Shobe_CEO » MESSAGE TO THE INCOMING 2007 FRESHMEN

MESSAGE TO THE INCOMING 2007 FRESHMEN

August 8th, 2007 Shobe_ceo

By: Dean Cesar L. Villanueva

I formally welcome each of you to the Ateneo Law School.

Although each of you have an individual basis for choosing to be in the Ateneo, there can be no doubt that you are in for an entirely new, and ultimately life-changing, experience under the Juris Doctor (J.D.) program of the Law School. Since its introduction in the Philippine legal educational system in 1988 and with its first graduates in 1991, the J.D. program has shown remarkable consistency and excellence in the field of legal education: highest passing percentage in the annual Bar Examinations (with always an Atenean in the top ten placers); awards and honors in international moot court competitions; annual crop of leading legal articles embodied in the J.D. theses, and annual public service by J.D. students through clinical legal education, apprenticeship and human rights internship. The J.D. curriculum has become the gold-standard in legal education in the country.

But being in the Ateneo Law School comes with a heavy price. The rigors and demands of the program would take its toll on many of you: long hours of studies, almost unbearable course loads, and sometimes almost unbearable professors. There are those among you who have never received a failing mark in life, who will come out more than satisfied with receiving passing grades in some of the heavy courses. There are many of you who will realize soon enough that past honors, achievements and distinctions in high school or college would amount to nothing, and cannot overshadow your daily output and grind in the Law School. The Ateneo program would demand from each you so much more than what you thought you could possibly give; to reach out beyond what you thought was possible to reach; to become the best of what you possibly can be as a person.

Why is the Ateneo Law system seemingly so harsh, and at times, almost unforgiving? Each of you are asked to join the ranks of â€œAtenean lawyersâ€? faithful to the Mission of the Law School: to be â€œmen and women not only skilled in the science and art of the law, but also imbued with a burning passion for justice and the fervent series to serve others.â€? The Law School demands from each of you â€œintellectual rigor in the tradition of Jesuit education . . . a thorough grasp of the nature and ends of law, the ability to express legal conviction in forceful oral and written communication, and sensitivity to the role of law as an interment of service towards individuals and of social engineering.â€?

If during the study of the Law you cannot make the ultimate sacrifice of losing yourself into the becoming the best law student you possible can and then more, then there is little hope that as a professional you would be the best lawyer to champion justice for your clients and for our society. Not many of you can make that transformation: many are called but few are chosen. For those of you who will dedicate their whole being to making that happen, four years from now you shall find yourself in the rank of a select group of Atenean men and women who upon receiving their Ateneo diploma would know by their whole being that the have, if they so wish, the capacity to change Philippine society.

I bid you Godâ€™s blessings into a journey that you have embarked on. You must be willing to let your old self die in the process of studying law in the Ateneo, for it is only in such dying that you can transform yourself Godâ€™s instrument for bringing good into the legal world.

Entry Filed under: Atenista, For the Mind, Life of Law, Philippines, Shobe_CEO