Distinguished gusts, faculty, families, friends, and members of the graduating class：

尊敬的各位來賓、教職員工、家長們、朋友們以及畢業生們：

Welcome，all of you, to the Yale Law School’s 2008 commencement exercises.

歡迎大家參加2008年耶魯大學法學院畢業典禮。

Thank you. We gather here this afternoon to celebrate an institution, to graduate a class, and to renew a solemn commitment. The institution is the Yale Law School, the calss is the remarkable Class of 2008，the commitment is to a tradition of humanity and excellence in the study of law that dates back several centuries.

謝謝大家。今天下午我們齊聚于此來祝賀一所學院，來見證一批學生的順利畢 業，并開始一個莊嚴的使命。這所學院就是耶魯大學法學院，這批學生就是2008級 的優秀畢業生們，這個使命就是傳承幾個世紀以來在法學學習過程中的仁愛精神和 卓越傳統。

This ceremony reaffirms that they did not do it alone. Behind each person who graduates today, there is an inspiring story of family and friends: of parents who sacrificed, who worked jointly or separately to ensure their child’s education. Of grandparents, uncles and aunts who watched over you when your parents could not; of brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends who answered your calls and instant messages; of children who somehow recognized how important law school was for you; of spouses and loved ones who commuted, worked second jobs, or put their own careers on hold so that you could make the most of this opportunity.

畢業典禮重申了一個這樣的道理：他們能取得今天的成就并不僅僅是個人的 功勞。這里的每位畢業生身后,都有一個令人鼓舞的關于家人和朋友的故事：傾心 奉獻的父母，他們共同或獨自奮斗，只為保障自己孩子的教育。祖父母和叔叔阿姨們，在父母不能照看你們時，肩負起父母的責任；兄弟姐妹、表兄妹和朋友們接聽 并回復你的電話和即時信息；孩子們認識到法學院對你有多重要；配偶或愛人為了 你努力學習，甚至做兩份工作，或者是暫緩自己的職業發展來幫助你充分利用此次 機會。

I once asked my own father, as he sat writing out one of my tuition checks, whether he regretted paying out so much tuition. He said simply: “Why do we work? Why do we live? We have nothing to give you but love and education, but by giving you that, don’t we give you everything?” We on the faculty and staff have taught you these last few years, but we know that among us today are the people who gave you everything. So would the families and friends of the Class of 2008 rise so that all of us can honor you? To the parents here today, let me say, as you watch your graduates end their schooling，how can you not think back to the first day that you took them to school? Back them, who could have dreamed that this day would ever come?

曾經有一次，我父親坐在那填寫我的學費支票時我問他，他是否后悔花這么 多錢來交學費。他簡單地回答道：“為什么我們要工作？為什么我們要活著？我們 能夠給予你的只有愛和教育，但是給你愛和教育不就是給了你所有嗎？ ”在過去的 幾年里，我們的教職員工傳授給了你們知識，但是我知道今天坐在我們中間的是那 些給予了你們一切的人。所以2008級畢業生的家人和朋友們，請你們起立，讓所有 的人表達對你們的敬意。對于今天在場的父母而言，請允許我說，當你們看著自己 的孩子們即將完成學業畢業，你又怎能會不想起第一天帶他們來學校的情景呢？當 時，誰曾想過這一天的到來呢？

And back then, did we really think time would fly so fast? I know exactly how you feel, especially today, because, in just a few moments, my own daughter is graduating too, from Yale’s Jonathan Edwards College, which is holding its graduation across Beinecke Plaza. And so, in a moment, I must leave for her graduation and turn these ceremonies over to my friend and colleague, Deputy Dean Jon Macey. But I cannot just leave without telling you something from the heart. You were admitted in my first year as dean. You started while Hurricane Katrina raged. We hiked sleeping Giant together-twice. And in between, we have spent many hours together, both in and out of class.

當時，我們真的覺得時間會如此飛逝嗎？我很了解你們的感受。尤其是今天， 因為一會兒，我自己的女兒也將從耶魯大學喬納森愛德華茲學院畢業，他們的畢業典禮在貝尼克廣場舉行。因此再過一會兒，我就要離開這兒去參加她的畢業典禮， 我會將典禮交給我的朋友和同事約翰梅西副院長。但是離開之前我必須向你們說一 說我的心里話。你們在我擔任院長的第一年里來到了耶魯。在“卡特里娜”肆虐時 巳經開始了學習。我們曾兩次一起攀越了沉睡的巨人卡梅爾山。在此期間，不管是 在課上還是課外，我們共度了很多美好的時光。

In the last three years, you ran conferences on rebellious lawyering, Acccess to Knowledge, Ms.JD, Graduate Works in Progress，and the New Haven School of International Law. You wrote your SAWs and your substantial papers, you ran journals and Small Group Olympics, and you founded the Workers Rights and Immigration Clinic，the Supreme Court Clinic, clinics on Education Adequacy and Domestic Violence and the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project. You persuaded Yale to divest from Sudan and Allied Universities to seek essential medicines for AIDs victims. You applied for jobs and clerkships, you competed in Moot Court and Barristers Union and you celebrated 40 nights. At a time when politics in America had lost its civility, your American Constitution Society and federalist society chapters co-sponsored events together, and at the Law Revue, you made hilarious fun of your faculty and your Dean. While all this transpired, some of you lost loved ones, got married, and gave birth to children. And today, here
you all are, together again one last time. So class of 2008，look to your left，look to your right, and you see what Yale Law School is, and must always be: a community of remarkable individuals, committed to excellence and humanity in everything you do. You have kept this place a community of commitment： commitment to the highest excellence in our work as lawyers and scholars, to the greatest humanity in our dealing with others, and to the pursuit of careers not of selfishness, but of service. In this place, you have competed with one another-very hard-and supported one another-very well. You have confronted one another and comforted one another. And when all is said and done, you leave behind a far better law school, a better Yale, and a better New Haven than the ones you found three years ago.

在過去的三年里，你們舉行了很多次，比如說，“先鋒律師年會”、“開放 知識獲取”、“法學女博士社區”、“畢業生項目”以及開拓“紐黑文國際法學院 工程”方面的研討會。你們撰寫了很多論文，也發表了自己的見聞，你們創辦了報 刊雜志和舉行了小規模的奧運會，你們創建了勞動者權利和移民協會，最髙法院律 師事務所、充分教育和防止家庭暴力事務所，以及舊金山扶持訴私、項目。你們勸說 耶魯大學脫離蘇丹聯盟大學并去尋找艾滋病患者所必需的藥物。你們申請工作和實 習，你們參與了模擬法庭和律師協會，并為“40之夜”舉行慶祝活動。當美國政治 失去文明性的時候，你們的美國憲法協會和聯邦主義協會分會聯合共同發起行動。在法學院的諷刺話劇上，你們令人捧腹地拿你們的老師和院長開玩笑。在這些慢慢 淡去之時，你們有的失去所愛的人，有的結婚，有的生孩子。而今天，所有人都再 一次也是最后一次聚在一起。所以2008級的同學們，看看你們的左邊，再看看你們 的右邊，看看耶魯大學法學院現在的樣子，它永遠是由眾多優秀個體組成的共同 體，在所做的一切中追求卓越，體現出仁愛精神。你們將此處變成了一個追求和承 諾之地：作為律師和學者，你們追求卓越，在與人相處盡己所能追求仁愛寬厚，追 求職業發展，但是這并非出于自私，而是想要更多地奉獻。在這里，你們曾經相互 激烈地競爭，也曾互相友好地扶持。你們對峙過也彼此安慰過。當說過做過這些之 后，因為你們，法學院變得更美好，你們擁有了一個比三年前更加優秀的耶魯，以 及更加優秀的紐黑文。

Over these last few years, you’ve heard many words from me. Some of them, I hope you will take to your graves: like “federal courts are courts of limited subject matter jurisdiction.” By the way, if that comes as news to any of you, let me tell you now that “federal courts are in fact courts of limited subject matter jurisdiction.” Who says you don’t learn any law here at Yale Law School? You may fear that there is a lot about law that you have not learned, and you know what? You are certainly right. But in fact, everything really important about life and law you have already learned here: how should you live your life as a lawyer? You find your friends in small groups.

在過去幾年中，你們聽我說了很多話，但是有些我希望你們永遠銘記：比如 “聯邦法院是擁有有限事務管轄權的法院。”順便提一下，如果你們覺得這種講 法比較新奇的話，現在讓我告訴你：“聯邦法院其實就是擁有有限事務管轄權的法 院。”誰說你在耶魯法學院沒有學到任何法學知識？也許你會覺得關于法律你還有很多需要學習的，你們知道嗎？你當然是對的。但是事實上，你們已經掌握了一切 關于人生和法律的精華的東西：你應該怎樣拓展你的律師生涯？在這個領域，你可 以找到很多朋友。

If you have to scramble, don’t worry about how others grade you. Instead, just do your best: it’s the most that you can do; it’s the best that you can do. Please remember that the role of lawyers is to be leaders. That accomplishment alone, without humility, is tragic; and that excellence alone, without humanity, is worthless. Don’t forget to work for those who need you the most because it is the duty of the most privileged to serve the least privileged.

如果你還要摸索奮進，就莫要煩心有天會被人超過。相反，盡全力去做好你能 做到的最好的事，也是你至少要做好的事。請牢記，律師的角色就是成為領導者。 如果不夠謙遜，那么即使成功也是可悲的領導者；如果不夠謙遜，即使有卓越的成 就，也是毫無價值的，不要忘記為那些最需要你的人工作，為那些享受特權最少的 人服務是人們的職責。

.And please, never ever let your skill exceed your virtue. In the years ahead, your clients will not be just those who pay you. Your clients will include the integrity of the law itself. So please learn two phrases： first, “I don’t know.” If you don’t know, say so. In the next few years, you will often not be sure. Don’t fake it; be honest and tell the truth. Not knowing is no embarrassment. You will find out and give the right answer soon enough. And please remember a second word: “No.” All lawyers want to tell their clients yes. What is harder is to tell your client no. We have all learned about two groups of Justice Department lawyers, both of whom included Yale Law School graduates. One group was asked to approve an illegal program, at the hospital bed of an ailing Attorney General. Their answer, and the Attorney General’s was simply “No.” Another group of Justice Department lawyers was asked to write a legal opinion authorizing American officials to torture detainees. Their job was to say no. It is illeg
al and it is wrong. Instead, they answered, “here’s how.” That was the wrong answer. So may The Force be with you, yes, but please never let it take you to the dark side.

此外請大家記得永遠不要讓自己的技能超過自己的美德。將來你們的顧客要 支付給的不僅僅是你的人，還應包括法律本身的公正。所以請學會兩句話：首先 是，“我不知道。”如果你不知道，就說不知道。在接下來的幾年里，你經常會不 能肯定地向顧客回答某些事情。千萬別不懂裝懂；學會誠實，講真話。不知道并不 會使你難堪。因為不久之后你就會找到并給出正確答案。此外請記住第二句話： “不。”所有律師都想對顧客點頭說是6真正難得是怎樣對顧客說不。我們都知道有兩組司法部律師，而這兩組中都有耶魯法學院的畢業生。其中的一組成員在一個 病危的首席檢察官病床前被委托批準一個非法項目，他們和首席檢察官斬釘截鐵地 回答道：“不。”另外一組司法部律師們被要求撰寫法律建議，建議授予美國官員 特權來審問拘留犯。他們的工作職責是說不。然而，他們卻回答道：“那就這樣做 吧。”這是錯誤的不負責任的回答。所以如果你被賦予了權利，請切記千萬不要被 他人誤導而誤入歧途。

After the grandeur of today’s ceremonies, most of you will start studying tomorrow for the bar exam under the benign instruction of DVDs and IPODs across America. As you focus on clearing this one last hurdle, you may find yourself distracted by bigger things： the economy, the environment, the presidential election, and the war in Iraq that has made today’s Memorial Day so poignant.

在今天這莊嚴而又隆重的畢業典禮之后，你們大多數人會從明天開始在全美令 人受益的DVD和IPOD指導下學習，準備律師資格考試。在你集中精力要跨越這最后 一道障礙時，你也許會發現有許多更加重大的事情讓你分心：經濟、環境、總統選 舉，還有使如今的戰亡將士紀念日變得讓人痛徹心扉的伊拉克戰爭。

More than any class I can remember, you are becoming lawyers in a time of transition. If the period from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the fall of the Twin Towers marked the Post Cold War era, and September 11 to the present marked what some have called the Age of Terror, the next ten years will be what I call the “Interconnected Age，” Globalization 2.0, if you will. In Globalization 2.0，all issues will connect to one another-the economic, the political, the military, the environmental-and all of them will connect to law in unexpected ways. You become lawyers at a time of challenges to freedom around the globe： in Zimbabwe, in Burma, in the Middle East, right here in the United States of America.

因為你們是在一個過渡時期成為律師的，所以我對你們的記憶將最為深刻。如 果說從柏林墻的倒塌到雙子塔的倒塌標志著后冷戰時代的話，那么從9月11日至今， 就像某些人所說的那樣，就標志著恐怖主義時代了，而接下來的10年我將稱之為 “緊密聯系的時代”，如果可以的話，你們也可以稱之為“全球化2.0時代”。所有的事情都相互關聯如經濟、政治、軍事、環境等，而且所有這些都會令人意想不到 地跟法律掛鉤。如今全球各地，如津巴布韋、緬甸、中東以及美國的自由都受到了 挑戰，而你們將在這個時候成為律師。

As Tom Friedman of The New York Times recently noted, last year was by far the worst year for freedom in the world since the end of the Cold War. Almost four times as many states declined in their freedom scores as improved. And among the least democratic countries in the world are those who derive most of their revenues from oil. So as the price of fuel rises, and with it the price of food and housing, we will need to cut our reliance on fossil fuels, not just to save money，not just to protect the environment from global warming, not just to promote our national security，but to promote the rule of law and reduce our dependence on the lifeblood of dictators that weakens democracy worldwide. At Class Day yesterday, Britain’s Tony Blair told the graduating class that like it or not, you are the Global Generation，so you must learn to be global citizens. If there is one issue that I would ask you to devote yourselves to in the years ahead, it is that timeless challenge first put to us in the Gett sburg Address： “
that we here highly resolve that this nation, under God，shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people，shall not perish from the earth.”

正如《紐約時報》的記者湯姆弗里曼德所說，去年是自冷戰結束至今世界各 國最不自由的一年，自由指數下降的國家數量是自由指數上升的國家數量的4倍，而 且還有許多靠石油買賣來作為國家收入的最為專制的國家。隨著油價上漲，食品價 格和房價也相繼上漲，這就需要我們減少對化石燃料的依賴，這樣做不僅僅是為了 節約開支，不僅僅是為了保護環境，防止全球變暖，也不僅僅是為了提升國家安全 指數，這樣做更是為了減少我們對削弱世界民主的獨裁者的依賴。在昨天的畢業紀 念日上，英國首相托尼布萊爾對畢業生說：不管你們喜歡不喜歡，你們是全球化 的一代，所以你們必須學會做全球化公民。如果說在今后的日子里我會要求你們投 入某項事業的話，那就是要大家做到能夠應對林肯在蓋茨堡演講中提到的永恒的挑 戰：“我們在此立誓，要讓我們的國家在上帝的福佑下得到自由的新生，讓這個民有、民治、民享的政府永遠長存于世。”

Let me close with a final request. Today, you understand more acutely than ever before, the difference between knowledge and wisdom. For years, as you have grown in knowledge, you have sought wisdom from others. But today is the day, after years of seeking wisdom from others, to start finding it in yourselves. In the years ahead， please trust the wisdom you find inside you. Remember your values, the values that got you here, and that got you through. And as you leave here, please remember why you came.

今天的演講我想以最后一個要求來結束。如今，你們比以往任何時候都清楚知 識和智慧的區別。多年來當你們在學習知識中成長時，你們也從他人身上汲取了智 慧。過去你們一直從他人身上汲取智慧，但是從今天開始，你們要在自己身上尋找 智慧。在今后的日子里，請相信你自身的智慧。請記住自己的價值觀，是它讓你來 到耶魯學習并順利畢業的。當你離開后，請不要忘記你們最初來到這兒的目的。

Good luck, Class of 2008!

2008級的畢業生們，祝你們好運！

I love you. I envy you. I expect so very much from you. Godspeed and God bless you.
 

我愛你們，我羨慕你們，同時我對你們寄予有很高的期望。祝你們成功，愿上 帝保佑你們！
 

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