Class of 2025 Celebrates Graduation and Community at Commencement

Graduates were joined by friends and family as they celebrated a joyful personal milestone and entry into a larger community of proud Brooklyn Law School alumni at the school’s 124th Commencement ceremony held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Monday morning, May 19.  

Setting the tone for the festive day was music: First, the sounds of violins, viola, and cello from the Broeklundian Quartet, which was followed by the procession of graduates and dignitaries filing into the theater as “Pomp and Circumstance” played, and graduate, Cara Szeles ’25, who drew cheers for her lovely performance of the National Anthem. It was also a day for family:  babies and children joined their parents as they accepted their diplomas, 17 sets of alumni family members, including some who spanned four generations, handed diplomas to new graduates, and audience members cheered during the conferring of degrees. Frank Aquila ’83, the chair of the Board of Trustees who presided over the ceremony, asked graduates to give their friends and family in the audience a round of applause. “Thank them all for the support and encouragement that helped make it possible for you, their loved ones, to become a graduate of Brooklyn Law School,” Aquila said.  

Above all, the day was about tradition. Aquila introduced President and Joseph Crea Dean David D. Meyer, who demonstrated that the school’s legacy of inclusivity and social transformation since its founding in 1901 is still alive and well. He asked the nearly 370 graduates in the room to stand up if they will be the first in their families to become professionals, and across the room, many rose to their feet.   

“As you walk this stage and become alumni of Brooklyn Law School, you are part of a living tradition of empowerment and service,” Meyer said. “You leave here not just with a command of legal doctrine, but with the mettle, passion, and leadership abilities to reshape your communities and the world beyond.” 

Noting that the Class of 2025 faced numerous challenges, including the COVID pandemic, the outbreak of wars in Europe and the Middle East, and “a political climate that has sown unprecedented division and distrust,” the class’s achievements are especially extraordinary, he added.  

“As deep as these challenges have been, they each underscore the importance of your role as lawyers, and the urgent need for your passion, your leadership skills, your reason and your commitment to justice and the rule of law,” Meyer said. “Overcoming these challenges has made you stronger. You have shown not only remarkable grit and resilience, but also grace and compassion, wisdom and principle, and these qualities have made me enormously proud of you, and they give me every confidence that you will go on to use your talents to make an enormous difference in the world.”  

Valedictorian Elizabeth Anne Gemdjian ’25 noted that although she earned her title because of her grades, graduating Brooklyn Law has been about so much more, from working “zealously in clinics and pro bono projects” to participating in Moot Court and the Alternative Dispute Resolution competitions to writing for the school’s journals and interviewing and applying for internships and externships. On a personal level, some students got engaged or married, or became moms, as she did, Gemdjian noted.  

“When I think about what I want my daughter to know about my chosen profession, especially in today's climate, three things come to mind,” she said. “First, lawyers get to solve problems, and for better or worse, lawyers make the world go around. Lawyers touch every aspect of society. Every industry sector or community needs lawyers and with their creativity, intellect, and resourcefulness, lawyers know how to get stuff done. Second, lawyers are adept at seeing all sides of an argument…We’ve been trained to approach topics from a variety of angles and identify the arguments on all sides before picking the best one. Being able to keep an open mind and see a variety of perspectives is a valuable skill, especially in today's world. And third, lawyers have earned the privilege to seek and advocate in ways and in places that others cannot…We can't take our newfound power as lawyers for granted.” 

The keynote speaker, the Hon. Rowan D. Wilson, Chief Judge of the State of New York and the New York Court of Appeals, spoke about the Gilded Age, which he argued has parallels to the challenges we face today, and the Progressive Era (1890s to 1920s) that followed, during which time Brooklyn Law School was founded.     

“Gilded does not mean golden, but rather covered with a thin veneer of gold,” Wilson said, adding that the era was described “as a period of gross materialism and blatant political corruption in the United States.”    

But the Gilded Age was followed by the Progressive Era, in which progressives “worked to make America and society a better and safer place in which to live,” by regulating big business, cleaning up corruption in government, improving factory conditions, and creating better living conditions for the era’s immigrants, who at that time were mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, Wilson said. Brooklyn Law School fit squarely into the Progressive Era ethos.  

“Since the beginning, Brooklyn Law has held its doors open to all qualified students, regardless of sex, race, creed, or national origin. Tuition was deliberately low so that working class people could become lawyers,” Wilson said. Graduates such as Jeanette Brill of the Class of 1908, a public-school teacher, went on to become the first female magistrate in Brooklyn, and founded the Brooklyn Women’s Bar Association in 1918. Other early graduates included numerous federal and state legislators, federal and state judges, the first woman commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission and a New York State Attorney General.  

“Those and other early Brooklyn graduates worked on the front lines, directly combating the social ills wrought by the Gilded Age. The world you are entering is much like the one the early Brooklyn Law graduates entered with similar challenges and great opportunities,” Wilson said.  

As was the case then, when moving pictures, X-rays, and the typewriter were invented, there are also now disruptive new technologies impacting the legal field, including artificial intelligence, social media, facial recognition technology, and cryptocurrency, he said. Similarly, 14.3 percent of the nation now is immigrants, just short of the 14.8 percent during the Gilded Age, who also took lower-wage jobs that were hard to fill. Then, as now, there was a tremendous wealth gap, with top 10 percent of American households holding about 75% of the nation's wealth. 

“How do we adapt the law as well as the institutions that are regulated by the law, which interpret the law, and that administer the law to meet those challenges in a way that strengthens the political and social fabric of our nation?” Wilson asked.  

As speaker, Wilson was given an honorary degree, and noted that he, too, is now a proud Brooklyn Law School alum.  

“You are lucky to be graduating from Brooklyn Law School right now, because there is so much work to be done to bring about a more inclusive, harmonious, and prosperous nation,” Wilson said. “You have been given the tools and opportunities to do that work, to carry on the long-standing tradition of commitment to the public good on which your law school—I mean our law school—was fabricated. Don’t wait for any torch to be handed over to you. Pick it up, run with it, and let all admire the view of you forging ahead.”