Transcription of Mr. William H. “Buddy” Sutton's 2009 Commencement Speech

University of Arkansas
School of Law
Commencement Celebration
May 16, 2009

Thank you, Dean Nance.

It is indeed a pleasure for me to share such an important moment with you.  After today (and the little formality of the bar exam) you will have crossed the threshold that divides your days between those before you became a lawyer and those after you became a lawyer. Your thoughts and speech will recognize the dividing line, and as you enter that new life for which you have worked so hard, rest assured that you will, in challenging times years from now hear the voices of those that you heard here as they taught you what you know about the law.  I hope you will thank them for that.

By an early age most of us have begun to envision what we will do in our working years. Many of you are probably still mystified with your own decision making process that caused you to become a lawyer.

I think all of us who have chosen the law, while perhaps not expressing it so well as he could, at least relate to the words of the great jurist, Oliver William Holmes, Jr., when he said in 1885:

“The law, wherein, as in a magic mirror, we see reflected not only our own lives, but the lives of all men that have been!  When I think on this majestic theme, my eyes dazzle.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience” - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“Experience” is a word that conveys instantly the concept of some good-some bad-some wins-some losses-some rejoicing-some grief.

Always some issue is in doubt

Always some matter of real importance could go either way.

One thing is certain-when you chose to become a lawyer you avoided that disdain that Theodore Roosevelt had for the benign playing fields that know neither victory nor defeat.

In your legal career, you will know both.

Next month at the Arkansas Bar Association Annual Meeting in Hot Springs, my class, the Class of 1959, will celebrate 50 years of law practice.

It has been my privilege during most of that fifty years to work with new lawyers.  I want to summarize what I learned from experience from others and what I have tried to teach:

            1.         You must be dedicated to the trust others have in you.

2.                  There is no greater compliment than, from all the lawyers in the world, when someone selects you as the person they trust to handle something that is very important to them.

3.                  Response is your pledge of:  competence, energy, diligence, focus, and sobriety.

4.                  Growth in these matters is not a gradual incline.  It is steps, with each step representing a conscious decision to advance to another plateau.

One decision is not made in several steps — The decision of integrity.  Trustworthiness, honesty (whatever you call it) must be made in one step as a result of one decision.  It has to be made before Day One in your life in the law, and it has to last for a lifetime.

Temptation comes to a lawyer many times and in dazzling brilliance and seductive allure.  It is accompanied by slogans that are in packages of beautiful lies:  “Nobody will ever know.”  “You deserve it.”  “I’m just going to borrow the money.”

Temptation comes when least suspected, hoping to catch its victim unprepared.  You must never let that get the best of you, because all that you have ever wanted to become can be lost in a blink of the eye.

As you go from here to participate in the human experience as a lawyer (whether you are a courtroom lawyer, an office lawyer, a judge or judge’s helper, a teacher or administrator) you will find that there is no starting line where all the runners line up for a fair and even start.

As Justice Holmes observed, the race you are joining has been going on since the beginning of time.  For you it is a relay race and you are about to receive the baton.

In many ways your team may already be behind.  Others before you, including my generation, have made mistakes or given in to certain weaknesses that have penalized you or those that you yearn to help with the tools you now have. Fretting over your position when you receive the baton is a fruitless and unrewarding exercise. 

At this point, the only way you can improve your position is to RUN-Run to catch up or run to hold the lead given to you by others.

By no means are all things resulting from your forerunners bad things. While you may resent inheriting certain set-backs not of your making, we have all in another sense lived in houses we did not build, drunk from wells we did not dig, and eaten from vineyards we did not plant — thanks to previous generations.

A few years ago I was the speaker at a law school in a foreign country which I probably should not name.  On the question and answer session that followed my remarks, I was asked this question:  “What do you do in your country when the judge is fixed, the jury is fixed, and the prosecutor and the witnesses are fixed?”

I was stunned by the question and stunned by the sincerity of the student who asked it when it dawned on me that for him, this was a real problem.  Not having a good answer to his question I did say this: “It is very important to me that you believe what I am about to tell you because it is true.  In almost fifty years of being a trial lawyer in the United States, I have never experienced being in a trial where the judge or jury was fixed.  I’m not saying that it never happens in our system because there are very rare cases where it has, but it is not a fear that most of us who try cases carry into the courtroom.” 

I wanted to say, but didn’t, that the reason we don’t fear a bribed judge or jury goes back to our fathers in the law who wouldn’t put up with it.  Many of these gave their lives in opposing such practices and because they wouldn’t put up with it, those of us in the current generations haven’t had to.  May you do the same with yours.

It is sufficient for us to hold those truly good things that have come to us as a gift from past generations and pass them intact to the generations that come after us.

May I congratulate you again on your achievements and in your decisions to join the fraternity/sorority of lawyers from the past, those who currently are and those who will come after you.  As you now move into that life that Theodore Roosevelt recommended: “the life of exertion and risk,” may God bless you and bless those that you will help in your careers in the law.                                

- William H. Sutton

Contact:

Andy Albertson, director of communications
School of Law
(479) 575-6111, aalbert@uark.edu