Dean Post Welcomes New Students

Dean Robert C. Post ’77 welcomed the newest class of Yale Law School students to New Haven during convocation on Monday, August 22, 2016.

Those in attendance included 211 J.D. students from the Class of 2019, 9 transfer students joining the Class of 2018, 24 LLM students, 8 new candidates for the JSD degree, and 2 new candidates for the Ph.D. in Law.

“In the coming years you will grow and change so profoundly that this moment will come to seem, from the perspective of your graduation day, like the first day of a new phase of your life,” said Post. “So pause, lean back, take a deep breath, and relish the many flavors that you are no doubt experiencing today—take in the exhilaration, the promise, the excitement, the anxiety, the triumph.”

The Class of 2019 was selected from a group of 2,801 prospective students who applied for admission. Of the 211 students in the new class, 18 percent come straight from undergraduate institutions, 43 percent are one to two years out from college graduation, and 39 percent have more than two years of post-graduate experience. The J.D. students arrive from nine different countries, 34 different states, and from 79 different undergraduate institutions. Collectively, the new class has worked in 71 different countries, and can read and speak 42 different languages. Forty-nine students hold advanced degrees in subjects that range from nonfiction creative writing to medical engineering and medical physics.

Post spoke about the “dazzling array of talents and backgrounds,” noting how the Class of 2019 includes a triathlete, violinist, missionary, astrophotographer, and an Asian fusion chef.

One member of the class helped develop an unmanned aerial vehicle that can deliver vaccines at low cost, and another helped deliver a baby elephant in Kenya while in the Peace Corps, Post remarked.

“To put it simply, you are diverse in every sense of the word,” said Post. “Our task, in the next three years, is to take the kaleidoscope that shines in this auditorium, and, turn by turn, to knit you together, each to the other. We will encourage you to learn from each other, which is to say to listen hard to what your peers have to teach to you.”

Speaking about the graduate students, Post noted that the incoming class of LLMs, PhDs, and JSDs hail from four continents and 17 different countries and legal traditions.

During the address, Post spoke about the challenges and opportunities of studying law, urging students to take advantage of their time at Yale by getting to know the distinguished faculty, experiencing the vibrant student life, and working closely with one another.

“These will be among the most wonderful three years of your life—the most exciting, the most provocative, the most transformative, the most empowering,” said Post. “Use them well, and good luck.”

Classes begin Monday, August 29.