'We are all capable of changing the world'

<p>Although they just graduated from Empire College law school on Sunday, the list of accomplishments of the 23 graduates already reads like a list of movers and shakers.</p><p>There's the longtime insurance executive with several Sonoma County community awards, the All-American fencer at Notre Dame, a veteran CHP officer, a winemaker, a land-use planner, a computer software manager, a single parent, one who played violin at Carnegie Hall at age 15 and several who have already been working in the legal profession for years.</p><p>And before conferring their degrees Sunday at the Wells Fargo Center, school Dean Patrick Broderick reminded them: “The reputation of the legal practice is defined by the actions of each and every one of us.”</p><p>The two dozen grads made it through four rigorous years of night law school at Empire, the 34th graduating class of the private school founded by philanthropist Henry Trione in 1973. Another 50 didn't graduate.</p><p>Their futures are promising: about 80 percent of Empire graduates pass the California Bar Exam. Attorneys from the school have gone on to become judges in Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Merced counties.</p><p>The school has produced about a quarter of the attorneys in Sonoma County. Students are taught by more than 50 practicing attorneys from the North Bay, including several judges.</p><p>Longtime attorney Jack DeMeo urged the new lawyers to practice their “high calling” with dignity, honesty, civility and professionalism.</p><p>“Always understand that the law is first a profession, and second, a business,” he said. “It's not all about the money.”</p><p>It's about the people who need to be represented and served, he said.</p><p>Class valedictorian Jane Gaskell is a native of England and worked for several years in insurance and regulatory compliance in London before moving to California in 2000.</p><p>Like two other graduates who received their juris doctor degrees Sunday, she has been employed as a law clerk at the Sonoma County Public Defender's Office.</p><p>Two others work as clerks in the county prosecutor's office.</p><p>She said she wanted to become a lawyer because “We are all capable of changing the world around us.”</p><p>Heather Bussing, a professor of legal research and writing, called the students “an amazing group of people.”</p><p>They are bright, funny, creative and talented, Bussing said. “And they never let me get away with anything.”</p><p>She advised the grads that the three most important words for them are “I don't know.”</p><p>“Uncertainty is where justice and fairness reside,” she said.</p><p>A final bit of advice came from DeMeo, who graduated from Hastings law school in 1958 and shortly afterward went to work in his family's law firm for $350 a month.</p><p>He told the graduates that in the practice of law, there will be times when they will be the pigeon and times when they are the statue.</p><p>“Try to be the pigeon whenever possible,” he said.</p>