Law Schools Are Bringing Out Big Names As 2024 Graduation Speakers

// Law school commencement ceremonies during COVID times were a lot different than usual, with all the pomp and circumstance delivered in a virtual format. But this year, things are quite different, with many schools holding their third in-person ceremonies after years of absence. With the return to normalcy, many law schools are bringing out big-time speakers to address their graduating students.

Above the Law tracks law school graduation speakers each year, and we rely on the help of our readers for this task. We know some speakers, but we’re not psychic. Please get in touch with us at [email protected] and tell us who’s speaking at your graduation so we can update the list.

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Here are the speakers for some of the U.S. News T14 law schools:

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• Duke: Christopher H. Schroeder, former head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel
• Penn: Adam Liptak, legal correspondent for the New York Times
• UVA: Dasha Smith, vice president and chief administrative officer for the NFL
• Columbia: Kristen Clarke, U.S. Assistant Attorney General, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division
• NYU: Vijaya Gadde, former chief legal officer and head of compliance, policy, trust and safety at Twitter
• Northwestern: Judge Jeffrey Cummings of the Northern District of Illinois
• UC Berkeley: Michele Roberts, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association
• UCLA: Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former Justice of the Supreme Court of California

Here’s a list of graduation speakers at all other law schools:

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• Georgia: Judge Tamika Montgomery-Reeves of the Third Circuit
• Seattle: Mary Smith, president of the American Bar Association
• UNH-Franklin Pierce: Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office

Again, if you have any additional information, please email us at [email protected] or text us at (646) 820-8477.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on X/Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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Commencment, Graduation, Graduation speakers, Law Schools