[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 87 (Thursday, June 16, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1127-E1128]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 HONORING GRADUATES OF RUTGERS LAW SCHOOL CLASS OF 2011 AND PROFESSOR 
                             JOHN BECKERMAN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ROBERT E. ANDREWS

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 16, 2011

  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today offering my sincere 
congratulations to the Rutgers Law School Class of 2011. I additionally 
would like to recognize Rutgers-Camden Professor John Beckerman. 
Professor Beckerman

[[Page E1128]]

possesses a keen legal mind and a passion for teaching. He has taught 
many classes ranging from Medieval European History to Duty and 
Fairness in Corporate Law at many esteemed schools, including Yale 
University, the University of Michigan, and Rutgers-Camden Law. This 
spring, he was selected by this year's Rutgers-Camden graduating class 
as the 2011 ``Professor of the Year.'' As part of this honor, Professor 
Beckerman delivered the Class Day Speech to the Rutgers School of Law-
Camden class of 2011 on May 18, 2011. It is my privilege to read his 
remarks into the Record:

       Honored Guests, Dear Friends, There are a lot of lawyers in 
     our country--something approaching one million two hundred 
     thousand--and despite all who leave the profession every 
     year, loud voices constantly tell us that there are too many 
     lawyers, too much law, too much regulation; that we need 
     fewer lawyers, less law, and especially less regulation.
       Not everyone in the audience will agree with me, and that's 
     fine, but I have a different message for you. Quite apart 
     from the ongoing debate about the proper size and scope of 
     government, never have we needed capable and courageous 
     lawyers more than we need you now. Never has our society 
     needed your knowledge; your skills; your policy expertise; 
     your problem solving ability; your good judgment; your 
     sensitivity to the plight of ordinary people, to say nothing 
     of the poor, disadvantaged and oppressed, more than we need 
     it today.
       History shows that lawyers and legal doctrine always have 
     served those of wealth and privilege. It is no coincidence 
     that property law in Anglo-American jurisprudence largely 
     developed in its main outlines before the laws of crime, 
     torts, and contract. Because wealthy and powerful persons and 
     entities can better afford lawyers than can the rest of us, 
     they not only hire lawyers more easily, but also elect 
     legislators, influence who become judges, and exert 
     disproportionate influence on both the law enacted by 
     legislatures and doctrine declared by courts.
       What difference does this make today? The past thirty years 
     have seen the greatest concentration of wealth upwards ever 
     in the history of our republic. The effects of these economic 
     changes on the law and politics are not surprising, but are 
     cause for enormous concern. As Jay Feinman has demonstrated 
     (UN-MAKING LAW: THE CONSERVATIVE CAMPAIGN TO ROLL BACK THE 
     COMMON LAW, Boston, 2004), there has been a movement in 
     legislatures and courts to reduce the legal protections 
     available to ordinary people and to increase the legal 
     benefits our government gives to corporations and individuals 
     of wealth and power.
       It's no secret that the General Electric Company paid no 
     federal income taxes in 2010 despite making more than $5 
     billion in profits, that the government gives $4 billion of 
     tax subsidies every year to the oil industry despite the huge 
     profits they are making as gas prices top $4 per gallon, and 
     that billionaires who have died since the beginning of 2010 
     paid no federal estate taxes. You don't need me to tell you 
     what's wrong with this picture. We need lawyers and 
     legislators with vision and courage to correct these 
     distributional inequities currently enshrined in law.
       Consistent with the trend of reducing protections for 
     ordinary people, in the past month and a half, the 
     conservative majority on the Supreme Court issued two 
     decisions that I find very disturbing. In one (AT&T Mobility, 
     LLC v. Concepcion, No. 09-903, April 27, 2011), they held 
     that the Federal Arbitration Act preempts efforts of state 
     courts to limit contractual arbitration clauses that they 
     deem unfair to consumers. As soon as corporations insert into 
     every contract an arbitration clause limiting your right to 
     sue and waiving your right to represent others, this decision 
     will effectively end all consumer and employment class action 
     lawsuits throughout the United States, as well as their 
     disciplining effects on corporate behavior.
       In another case (Connick v. Thompson, No. 09-571, March 29, 
     2011), the majority expanded the doctrine of municipal 
     immunity to overturn a damage award won by a man who served 
     eighteen years on death row in Louisiana for crimes he did 
     not commit as a result of the district attorney's 
     deliberately withholding from the defense the exculpatory 
     evidence that eventually exonerated him, in flagrant 
     violation of well-settled constitutional law. And a year ago, 
     in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 
     50 (2010), the same majority held that corporations have the 
     same First Amendment rights as people, thus effectively 
     eviscerating most legislative efforts to limit the corrosive 
     effects of money on politics. Do we need educated, proficient 
     and courageous lawyers to restore balance to the law in these 
     areas? Of course we do.
       But those aren't the only reasons we need you so badly. The 
     same interests that tell us there are too many lawyers 
     continue to try to cripple protection of the environment from 
     greenhouse gases, to limit protection of the oceans from oil 
     well blowouts such as BP's Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, to 
     hinder protection of the drinking water supply in 
     Pennsylvania and New York from the carcinogenic effects of 
     hydraulic fracking chemicals used to extract natural gas, to 
     reduce protection of the nation's food supply and 
     pharmaceuticals, to obstruct protection of the capital 
     markets and investors from the same excesses of Wall Street 
     and the banking industry that melted down our financial 
     system in 2008 and gave us the Great Recession; to end 
     protection of severely injured victims of medical negligence 
     and abuse by physicians and hospitals in the guise of tort 
     reform, and to vilify public employees including policemen, 
     firemen and teachers and abolish their collective bargaining 
     rights.
       We know from sad experience that free markets don't 
     regulate themselves, that the environment and the public 
     health don't protect themselves, that trickle-down economics 
     doesn't work, and that tax cuts don't pay for themselves. But 
     we need lawyers to translate that experience into law if the 
     public is to be protected from the worst excesses of free 
     market capitalism and corporate greed.
       We need you for other compelling reasons also. In 2009, 
     over 6,600 hate crimes were reported in the United States, 
     almost half against victims targeted because of their race, 
     the rest against victims targeted because of their religion, 
     sexual orientation, ethnicity, national origin or disability. 
     We need lawyers not only to prosecute the perpetrators, but 
     also to dispel the dual curses of ignorance and intolerance 
     that cause these crimes and to protect the civil rights of 
     the persons who are their targets.
       And throughout the world, peoples emerging from the yokes 
     of tyrannical and dictatorial regimes need the assistance of 
     lawyers to establish laws that will afford them the blessings 
     of fair and peaceful democratic government.
       My new lawyer colleagues, the challenges that await you are 
     serious and daunting. Both American society and the world 
     need you desperately. The faculty and staff of the law school 
     and all who have supported you during your time here have the 
     highest hopes for each and every one of you. We offer you 
     only one challenge as you graduate from Rutgers Law School. 
     Make us all proud of you!
       Thank you very much.

                          ____________________