UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS
                     LAW SCHOOL
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
                      SPEECH OF
             ATTORNEY GENERAL JANET RENO
           
           
           
                  DAVIS, CALIFORNIA
           
           
               SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1996
           
           
           
           
                                                     P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S
                      ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO:  Thank you so very
           much, Dean.  I'm very honored to be here with you
           today as you commence a great adventure in the law.
                      I had a chance to talk with some of you. 
           I remember the feeling of when I stood in your shoes,
           wondering what I was going to do, what the law would
           be like.  It's been worth it all.  It is a wonderful
           profession.
                      From this land where many of you were
           born, from this great law school that you've come to
           learn, from the friends and families that have touched
           your life, you are going to draw strength and wisdom
           for the rest of your life.
                      Three years ago I came to Washington to
           accept one of the greatest challenges that any lawyer
           could have.  But I was not alone, for with me were
           memories of people who had touched my life along the
           way.  There was my law school dean.  There was my
           contracts professor.  There was my baby sitter, my
           American history teacher, my law school classmates,
           family and friends, some deceased, encouraging me,
           supporting me and reminding me of how I got there.
                      So today as you leave King Hall, this
           wonderful institution, stop and cherish the people who
           have touched your lives, the faculty, family and
           friends.  Remember for as long as you live how other
           people made a difference in your life and then for the
           rest of your life, reach out and touch others and help
           them along the way.
                      Remember the wonderful cultural traditions
           of the many heritages in this law school that are
           reflected and represented here today and go to your
           communities and make sure that the diversity which
           made this nation great is always valued and always
           protected.  As you pursue the great experiences of the
           law don't forget to laugh at yourself and if you have
           trouble doing that, find a brother who will tease you,
           even if you're the Attorney General, and make fun of
           you so you don't take yourself too seriously.
                      Above all, be yourself.  Do not become
           known for the law firm that you joined.  Do not become
           known for the money you make or the house that you
           live in, but become known for yourself and for who you
           are and for what you stand for and for what you do for
           others.
                      I love the law and I love lawyers but I
           don't like greedy and indifferent lawyers.  The law
           can be such a marvelous tool for good, a marvelous
           tool for change and so with the spirit and the courage
           and the intellect that is so evident here today, with
           the sense of community that is so evident here today,
           use the law to protect others against injustice, to
           solve their problems, to serve people and to bring
           peace in this nation and around the world.
                      Speak out against the hatred, the bigotry
           and the violence in this land.  Defend those who are
           the victims of those forces.  Most haters are cowards. 
           When confronted they back down.  When we remain
           silent, they flourish.  The people of Sacramento
           showed two years ago what could be done when people
           join together to speak out against the hate crimes
           that were evident in that community.  We have learned
           a lesson in our century that none of us can ever
           forget.  In Nazi Germany too many people stood silent
           as Hitler and his fascism took hold.  We cannot forget
           that happened in our century and we must never ever
           let forces like that become entrenched in this land.
                      Do not stand on the sidelines, whether you
           become a corporate lawyer or you practice in a small
           rural community, but instead defend and protect the
           rights that you've studied for three years, that
           you've cared about for three years.  These rights and
           freedoms do not find lasting strength on the paper
           that they're written on.  They are not self-executing. 
           They find their force in the hearts and the minds and
           the spirit of lawyers who are willing to fight for
           them, advocate for them and never ever to give up on
           them.  It is found in the hearts and minds and spirits
           of lawyers who take the unpopular cause, who dig into
           the facts, who keep going and who are constantly
           remindful of their duties as lawyers.
                      Sometimes these efforts are not expressed
           in highfalutin Constitutional arguments, but they are
           expressed in complex, tedious, factual studies of the
           issues.  Recently I had occasion to do a review of DNA
           cases which had produced justice, finally.  In one
           instance a man had been convicted and sentenced to
           death for the murder of a young woman in 1984.  He
           maintained his innocence.  He was nonetheless
           convicted.  Two years later his conviction was
           overturned.  After a second trial he was again
           convicted and this time sentenced to life in prison.
                      But in 1989 a new lawyer, one who would
           not give up, took on what seemed to be a hopeless
           case.  He realized at that point that forensic science
           had made advancements with DNA technology.  He filed
           a motion to preserve the evidence so that tests could
           be done.  The Prosecutor's Office, acting in the best
           tradition of a prosecutor, willingly cooperated,
           agreed to DNA testing.  Experts at the lab concluded
           that the samples in question could not have come from
           this person and he was not the person who did it.  The
           state withdrew the charges and because a lawyer never
           gave up fighting for what was right a man was free.
                      Now, you hear these cases and you think it
           doesn't really happen to me.  But about eight years
           ago the Governor of Florida asked me to go to another
           jurisdiction as a prosecutor and reinvestigate the
           case of a man who had been prosecuted, convicted and
           sentenced to death for the poisoning death of his
           seven children 21 years before.  The death penalty had
           been set aside by the Supreme Court's decision, but he
           had been in prison that entire time.
                      We dug into the facts and became convinced
           that the evidence was insufficient to charge him
           originally and clearly now, and that, though the death
           of witnesses and the destruction of evidence made it
           impossible to determine who did it, we concluded that
           he was probably innocent and he should go free.  For
           as long as I live I will always remember looking back
           over my shoulder as I left that courthouse, watching
           that man come down the steps a free man for the first
           time in 21 years and there is nothing that I have done
           professionally that means more to me than that.  Reach
           out and use the law to help others.
                      We are a government of the people, by the
           people and for the people, and the people in this
           nation for 200 years have created a government that
           has provided more freedom and more opportunity than
           any government in the history of this world.  But
           there are some Americans who sit on the sidelines and
           snipe and carp at this government.  They don't
           participate.  They wring their hands.  But if this
           form of government is to prevail, then the very best
           people, the very best lawyers must take part in it and
           contribute to it positively.
                      I think that public service is one of the
           greatest callings I know.  I have been in private
           practice.  I have been a partner in a major law firm,
           but of all my experiences, none can match public
           service.  Yeah, you get fussed at, you get cussed at
           and you get blasted in the newspapers.  You undertake
           a great initiative and you get knocked down, but you
           pick yourself back up and you keep moving.  And then
           ten years later when somebody comes up to you and
           says, "Your child support office got me my child
           support and it made a difference in my life and I
           thank you so very much."  When a victim comes to you
           after you have convicted a terrible criminal and says,
           "Thank you.  I just could not have gotten through this
           without you," you know that you have made a
           difference.
                      When you see a domestic violence court
           take place and start to rise up in the jurisdiction
           where you started a domestic intervention program ten
           years before.  All of us can make a difference if we
           just determine never to give up.
                      There is no greater undertaking.  But
           public service is not confined to government service. 
           Public service can be had by those who contribute in
           their communities, by the corporate lawyer who works
           in a coalition against drugs.  Each of us can make a
           difference.  You can change things.
                      Yesterday I had occasion to talk with both
           teachers and volunteers at Sacramento Start, an after
           school program in one of the elementary schools.  A
           young man had attended a school that required
           community service.  He was volunteering.  He was so
           shy when I asked him what he thought of the program,
           he said, "I like it.  I like it when I can help them. 
           I like it when I can help them learn how to read, and
           it's really nice when they ask me when I haven't been
           here, where are you, we've missed you.  And then they
           stop me on the streets and ask me to fix their bike." 
           And you could just see in his face the sense of
           purpose that he had achieved through this wonderful
           experience.
                      It's easy to be a cynic in this day and
           time.  The cynic knows so much about what is wrong and
           why it can't be fixed.  I urge you, though, because I
           haven't sensed a cynic in this graduating class, to go
           out and make sure that the cynics are not heard in
           this land.  Believe in your capacity to make a
           difference.  Be idealistic.  Try to make a difference,
           because it can work.
                      And I don't mean for a moment that you
           should be naive.  The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
           talked about the need for all of us to have a tough
           mind and a tender heart.  I can tell you that no one,
           no one can come to Washington and ever hope to do well
           if they don't start the morning by asking tough
           questions and end the day waiting for real answers.
                      But we were founded by idealists with
           tough minds and tender hearts and they formed a
           government to check the worst in human nature just as
           they risked their lives to found a country that
           cherished freedom and liberty over oppression.  They
           took the hard way and they made a difference.
                      A month ago, as the sun was setting before
           it rose again on Easter Sunday, I was in Dover,
           Delaware listening to President Clinton honor Commerce
           Secretary Ron Brown and 32 other Americans who died in
           that plane crash in Bosnia.  They were young and old,
           men and women, government workers and leaders,
           business people, but they were all there because they
           believed they could help a ravaged country overcome a
           civil war.
                      These 33 lives, said the President, show
           us the best in America.  They are a stern rebuke to
           the cynicism that is all too familiar these days.  He
           talked about how family after family told him how
           their loved ones were proud of their work and believed
           in what they were doing and believed they could make
           a difference.
                      As you use the law to dispel cynicism in
           this world, use it to solve problems, to avoid
           conflicts and to improve circumstances.  Many of us
           think of the trial lawyers as winning the great
           battles, but most of the great issues of the law are
           resolved on a daily basis, not by lawyers in the
           courtroom, not by lawyers in argument, but by lawyers
           who know how to negotiate and to resolve issues for
           the mutual benefit of all concerned.
                      But as wonderful as the law is, too many
           Americans do not have access to the law.  If we are to
           make the law the instrument that it can be, we must
           make the law real for all Americans.  Eighty percent
           of the poor and the working poor in this country are
           estimated not to have access to lawyers and to the
           court system.  For them the law is worth little more
           than the paper it's written on.
                      We must devise new means to give people
           the opportunity to believe in the law and to make it
           real for all Americans.  What you have done in this
           law school, the excitement of your service, the
           commitment in you clinical programs, your public
           contributions, are examples that you must take from
           this law school to your communities and imbue other
           lawyers with the spirit of service.
                      Stand for a legal services program in your
           community.  When you finally find a law firm that's
           going to hire you, ask them what they do for pro bono
           services and if they're indifferent to it, if it's not
           too far down the line, go look for other law firms
           that will honor public service and pro bono service.
                      (Applause.)
                      ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO:  But join with me
           in these next years after you graduate in trying to
           simplify the law so that the average American can use
           the law herself to gain her rights without having to
           go to a lawyer.  Use small old words that people can
           understand.  Explain to your clients what the problem
           was so they can avoid it for the future.  Get rid of
           the slogans and the logos and the symbols and the
           Title Sevens and the chapters and talk about the law
           in ways that people can understand.
                      (Applause.)
                      ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO:  But if we are to
           make the law real we must focus on a group of
           Americans who are among the most under-represented. 
           As a prosecutor in Miami, I fought hard to convict the
           guilty, to make sure they got a sentence that fit the
           crime that was fair.  But I started looking at the
           revolving door and I focused on our juvenile division
           to try to make sure that we did everything we could to
           give children a fresh start.  But when I looked at a
           pre-sentence investigation of a 16 year old charged
           with armed robbery, I saw five points along the way
           where that child's life could have been changed, where
           he could have been kept out of trouble, where he could
           have graduated from high school, if only we had
           intervened.
                      So we developed a drop out prevention
           program with the public schools.  Quickly we saw that
           if you wait until a child is in the sixth or seventh
           grade, it's too late.  He's already fallen a grade or
           two level behind.  He's already beginning to act out
           in other ways to attract attention to himself.  So we
           developed an early neighborhood intervention program.
                      But then, almost immediately, the crack
           epidemic hit Miami in 1984 and the doctors took me to
           the public hospital to try to figure out what to do
           about crack involved infants and their mothers.  And
           they taught me that in those first three years of
           life, most of the influence could be exerted for the
           future.  They taught me that 50 percent of all learned
           human response is learned in the first year of life,
           that the concept of reward and punishment is developed
           during that period of time.
                      What good are all the prisons 18 years
           from now going to be if we don't teach a child what
           punishment means and what conscience is all about. 
           What good are the great universities going to be if we
           do not raise up our population with the educational
           skills formed in that first year that can give them
           the skills to fill the jobs that can maintain this
           nation as a first rate nation.
                      (Applause.)
                      ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO:  We all get caught
           up in our narrow little interests and they are
           wonderful interests, but, as you return to your
           communities, as you go out to practice law, work in
           your community both as lawyer and citizen to reweave
           the fabric of community around our children at risk by
           making sure that through legislation, through
           community initiatives, through private endeavor, we
           make sure that every child coming into this world has
           proper preventative medical care.  That every child
           has appropriate Educare in those first three formative
           years.  It makes no sense if that's the most formative
           year not to have child care available, and not just
           child care, good, positive constructive Educare that
           can give them a step along the way.
                      Make sure that we honor our teachers. 
           When I was a kid I thought about being a teacher
           because my mother told me that ladies didn't become
           lawyers.  I decided not to pay attention to her and
           along the way a lot more have decided not to pay
           attention to their mothers.  But teaching is one of
           the great professions in the world and something is
           terribly wrong with a nation that pays its football
           players in the six digit figures and pays its teachers
           what it pays them.
                      (Applause.)
                      ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO:  Work to change
           that.  But what about after school?  With more and
           more parents working, with single parents struggling
           to make ends meet, they've got to work.  We have got
           to provide programs after school and in the evening
           that can make a difference.  I watched what one of
           your graduates has done in starting Sacramento Start,
           an afternoon program that gives students a chance to
           be tutored, to work with others.  It is making such a
           difference.
                      Each one of us can make a difference.  We
           can make a difference in developing prevention
           programs that prevent domestic violence from happening
           before it starts by joining together with the medical
           community.  A child who watches his father beat his
           mother comes to accept violence as a way of life.  We
           have seen the cycle perpetuate itself from one
           generation to another.  Let's work together in these
           years as you come back to your communities to end
           domestic violence as we know it and to give our
           children a classroom at home that teaches them how to
           resolve conflict peacefully and without violence.
                      (Applause.)
                      ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO:  Let us work with
           police.  It is so exciting to see community police
           officers who are reaching out to people in their
           community to involve them in identifying problems,
           developing priorities and reaching out to young
           people, not to become their nemesis but to become
           their mentor and their supporter and their friend. 
           Reach out and let us give our young people an
           opportunity to develop a skill that will enable them
           to earn a living wage.
                      I often wondered why we didn't teach
           people that in high school.  They say, but I'm going
           to college.  How many English majors have you known
           when they graduated from college sat around and didn't
           know what to do because they didn't have a skill that
           could enable them to earn a living wage?  In this time
           of technology, let us work with the school system to
           develop skills that will enable all our graduates to
           be able to obtain a job in this modern technological
           society that can make a difference.  But most of all
           let us use community, let us use our power in the law
           to reweave the fabric of community around our children
           and make the law real for all of them.
                      But as you're doing all of this with the
           energy that is in this room, with the creativity and
           the intellect, do not forget what is going to be your
           most precious possession, your family.  I watch young
           lawyers who are so idealistic struggle to get
           breakfast on the table, the children dressed, off to
           school.  They get to work, they try a case, they
           interview witnesses until seven o'clock at night. 
           They get home, get dinner on the table, the children
           bathed, the homework done.  They work on weekends to
           catch up and they don't have quality time with their
           children.
                      If we can send a man to the moon, we can
           surely develop professional schedules that will permit
           us to serve our community, to provide services for our
           clients and yet to put our family first.
                      (Applause.)
                      ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO:  As you leave this
           institution, talk to those law firms about flex time,
           about maternity and paternity leave, about parental
           leave, so that you can go spend quality time at your
           child's school.  And remember, raising children is the
           most single difficult thing I've ever known.  I
           inherited two 15 year olds, twins, a boy and a girl. 
           The girl was in love and I've learned an awful lot
           about raising children in these last ten or fifteen
           years.  It is one of the most difficult because it
           requires love, intelligence, hard work and luck, but
           it is the most rewarding.  And when I put that young
           lady on the plane to send her off to college and then
           when I went to see her graduate three years from
           thence, cum laude, and she threw her arms around my
           neck and said, "Thank you.  I couldn't have done it
           without you," nothing in my professional career can
           ever exceed the joy and the feeling that I had on that
           occasion.
                      You are a wonderful graduating class. 
           Your enthusiasm and your commitment just is
           contagious.  I go back to Washington renewed in my
           absolute determination and convinced once again that
           this great nation will address the changes that are
           coming, address them with vigor, with courage, with a
           sense of principle and with a commitment to what is
           right.
                      Thank you for your dedication and for your
           spirit.
                      (Applause.)