ethical side. You're not technically allowed to have another business But as consulting firms impede on that space and take the revenue away from a non pure legal standpoint A lot of law practices and pure law Are we going to see law firms either? Dispand further into boutiques or try to Absorb some of that external legal practice Question for the future So for those of you who are in red island You may know and for students that trend that you're hearing where an entire practice group in a specialty area will leave to Become a boutique that is playing out in red island and as well. So it's not just in some of the bigger cities So, uh, you also have the the power of telepathy. My students have heard me on the business development soapbox a little bit So part of the trend there you're hearing that law firms are becoming more focused on business And what we're really seeing is that business side is more important for every member of the law firm or readily apparent Throughout and not just when you get to that management level and being able to start business development marketing earlier on Uh, not necessarily bringing business on the first day But to start developing those skills right away is a it makes a big difference as you Move your way along and the wonderful thing for those of us in tax I'm sure you would agree if you have a tax expertise And you can talk and explain like a normal human being to other people, right? You actually have a huge advantage on the marketing side So switching back a little bit To the non-traditional career path What sort of skills would you Suggest that students focus on and develop if they are interested in whether in the short term or the long term going down a non-traditional Legal path and if you have any stories about Skills that have been helpful to you the successes Failures lessons that would be great as well and we'll ask uh, Liz and jim to chime in on that On topic So uh Skills that are essential moving forward That are not uh what we've learned here. Well, we should retain here Roger Williams does a great job in instilling this great loss lawyer skills, but uh Keep your humor keep your humanity Dignity of dealing with people We can get into the fight and just You know, whether you're you know moot core you're doing all this stuff and we do our debates and it's about beating somebody or other stuff You know that is that aspect of law and it's thrilling and exciting at times Uh, but remember that, you know generally in the real world, uh, it's about like connecting with people You're selling yourself. Uh, you're you know, there is a humane side to law And it should be, you know, definitely expounded upon definitely, uh Be proud to be that aspect of an attorney Skills I think we've heard all today is understanding some basic taxation or some basic business No matter what aspect of law you're going to do a guarantee You're going to have to see some financial statements come across you whether it's family law because you've got to figure out You know, if there's a disbandment of some sort of Business entity do or a divorce or something or wilson estate and trust Something's coming across your desk. It's going to be a substantial financial statement Uh, you better have a decent understanding of what's an asset liability. What's real Debt how is that even incurred what's being carried for? uh, so Everyone should not if you're scared in numbers I think you're going to have a tough time being an attorney in the real world. Um I would definitely say don't be afraid to say you don't know something I Wish I had talked to every attorney when I was like in my 3l That was already practicing here and saying I have no clue what the hell i'm doing and where the hell i'm going And I think that if any person ever comes up to me as it is as a you know, a 3l a 2l You know, don't be ashamed of it. I'd be like you're smart to come talk to me because I didn't know either and and we should be encouraging Uh practicing, you know, you know aspiring attorneys, but it's okay not to know everything Even today is you know attorneys. We don't know everything. That's why we have Experts everywhere everybody outsources because through but outside of my comfort zone I'm not really the best person for this, you know, and I'll hold your hand as I touch You know take you to a person I trust who's got that skill set Uh, I think that's really critical as some skills you should take with you as you practice law or don't practice law But you move into, uh, you know the world um I think that You know in the end of the day you're just going to be realistic about what might be out there for you and uh Be excited about facing that challenge. I think that roger williams is something that's going to, you know, give you a great Platform a stepping stone to get to wherever it is a year, you know You're going to go you should definitely have a one three five year plan Uh as scary as it sounds because it does help to make the adjustment Easier and more tolerant to accept Change is the one thing that you should embrace Because it's going to happen to you at every aspect of your life both as a human being but also as an attorney Whatever you're doing right now is probably not going to be the exact same part of law that you're going to be doing A couple years from now potentially. I mean corey changed from a large firm to a boutique firm That's called change might be scary. We take some risks But as attorneys we learn risk assessment critical thinking your way in your options You know, what's an acceptable risk? Sorry if I downsize to a boutique firm and we work in harder But my my roi is going to be greater and I got some interesting Past and some excitement to challenge me every day because that's ultimately what we're all looking for Is what's my challenge? How am I going to keep my passion going? Where am I going in life? Uh, so these are the things that I would say in a non world that are thinking like what are the skill sets You've got your critical thinking your professors are doing that and this law firm does it for you every day in the crucible But you also have that other aspect. You've got to keep alive Which is your personal side where you're going because it's not the law firms the law schools Rolled also be your your mom and dad or your your mentor, you know, they're a mentor But they're not here to say look you've got to keep these other personal skills sets Current and successful I think the biggest thing is networking I mean, you're going to be networking from now until you retire There's just no way around it. You can't be successful. You can't be Relevant if you don't go to A lot of networking events functions. I mean, of course you're going to have your CLEs I do I actually teach CLEs now. Um, I mean you have to get yourself involved get just Always find things that you are not comfortable with And go after them I think if you don't if you stake if you become complicit and you just get you you like your comfort zone You like your little niche That's all you're going to get and you're not going to be successful You're not going to you have to keep growing you have to keep changing because the law keeps growing and changing I mean, it's it's not it's not in a vacuum It is going to change with us as society changes no matter what aspect of the law you're in So you have to know the people that are in Your area of law know people that are in other areas of law. I mean, I'm I'm still This is the funny thing the friends that used to make fun of me For taking every tax class and every business class known to man Now come and call me and they say hey, I've got a client I can't I I can't only get them this far. I don't understand business. I don't understand tax So can you help me and that's what we do and that's why you stay in in contact you stay in networking and because That helps and it helps to know who's out there that can give you those Help your client. I mean you're going to keep the client if the client knows that That you're going to get them the right people To help their problems So I think really just networking and not being complicit is the best skill sets that you can have If I can jump in there and take it one step further Intelligent targeted networking and I don't mean selling yourself in a targeted manner. I just mean You are your brand Every interaction you have should be based on a layer of authenticity which Inherently requires a little bit of integrity and if you're not projecting Integrity you're getting no job. No work You're just not developing a network. You're just there I think it's very important. I think I touched on it earlier, but professor san toro Was helping us network while we were here and we were borrowing a lot of his credibility from the start And I think it's important to heed that. I'm just going to reiterate to heed his example Not just for yourself, but for all of us because we are building a brand as a school every day I mean, we are still young in the legal community So it's very important that every interaction you have is authentic because you're reflecting on all of us And I take that very seriously in what I do in the market And I think it's just you know touching on networking. It's so important to be honest transparent Everything you do cannot be veiled in some sort of hidden agenda In the second thing is when you do this never expect anything from anybody You are not networking to get something You are networking to introduce yourself to build that image And hoping someday you can help them or they can help you But you are not expecting anything. You are very willing to give but don't expect and it will work much better in that way Because people can see right through the attention No, it's very true. I think that what court just said is authentic and sincere I didn't find myself ever when I was 3l and you're ready to graduate that I would be an elected official running elections every four years And I think that's true. We learned a lot here integrity Who you are and being Focused on doing the right thing and that new thing resonates whether it's for the client It's with other business partners Whether you're doing lectures with cpa's etc. They'll see the sincerity they'll see the the actual person there and rely on it and it's an amazing brand on so many different ways Whether you're going door to door and asking somebody for their vote or just you know, you said making sure that You're doing the right thing every day. It's critical and and we learned a lot From a great mentor who was that vision every day in front of the classroom. You feel it. It emanates from but with all professors I mean whether we did evidence with professor kogan and Conflicts etc that we do have some great mentors here at this school that you learn from they're up there And you feel it when they're telling you stuff and you're like, all right, how do I Take this incorporate it not mimic it because you got to make it your own and then bring it forward I think that quarry that was a very great way to kind of potentially end this Thought I would never think that when we're talking about business. We're really going to get to the ethical side But really in the end of the day it is it's about that authenticity That was just a massive very concentrated wisdom. So for the students in the room I hope recognize what they just heard I'm going to quickly recap some amazing lessons that we just heard and that'll give you all a second to think about your Questions that you're going to ask of our panel One you were talking with the importance of asking questions and something we've talked about in the clinic Because the students very often just want to know everything right away because they have a client in front of them We talk about the benefit of inexperience as an advantage the more you develop as an attorney I'm sure you've all had this experience It can be harder to explain the down-to-earth right concepts to someone who to whom that is completely new And that's something that is easier for a student because they remember what it was like to To be in that person shoes. I've seen plenty of rooms where there's a client completely missing something A senior partner was saying and it's the younger associate in the room that is is pointing out that disconnect Personality is key. You don't need to check your personality at the door and you shouldn't There are plenty of lawyers out there and people want to work with the people that They get along with really well right and honesty is an important part of that Do stop and reflect right and after you get past that path where you know We get you into tax and you wake up one day with an LLM Do stop and think about where you are and if you want to to make a shift and pursue one of these Alternate paths. I'll say one more time networking early on is key And I think that theme of giving right and helping people is important And the way that it's done in business and in law nowadays I think getting uncomfortable is a wonderful lesson as well. So do be sure to challenge yourself And that includes the Roger Williams community So I think something unique about this school and everyone's had this experience You've heard a little bit is the the connections you build here continue after law school I have a group text that's running all the time with my litigation friends who always have tax and transactional questions They can't answer I should probably mute that because it's getting to be a little much We talk about in the clinic as well the importance of knowing what's on the periphery of your practice area So Liz you talked about knowing how important it is to know other practices As well as other non legal concepts that touch what you do So you can navigate your clients to those other pieces and spot those issues so they're not missed And then finally this didn't we didn't intend this to sound like a tax commercial But since it started sounding that way, I'm just going to lean into it The world is especially hungry for tax attorneys right now. So anybody who's are who's in those classes and is enjoying it It's a wonderful time to to be in that field All right, I will turn it over for questions any questions for Any or all of our panel Well the better half of the panel is teaching so if we agreed to count participation Maybe that would help Is there anything you're talking about just the cases you don't collect on or is it something else? Well, I'll I'll say that on the business side We don't the pro bono more more comes from what Catherine does the tax con first you work We have clients who are struggling and helping them I mean my clients have money. So there's not really pro bono you do for them So But So the but the firm does some pro bono work. I mean it One thing you have to be careful of is Getting wrapped up in a case that you can't get out of that takes a lot of time because we're eight lawyers You know, we can't spend hundreds of hours on a case a pro bono case. We just don't have the capacity to do it But we do do it on the the tax controversy side because a lot of those people are You know, I think as some people say you got to have empathy and dignity and these people are hurting some people I can address this I think more from the corporate perspective We always talk about when I have our administrative discussions between our admin team hrcfo We don't do pro bono per se. We're just a different organization But we talk about building a culture of integrity all the time And a big piece of that is time off for people to participate within the community The hidden benefit of that is it's one of the best affinity networking tools you can possibly do I hate to state it in that manner because you should do it authentically as we said, but I mean I volunteer with a An urban squash program in Harlem. It's very near and dear to my heart We help fund raise we help actually give Mentoring tutorials we help with sat prop And through that network strangely enough, I've met a some of my closest friends in New York City I've met some of my clients through that strangely enough and it wasn't because I was pursuing work, but I think The underlying intention is building that culture of caring being a member of the community Not only for yourself, but the brand of the company is very important and you will see legal benefits in your career proceeds So uh, well, I was going to add one little thing Bet you never thought it was going to be these two especially that one making all the trouble today I was the cold callous bastard during those years. Uh, uh, it's very interesting that uh professor cogan asked that because now when you, uh Renew your registration for the new york bar There is a multiple Questions section about your pro bono work Not to be used or published. I don't even know what they're doing at four per se, but You know, there's exemptions. There's this and that but they ask about Work you do as a pro bono And what you would value that at or how many cases If you're not doing that you do a lot of charitable work And how would you value that as and it's all compassed in this was the first year That I had to deal with because that's my cycle of renewal But I was like wow and people are are really Trying to I wouldn't say push it, but they're trying to keep some track of it and Even if it's not actual pro bono work for cases Getting involved with just some community outreach. I set up a veterans Kind of experience called weekend for warriors, but I provide legal services for them for nothing Um Questions and answers a lot of veterans as they transition back to civilian life have a lot of issues. I've been unfortunately is PTSD it could be Drug issues can be criminal problems as they get into it or unfortunately a high degree of divorce I of course don't touch family law But You know I help them in their transition and trying to make sure they're getting a good person to guide them But there's a lot of ways we can do pro bono concepts without actually taking a case things to think about you know for attorneys going forward charitable work and You know setting up things that you're passionate about and you care about is a great way to do it in a non official way So that's something but there's a very nice question I can't help but comment on this and I won't spend the hours Many of you know I will spend talking about how much more pro bono work transactional tax attorneys should be doing I think the challenge that we see and something for students to pay attention to is it's harder for tax and transactional attorneys to see How they can provide pro bono service. It's not immediately obvious I think the the most obvious thing we see is helping a nonprofit organization, right? And a lot of us who are in tax end up doing a lot of tax exemption work For free But there certainly is a way to have a massive impact if you help smaller businesses and nonprofit organizations and The benefits for you a theme to be continued If you are to help a massive Non-profit who has a very complex structure like a massive for-profit would there's a lot of experience that you can get there as a younger Associate doing that sort of work for free And if you are not convinced you can talk to any of my students in the business startup clinic We're having a massive massive economic impact in red island by providing free legal services In fact, if a brilliant student sitting right there who's going to be advising a brand new nonprofit starting up in red island This coming Tuesday, so we'll let them convince you if you're not convinced me Yeah, and I don't mean to just pick on family We we get you know, we have all sorts of tax resources of bna checkpoint Every day you get an email and you see a lot of court decisions that deal with alimony and and quadros and Just I mean you would think oh, I just have to draft this But you have to look at the underlying code to see as a complying with the code And and so it's it's common, but it's common in other practices too Is this organization is another common area of misstep? Yeah And I will open it up to the other people who are teaching as well So I said it Professor centura was the first person to teach me how to put it all together and that's a lesson I very much enjoy teaching and um It should go without saying but focusing on the client and what their goals are so It's Fairly common for Tax folks who are not focused on the client to give an absolutely brilliant high-cost savings But ultimately useless solution because it doesn't fit into the client's goals, right? So we're constantly focusing on where the client wants to be so we could have two different clients in our clinic Where the exact same set of laws apply in either situation But the result is completely different because of that The two different people we have in front of us had the same Yeah, I mean I've had the same thing and and what I try and teach my students and I Taught both law students and now business students The approach And and understanding I mean when I when I taught lawyers I taught them to say Okay, if you are going to go in business How do you approach a business person who doesn't understand the law and for my business students? I say okay. I'm a lawyer You need to work with us whether you like it or not So you need to understand where we're coming from so we can understand where you're coming from So it's that blend the only way a successful business is going to take off is if they appreciate the law And the lawyers appreciate where the business needs to be because there are going to be times where the business really doesn't It needs to go a certain way And there's regulations. There's treaties. There's other issues that they have to deal with And you have to figure out that analysis of well, how do I make the business aspect thrive? But be within the law at all times So and that's and it's that bridge. It's that bridge for the lawyers to understand business and business to understand lawyers Um Yeah, I would say Unabashedly proud that, you know, we're I was a class of 2006 There's definitely the best law schools At that point we had both Dean Yogan, Dean Yonasky The place was thriving and we had a teacher president toro who Got it and he was Encouraging us to embrace it too. We talked him into starting the business planning course, which was just an amazing course and that one was the one where things like that where you know You got to talk to your client. They want to start a company. You've got to have them trust you like What is your ultimate goal? Yeah, you want to make money? Do you have succession issues? Do you have trouble with your children? Is your wife going to leave you or do you have any bad vices? I mean, you've got to get in there and you know and and so that you can help them To create this entity, which is their dream and let's be honest Whether it's a restaurant or a bar or you're selling a widget A lot of them fail and a lot of them fail because if you want to use the The mantra of house everybody lies, you know And so or you can't get it out of them because they you've got to learn and and learning with with professor Santoro That ability to to get somebody to Come in or accept you and say all right I'm going to give you my secrets and I'm going to trust you is I think something that We were able to learn during those years here when we were talking about business We'd have our amazing little small classrooms With a bunch of people that you know, it was only about eight of us some of the times And you got to really have that amazing Interaction with professor Santoro that you would lose in federal taxation because it was such a big course Or all the other courses we took that were you know opened up to so many different levels Whether you're a 1l or 3l you're doing it for your requirements or your electives and stuff by that But it was those unique little You know classes is like, you know our own little private club I filmed that way. Yeah, we're going to talk about real interesting shit today And and it was it was that and and I appreciate the fact that you know that that Roger Williams You know allow that to happen and percolate during our time because it made the difference for so many ways For all of us and so that's kind of the lesson that I got be real get people in trust them And help them achieve whatever it is they're trying to do And it goes so far. So it's a great way to wrap up on a good final lesson I encourage my students at the start of the year because most of them are 3ls who enjoy this last year because it's a unique Experience to be able to sit in a classroom and discuss these issues So as much as it sometimes seems like a stressful year do take a time to enjoy it and I think we are Out of time and I hope everyone will continue for the rest of the evening with us Tony's just Shouting over me as he should This is your show This is what happens when you let people drink in between events. It gets raucous So welcome to the formal ceremony in which We will dedicate the professor anthony jay santoro classroom I I did some welcomes earlier, but I I want to welcome Give a special welcome to anita bar Who is here? Anita Is the wife of our first Associate dean gary bar and a dear friend of tony And pauline. She's been a a great supporter of the law school And of a memorial scholarship that She established here in in gary's name. So Anita. It's great to see you Um, so I guess we all knew this day was coming At some point, but I have to say it sort of snuck up on me It doesn't seem like 25 years ago that I first met tony for an interview in in washington where he used his Superpowers to see in me what approximately 180 other law schools could not Um From there things sort of went downhill for a little while Between that interview and arriving here for Our first faculty meeting I went to a retreat that was organized and hosted by bruce kogan And while there I almost killed bruce and jamie's dog And for those of you who know them, you know, that was a very bad thing Um The only bigger sin I think I could commit would have been to Scratch one of bruce's cars or something like that, but I I was not off to a great start And then when I arrived to go to my First real faculty meeting where I would have the right to vote and you know carry on and Object and be obstreperous as faculty Occasionally do Tony quit And which to me And maybe I was you know out of the loop was both unexpected and somewhat unsettling But he quit to become president of the university which was a which was a good thing And he was succeeded as dean as you might imagine He had someone in the wings waiting to be approved by the faculty Who helped finish the job of getting accreditation for the law school in the shortest possible time During his presidential years. We had less contact But one interaction stands out as as many of you know The opening of the law school Corresponded with the resignation in october of 1993 Not of tony, but this time of the chief justice of the rhod island supreme court Who was facing impeachment proceedings and criminal charges and this was unfortunate especially because His predecessor had also been forced to resign under a cloud just a few years before So long story short. I had been asked by common cause rhod island to participate in A judicial reform Movement and was about to write an op-ed that was critical of the status quo and the defenders of the status quo And I was years from tenure and it dawned on me to ask tony To meet with me so I could get his advice About whether I should take this on and he quickly agreed to see me. He listened to me He did not hesitate and he quickly said that's one of the reasons the law school is here by all means you have my support do what you think is best and Judicial selection became one of my long-lasting academic passions But more importantly tony showed me that day what it meant to stand up for academic freedom, which is Not an easy thing to do when an institution is in its infancy When it's trying to establish roots in unfamiliar terrain And where it's trying to win over Not an insubstantial number of skeptics So I could go on and on tony created the institution that has become my professional home and Rhod island has become my personal home. I was not comfortable saying this for a long time But I am now out loud my children are rhod islanders So I will always have a personal affection for tony and for his work But I want to say just a couple more things About tony's character about the things about tony that bring us all here Tonight before I became dean. I was for a time the associate dean for academic affairs the chief cat herder And tony always said the same thing to me and I and I think my predecessors and successors have had this experience Whenever I asked him about his teaching schedule. He said I'll teach whatever you need I'll teach it whenever you need it Just tell me what's best for you and I'm not kidding I'm he always said that and I can say With complete confidence that I never heard Even a similar conversation had a similar conversation with another one of my colleagues so We know that tony is generous And we know that he is humble second Despite my many faults and despite the fact that I've been nominally in charge of his law school for over three years He has never once Done anything but support me and I know he's there if I need him But he has never inserted himself. He is gracious And he is graceful and finally not for nothing Look At where his law school is today. We have successful alumni from across the country People who came here as students with a dream who are now pursuing it Just this week. I was in the chambers of uh, judge rogery thompson in the first circuit and I was visiting three of our alumni who are clerking for judge thompson And each one of them had previously clerked for a member of the road island supreme court We have become road islands law school which creates Unparalleled opportunities for our students. We take this for granted here now, but Also this week the ester clark moot court competition was held in the chamber of the road island supreme court and our students argued before the court the following evening in providence we had A mentoring reception That was sponsored by two of our student groups the multicultural law students association and the Alliance which is our lgbtq student organization and there were almost 70 Students alumni judges Non rw u lawyers there to connect this is a remarkable community That tony has created. Uh, he had the vision He had the talent and he had the energy To make this happen. So put simply I think Nobody has done more for this law school than tony santoro Nobody full stop as they say And dedicating that classroom in his honor the classroom where he used to teach Tax to a full house at 8 30 in the morning when he was president Uh seems like the least that we can do so tony. Thank you for everything And it's now my pleasure to welcome uh to the podium my longtime colleague Professor Dean twice interim dean and lived to tell the tale Bruce cobalt um so looking around the room, uh, I see Tony's family, uh, and I see friends and I see students and colleagues Um, and other than his family And anita I think I probably know tony the longest of anybody in the room other than family and anita I met tony 35 years ago probably This week or close to it when he came to interview For the deanship at um What was then the delaware law school Of widner university now widner university school of law delaware Where I was already a new faculty member And um So that was 35 years ago And It was A wise decision that my colleagues and I made at widner To hire tony as our dean because he proceeded for the next um 10 years to lead that school in its upward trajectory And it was 25 years ago probably again this week When tony who was already in rhod Island doing the Preparatory work for the starting of this law school called me up and said You ought to come up here and take a look at you know, what we're trying to do up here I think you know, this might be a good fit for you and I came up and I'm very glad that tony made that call and asked me to come up here Because it gave me an opportunity to continue working with um a colleague who I love and respect and admire tony Has had a marvelous career in law teaching marvelous almost 50 years of law teaching He has taught I think at I was going to say every law school in the country, but that's not true Then I should say he started as dean at every law school in the country, but Tony has taught at probably six. I think law schools and has been involved in founding at least four law schools in addition to having been The consultant at many other probably dozens of law schools and colleges and universities Have sought his guidance as they prepare to either start a law school or start new programs But one of my you know best recollections of tony is Because his first year's dean at widener was 1983 And he taught tax which I taught because like tony I have an l. Allam and tax from georgetown And I was teaching tax back in the day before I got my mind straight and stopped teaching tax And tony was teaching I think it was business tax and business planning You know one of the one or the others in the fall of 1983 and I was teaching Fed tax and probably a state and gift tax or a state planning something like that and I Asked tony if I could come in and watch him teach You know I I was in my second year of full-time teaching although I had taught as an adjunct for a little while before that and tony was Was then a good dozen or more years into teaching maybe 15 years into into law teaching and Watching tony teach that class In a pretty Big and it was very highly tiered classroom that we had at widener the big one You know was was a pleasure just watching somebody who was clearly a gifted law teacher And at his core, you know at least what I've known over the last 35 years Tony is a great law teacher. He's done a lot of other things He's been involved with a lot of other organizations a lot of community work, you know, he has Chared the Rhode Island student loan authority for a long had had done that for a long time He created The MCLE system for Rhode Island out of whole cloth You know and I've been serving on the commission ever since he put me on the commission, you know And that's a long time ago 20 some 24 years ago And you know he he wisely married the beautiful pauline plant, you know and Has you know four beautiful children who I remember growing up as little kids You know lin and aj and lauren and annie, you know, I remember following them and you know as they progressed along But at his core, you know, he's he's a great law teacher who Chose to teach tax and business law Not an easy choice you know None of what we teach is easy to teach but that's clearly kind of like if teaching law is like monopoly Then teaching tax law is like Risk, you know, it's like a much more complicated game set And you know that was a tough choice Tony's students you can see from today's panel discussion Adore him and for good reason He is still After almost five decades Excited when he walks into class You know, he is still You know trying to figure out the the next Best way to get students to be just as excited about reorganizations and mergers and Distributable net income and all of that Um And that is absolutely infectious So You know, he has inspired generations of People who have gone on to contribute in many many ways to their communities and to their clients Among his colleagues, he has been The best friend we could have for the law school while he was the president of this law school and he has been A terrific friend to me over all of these years But it is a teacher, you know, he is uh an exemplary law teacher who Who embodies Of a teaching philosophy that I've done a little bit of reading about over the years from a guy named Parker Palmer Who who has a book out it's the title of which is You teach who you are Not what you know And tony has always done that He has always demonstrated to his students his core value of wanting them To be as excited about the work and as excited about Becoming the best lawyer they can be so I joined michael and i'm sure all of the rest of us in saying Thank you to tony for what he has done for this law school On the dedication of the professor anthony j santoro classroom And I I think it's appropriate that we recognize This man of substance who has definitely Affected in the most positive way all of the rest of us So, um, I now will introduce my colleague louise tights I am honored to share this occasion Notice that I carefully said I am honored. I am not happy I like many of my colleagues including emily sack Really are not happy that you're leading leaving tony and We are hoping that you will drive pauline crazy and she will banish you back to the law school So there's there's that there's still that hope I want to talk about Tony santoro my boss my colleague my mentor and my friend I've now known tony only for a quarter of a century, but that sounds like a long time I met tony in july of 1992 right after he had become dean of road island's first law school I am from road island. I'm from newport and I was home from illinois for a family event And I arranged to meet tony tony who I'd learned About from colleagues elsewhere Either was loved or hated there was no middle ground tony whom I dean at illinois referred to as the johnny apple seed of law schools tony and I talked about roger williams and his vision And I was really excited to be part of road island's first law school Since I remembered as a child when even brown had talked about one, but they never did it We also commiserated about what it was like or in my case would be like to move back home as grown adults And live with one's mother Which he His was a typical italian mother Mine was a typical jewish mother And I can assure you there is a great overlap of traits Especially that one called guilt In the same conversation by the way he asked me So how are you going to handle it when all these people? That call you and want you to use pull road islanders to get into the law school and these are all going to be friends of my First cousin at the time who was a big road island politico. In fact, he helped Indite the first or rather impeach the first judge belacqua And I said well, I don't think I know people and he said you'll never be on the admissions committee That will solve it and I have to say in almost 25 years. That is the only committee I have never served on so My mother by the way adored tony. He walked on water because he could do no wrong because he was the person who got me To come back to road island and rightfully so so I signed up And my former dean at illinois warned me and said, you know, this is johnny apple seed tony might tony might come And you know plant a few seeds and move on in five years and I thought Nah, tony is coming home to fall river pauline is coming home to tiverton And i'm coming home to newport. So I figured that he wouldn't just Pack up and leave And of course my former dean wasn't totally off base because as michael told you At our first faculty meeting he said I'm leaving the smoke has risen from the From the chimney the white smoke And i'm about to be and and I being a nice jewish girl didn't know the reference somebody had to explain it to me That this was the pope Then he was going to go across campus and he said That we would get an opportunity to choose the dean the next time But he was bringing in someone to get the job done temporarily and five years later. We did get to choose our dean tony my colleague So tony taught the basic tax course as you heard Every year to our students even while he was president and chancellor He'd teach early and he would leave early and I would stock his parking space And I and and yes parking was a problem at even then after year two And I'd wait while he had his cigarette and occasionally he'd have two But I was totally thrilled when he came back After being president and chancellor and I was finally able to have him as my colleague Which I had expected on day one until we got that surprise Um, I'm not going to say anything about his teaching because everybody else has said it and the fact that so many of his former students Come back and are here and that that in itself I think is a testament to his teaching and his ability To inspire passion for learning in all things tax I mean that is not something that I could ever get passionate about Um As a colleague you always knew where tony stood if he didn't agree He would tell you and he would tell you to his face To your face rather rather than talking about it to somebody else I respected his and do respect his honesty and candidness traits that are increasingly In short supply And as the years has gone have gone on tony and I have Commiserated about changes in the legal education field In the new generation In technology and dim galeb knows this Tony and I as fellow luddites Are about as flustered by technology as we can be And once you leave i'm going to be the only one So this is not good at least now they say oh, yes, tony was down yesterday with this problem Tony my mentor, um, tony has been my mentor and he's been a mentor to Most of my colleagues through the years A mentor with whom you can share Confidences and ask advice and you know that it will never go Outside of his office. In fact, he was the person I confided in and asked For advice when I was offered the appointment in in the hay Tony Also can be brutally honest. He will say I think you're crazy to do this He said that to me earlier this week But he will also offer support and advice Once you've managed to create a mess because he didn't listen to his advice the first time and he never says I told you so Um And finally I guess the best of all tony and pauline are my friends We've shared happy times And we've shared losses of colleagues like gary and ester But we are all a family. In fact, I think that really is what tony has created A roger williams family And it is impressive how tony when he was president knew everyone You heard one of his former students say that when she was an undergraduate he knew her name Um, but he knew everyone at roger williams. He knew everybody who worked here Who their kids were How their families were doing and he'd always asked that and so Sort of the one story that to me captures who who tony is One day I stopped by the dean's office. I was going to talk to bruce. It was in one of his interim Periods And the office was being painted And tony was asking the worker who was painting it. So how's the family? And this seemed like a normal question He might ask any of the roger williams employees His roger williams family So I was totally surprised when tony turned to me and said said, oh, you know a jay my son, right? Tony treated those he worked with And those who worked for him with the respect and care that he showed his own son and his family He started with a small family here at roger williams and we've grown over the 25 years The campus that you could cover in a 10 minute stroll in 1993 Has become a university that now takes at least 30 minutes to cross or more I'm probably walk much slower than I did in 93 too, but I guess the apple seeds that you put down Have grown strong roots that many have built on So we will miss you tony And now tucker right from across the campus Again, it's an honor to be asked to to speak here today and I've known tony for for 25 years. Let me let me tell you how it came about And I was proud and privileged to have a little something to do with the setting up the law school Number years ago I was having coffee with president sicker from the university and he was he was Talking about how he created a medical school where he was before and I said to him, you know We don't have a law school in run island and his eyes opened up Okay And and at the time we had a we had a paralegal program a criminal justice program undergraduate So he says what do you do what do you do? I said well I have what you have to do is form a feasibility study with american bar association And I said, let me give you an idea called justice weisberger Right and thank thankfully justice weisberger Agreed to to share the committee. I was on the on the feasibility committee. It meant for close to two years Right at the beginning tony was recommended to be the consultant On the committee and we worked diligently. We met many times We had uh, it was about a 12 or 13 member member committee And he put together an excellent report uh, based on the findings that we came up with and We we had to meet with the supreme court of run island to give the presentation And it was at that meeting That Ralph Papito was there Now I know poor Ralph had his problems, but believe me. He was a driving force of this law school And I said to him, where's the money going to come from? He said don't worry about the money You people get this approved by the supreme court and we'll go And uh, he he got together With his with his financial consultant mr. Gabelli down in new york and somehow or other Came up with the money and built this building within budget on time right and uh the uh, then uh, you know the They had decided to go ahead with the law school. So now they were seeking a dean and um I I asked a person security. I said, did tony santero apply? And he said no So I called him. I don't know if you remember this And I I had done some research and realized they were from around here And I said tony it's time. You came home and of course Humble pie said well, I shouldn't really apply because I was the consultant. I said that doesn't matter So he applied and in and that that was history. Um, and uh, you know the uh Especially just as wise very he did a great job in helping put put the whole situation together The the advisory committee was a little interesting too. We had a we had a couple of Developers on the committee and one of them wanted to build a law school up up in the up in a mill often provenance You know and so we had to bring the ABA down. I said no, no, no, no We're gonna you should build an on campus which which fortunately fortunately happened So the uh As far as the The finding you know, tony agreed to to be here from law school And uh, we've had enough comments about his teaching abilities I think it's experienced where the panel was here today the quality of the students that that went went through your classroom I must say that I finally got the best best compliment best compliment in my life one day. We're having lunch at With one of his one of the admissions lady. All right, and uh, he introduced to me. He said this is tucker right He's the father of the law school Tony you're the father of law school Okay, and uh So so, uh, that's the end of my remarks. I'd like to introduce uh, president farrish from the university Well, I have to confess that until today. I've actually never met anthony This is uh, this is my first first time In uh meeting my my predecessors. So that's not true. Um, but but the point is We've had people talking about uh knowing tony centoro for 25 years or 35 years I've only known him since the time that I arrived but I want to talk about him in a different context Uh in his role as the president of this university You heard the story that um back in in 92. He was offered the job of dean and it took him only Just a few months apparently to impress the powers that be that He was being wasted as a dean He needed to be the the president of the university and he he did that for the between 93 and 2000 And then he was actually the chancellor of the university for a year. I you may have been the only chancellor I don't I don't think that turn of title has been used again. So uh, he is the first and the retiring chancellor of the university, but what was um Really quite remarkable In addition to the fact that he founded the law school and all the work that was involved in making that happen He had quite a remarkable career as a president of this university and and one of the things that Presidents when they come to universities always wanted to scout out first is how many retired presidents are still hanging around the neighborhood um My last job I had two and that was so it took a little extra work to watch where they were at any given moment but but On this university just one and and the the issue there is Is the president still acting like he's pretty much still the president and and that makes life a little difficult that is not Who tony centuro is and I think you could assume that to be true if you know him at all I he has been nothing but gracious and and helpful A few times that I've I've wanted to speak with him about some issues that were historic in nature that I just Need to get a little bit of understanding of he was right there, but he has never Offered any hint of criticism or or anything that would sound like well I would have done it differently That's just not in his nature and I I can't tell you how much I appreciated that tony because it's It's a tough enough job coming in as a as a new president where you're inheriting a culture and a whole Bunch of folks who are pretty comfortable with each other But stepping aside as you did Was just made my life a whole lot easier Tony himself as the president as I look at what his accomplishments were and I should tell you this this story I was at uri for four years between the years 1979 and 83 And my brother-in-law at the time actually graduated from Roger Williams, and I remembered as being a very small place Which was true in 1983 Um, so coming back and seeing it in 2011. I was taken aback by how much it had grown And uh, as some of you know, I I'm a lawyer myself or at least I I went to law school and passed the bar I I I wouldn't really call myself a lawyer um And I would always assume that I would be at a school that had a law school and I never was Until I came back to Roger Williams and because of tony centuro I finally got to be at a place that has a law school of course by now I'd forgotten everything I ever knew about law, but at least symbolically it was important But the decision, uh to start a law school I think changed the trajectory of this institution But it wasn't enough for tony just to do that and hope for the best think of the things that he did while he was here The feinstein school of arts and sciences College of arts and sciences came into being The gibbelli school was renamed for uh for mr. Gibbelli He started the honors program And we started bringing in international students There was a tremendous growth of the undergraduate population. He began the first graduate program There was he acquired the uh the metro center in in downtown providence, which was an interesting way of kind of returning to our routes Because that's where the school began back in 1956 and that metro center we've since Transformed into not the same building, but the whole idea of being at providence campus is now Manifest with our one empire Plaza building which is a an even larger version of of how we're interfacing with the population of urban rhod island My point is that presidents leave behind tangible legacies and Ideally what happens is they're Built in such a way that they become a foundation For the next president so that we're not tearing things down in order to build. We're building on top of what was there And i'll say that the work that tony santoro did as president created an enormously strong foundation for this university So Well, I've had the pleasure of adding to the work that he did It certainly wasn't in substitution for and I think what happens is a consequence Universities just get stronger and better. So I want to thank you for having Started that uh work tony. I think you as much as anybody Built the university not just the law school, but built the university that we are here Celebrating today Lots of help of course, but the leadership came from you and the vision came from you and and the idea that This place had something singular to offer Uh, I think is very much again a continuing part of your legacy I'm going to tell a little story about about tony. He's he would probably tell it himself But you'll thank me for telling eggs. I'll be shorter than he will and so I know him that well, uh It's always a pleasure hearing tony. He's a wonderful rockland tour but but The story is that when he was down at widener law school A telephone call came in and the secretary came to and said Tony your your ship has come in Malcolm Forbes is on the phone And tony said Malcolm Forbes. This is remarkable for two reasons One is I didn't even know that he knew that I existed And the second is he's dead So there was that issue um Well, it turns out as luck would have it there was another Malcolm Forbes He just happened to be the provost at roger williams university offering tony a job and this was Enormous letdown that it wasn't the other Malcolm Forbes, but But as a consolation prize he agreed to take the take the job and so tony It may be that your ship didn't come in when Malcolm Forbes called But our ship did when you said thanks. I'll take the job and come up to roger williams Thank you so much for all the work that you're telling And now a graduate from the first law school class and currently a member of Our law school board of directors steve maguire. I'm gonna channel Mr. Coughlin from the first Group and say i'm a little freaked out right now I've been around uh The law school for a long time and uh Holy smokes, you know the panel That was here today The list of speakers that just went and uh Kind of feel like I snuck in Um Thank you to Dean Yolansky for uh For this opportunity I was a little heartened when I sat next to uh president faris and he also had notes, but Show off that he is he left him on the on the desk so So I have my notes and uh, I remember I remember giving my mother grief when I was 22 years old and I had just come home from Uh an epic summer in california Living with some cousins and an aunt and uncle that I really didn't know I told my mother how can you let 20 years go by And you only saw your sister a couple of times. I only met these guys A few times. How do you do that? You know and She looked at you like your mother looks at you and says, uh It goes by fast And you don't even know what's happening You'll see You know, so here we are 24 years and two months After a hot blue sky Day in august that seems like yesterday. I was uh Coming down metacom avenue listening to president santoro talking to our lean violet on the radio About this new law school how exciting it was that they were finally coming students finally coming You know And it was about two weeks after that I brought a visual aid, but I left it on the uh desk. You can see it later Uh, we had a picnic in a softball game And it's uh on the cover of the road island What was it the journals road islander magazine And if you see in the picture, there's no grass in front of the school yet even we were in the building But there was still no grass no trees or anything And I was there with my mother and my father And my wife who was my girlfriend at the time And we were walking up to the building and outcomes president santoro And uh, I guess he was dean santoro still at that point It was probably two days before he quit so But he came out and he walked down the uh The the cement paths were finally cement. They weren't planks anymore And he walked down the cement path and he gave one of his very dramatic Hey steve, how you doing? And he chatted with us for a minute I introduced my parents and then down the hill he went to the next group to say hello And uh my wife laura says you know the dean? And I Maybe maybe It was professor warf who was just with us who went in the same door that he came out. I don't know but the point is He made you feel special. He made you feel welcome um I was one of the uh non-traditional students in that first class. There were a bunch of us that were there were uh I turned 30 during my first set of exams And there were differences Certainly between the non-traditional students and the traditional students that were there and young students old students, you know And uh, I remember one lady a couple weeks into the class Classes she was in her late 50s And she was amazed she loved the place. She said just think two weeks ago The only thing I had to worry about Was am I going to play bridge or golf? But by the time the second year rolled around young and old traditional non-traditional We could agree on one core principle and that was Eight o'clock in the morning is a god-awful time to try to learn tax law But when you're the president and you still fashion yourself a professor and you want to teach tax That's when you do it Tax was never going to be my thing Whether it was eight in the morning or eight at night. It was never going to be my thing And in fact as great as he is the really the only thing I ever learned From president Santoro is that you have to keep a dirty office He said it during one of his uh Introductions here You have to have a dirty office a place where you can actually do your work and you don't have to clean up after yourself And I heard that you might be able to sneak a cigarette in there once in a while But I enjoyed uh his class Even though it was tax the way I enjoyed property even though it was property Because of the teacher, you know, he was a great person a great storyteller a great Success obviously And between him and dean huber they could tell stories that made even tax law even property bearable so um Most mostly both of them were very good at and they're still good at uh name dropping and the names they most often drop are The folks that were sitting at the table Today he he always talked about his students, you know, I've been hanging around The law school a long time Uh, maybe because I'm afraid they won't let me back in if I Stop coming down here, but uh I think it's that that inspires people like brian a lee who Was the instigator for this lecture series that and the the folks that were here today There is an actual reverence sort of for professor sanctoro um Everyone knows the history of the place we've heard some of it, you know um If you were here in the beginning you've heard mr. Pepito tell you the history of it several times you know and uh Maybe four or five times I heard the history and uh Even jack palance doing push-ups couldn't shorten the history sometimes, but It's a it's a good history and it's a great history and You know It's a tremendous credit to both president sanctoro and mr. Pepito that That the school is even even here because It was just a crazy idea for a long time if you live in rhoda island You know, it was just a crazy idea for a long time. You heard that it was Gonna happen. It wasn't gonna happen PC was gonna do it brown was gonna do it. Nobody's gonna do it And then we did it So and if you've been around, you know his history and this is the fourth one that he's been involved in and Obviously, I think I did a good job at those other places, but he saved his best work, you know for us um So today is you know time for recognition finally for I've been here a long time like the proverbial bed penny young or the gum on your shoe Which means I've eaten a lot of fancy snacks and even a lobster once with president sanatoro And many of the other great people here dean logan Dean logan dean kogan professor tights and Like an oski and if you see the picture later I'm the only one who still looks the same So Anyway, it was interesting to hear all of the coming home parts of this story and because it's rhod Island, you know at All of these different events and the best two events that I've gotten to attend are the last two commencements where Dean kogan and president sanatoro Finally got a diploma from here so and I got to meet both of their families and As because it's rhod island. I worked With somebody who works with his daughter, you know, and it's just been so great to see them both have a chance to Pat each other on the back for all the hard work that they did and the great work that they did and I think it's a tribute to their Friendship the depth of their commitment to each other that I caught mrs. Santoro Weeping on the side of the tent as her husband was telling bruce kogan stories last year. So As my mom said it goes by fast and you don't even know it so I interviewed president Santoro for an article I wrote For the alumni magazine in honor of the 10th anniversary of the school Which apparently was 14 years ago And here's what we said back then I said people who know him thought he was crazy When they when they learned that the law school's founding dean and president anthony j santoro Was planning to retire and take on the comparatively sedentary life of a tax law professor Everybody said I would hate it. He said that I wouldn't have enough to do But not only do I have plenty to do I don't have any time to do it If I may be so bold I'm going to try to teach you something about the three r's And I'll do it in the form of an equation So maybe you can understand this time Retirement equals rest plus relaxation It's a prize not a punishment So today is Today is payday not only for him, but for me As one of the 3,160 graduates because I get to do what I always wanted to do And publicly say thank you I give you president Santoro professor Santoro dean Santoro Please sit down. Thank you very much. I I I really I came prepared with a history of the law school. I thought I would be Spending some time here, but I don't think I'm going to use it and I don't think I will take very much of your time This has been um A very long program and one that I have enjoyed very very much They all lied of course, but uh, I I appreciate that Seriously, I do want to take this opportunity to express my appreciation for all the speakers for all of the very kind Things that they said and while I will accept their accolades and I do very much appreciate dr Farish and daniel nalski and the board of trustees Of the university and the board of directors of law school were naming the classroom After me or in my honor. In fact, it was my favorite classroom in those eight o'clock eight thirty meetings, I just enjoyed that Classroom, but the reality of all of this is that what was accomplished was actually accomplished by A whole bunch of people We would not have the law school were it not for the vision of the board of trustees We wouldn't have a law school were it not for the efforts of some Very good friends of the university who formed three advisory committees. Remember tucker three advisory committees to Advise the university as to whether or not the law school should be established one of those of course was chaired by Then justice weisberger and they put enormous hours in It's also true that we would not have had the right to grant a degree If it weren't for the ron island board of higher education stepping in thanks to the then chairman judge leach and of course It's also a tiny band of faculty that came together to Put together a library a curriculum and things of that sort Three of them are still here Dean kogan professor tights and of course dean yelnosky But they're getting rid of me apparently So I don't know and there were as a matter of fact others that Joined us and we remember them fondly. They've passed on dean gary bar our first Academic associate dean was mentioned Dick huber the former dean at boston college came in to help us and ray gallagher My former professor at georgetown law school came in to help us and we remember them fondly because they played an important role in what we do Or what we started but then of course There was steve mcguire and a hardy band of Law students who came and took the plunge at an unaccredited Law school, but we succeeded we got the accreditation um I have to Correct a few things though. Um, I I wasn't dean when you came in I had already been made president You had no dean I I also have to Louise tights probably disclosed this deep secret that I have held the only reason I took the job as President and gave up the job as dean is oh, I could move out of my mother's house I knew the president had a house So I took it um in any event I was going to talk to you about Malcolm fours, but Dr. Farage took that over for me says not much I can do about that, but it is a true story. Um, I have had A great deal of time to the semester at least to think about retirement I've been cleaning out my office Sort of separating out my books and Cleaning out my files and then sending old files to various people People have told me what I'm going to do in retirement. I should take up golf. I should Take up photography. I should plant a garden I should mow the lawn things that I've tried to avoid for 75 years. They want me to do now, okay And what is this rest in relaxation? Okay Every time someone talked to me about retirement my mind went to one single story About justice homes that I remember reading about years and years and years ago Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes as you know, uh, was a justice of the supreme court and acting justice asking chief justice for a while as well But he was uh on the bench until his late 80s or even 90 maybe but apparently one day when he was pretty Old and still on the bench. He apparently Boarded a train at union station in washington headed north As soon as he got on the train, he went to the parlor car. He took off his coat. He took off his jacket He sat down. He pulled some papers out from his briefcase and he started pouring over these papers He was obviously engrossed in his work The conductor recognizing justice Holmes didn't really want to bother him, but he needed to get justice Holmes's ticket So he waited a while, but then he decided to interrupt and he said, excuse me your honor, but may I please have your ticket? well Holmes fished into his Jacket pocket his coat pocket his vest pocket. He opened up his briefcase Couldn't find it at all and the conductor recognizing that Justice Holmes was getting stressed out Uh decided to say don't worry about it justice Holmes as a practical matter when you sign it just send it into the main office whereupon Justice Holmes stood up Glared at the conductor and said you don't I don't give a damn about your ticket. I just want to know where i'm going And that's the way I feel like now I want to know where i'm going In two weeks I will be 50 years at the bar 47 years as a academic as 46 years as a husband Now I don't know what's going to happen to me in the future. I am not taking up golf I'm not taking up photography But I do have one big fear after the university has honored me and naming the classroom And bestowing upon me The rank if you will of president emeritus and professor emeritus I'm deathly afraid that after two months of feeding me breakfast and lunch pauline's going to make me husband emeritus So Look without more I since the sun is over the yard arm in any event So maybe we shouldn't go any further But thank you very very much for all of you who have been so instrumental in My having the best time of life during these last 25 years Especially the last few as faculty member I really enjoyed the classroom and I am so thrilled to have that classroom named after me. Thank you all appreciate it So please let's continue this celebration. We will be moving outside into the atrium for Drinks and some food at some point during the next half hour. We will cut the ribbon on What is now the santoro classroom? And if anyone is interested at 7 30 or so people will be Headed to adens. So please join us there as well. Thank you all very much