Victoria "Vicki" Reggie Kennedy and Massachusetts First Lady Diane Patrick were among those who praised Suffolk University Law School's ethos of public service at an alumni weekend gala at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Friday night. 

Kennedy acknowledged the school's top-ranked programs, but added that Suffolk Law's true victory was that its students had done 8,000 hours of pro bono community service over the last school year. Evoking John F. Kennedy's famous inaugural address, she said, "Suffolk Law alums have never stopped asking what they can do for their country or their community."

"I don't know of any place doing what you're doing," she added, "proving every day that public service is a good and noble profession."

Recounting the founding of Suffolk Law in 1906, by a young lawyer whose law school tuition had been paid for by a more established attorney, Kennedy said that her father had entered the profession through the same type of largesse, arguing that she would never have become an attorney herself if her father hadn't received a helping hand when he needed it.

Kennedy joked with the crowd that people know her age because when she first started dating Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the press would refer to her as "Victoria, 38." Her husband "got a big kick out of it," she said, telling her, 'It makes you sound like a boat.'"

(Pictured, from left: Brendan Kennedy '13, Diane Patrick, Jessica Youngberg '13)

Patrick, a partner at Ropes & Gray, also drew laughs from the crowd. She recounted her first law job interview, which was for a summer internship at a large firm: "I had no concept…I dressed in whatever I was wearing for school that day," she recalled—shorts, sandals and a t-shirt. "I looked at the other students in their suits, carrying briefcases—with nothing in them—and I realized it was either going to be fright or flight." Patrick stayed for the interview and ultimately got the internship.

She explained to the crowd that in the early years of her marriage to Governor Deval Patrick, while "Deval was out fighting death penalty cases" as a young civil rights attorney, she was working as an attorney at a large firm. "I'd tell people that I was earning the money so that Deval could go out and make the world a better place." But over the years, as she came to realize that service work is what sustained her and motivated her, she stopped apologizing and made service a focus in her life. "I realized that any person, in any profession, can choose to serve others."  

Patrick highlighted the work of three Suffolk Law students devoting themselves to public service: 

• Dyana Boxley '14, a student working at the Victim Rights Law Center with survivors of sexual assault and rape on issues of immigration, housing, education, privacy, and protection orders;
• Brendan Kennedy '13, who spent his 2L summer in the Navajo Nation, in the desert at the borders of Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, working on veterans benefits and foreclosure cases, and who is working presently at the Commonwealth's Indian Affairs Commission; and
• Jessica Youngberg '13, the president of the Humanitarian and American Red Cross Society at Suffolk Law School and a volunteer and intern at Shelter Legal Services Veterans' Legal Assistance Program.

In his remarks on the law school's recent successes, Chairman of the Board of Trustees Andrew Meyer JD'74, HLLD'99 referenced the school's three Top 20 US News & World Report rankings; The National Law Journal ranking of Suffolk Law among the top 20 law schools with the most associates promoted to partner; and a Lawyers Weekly report that among current chairs and managing partners at the 100 largest law firms in Massachusetts, more graduated from Suffolk Law than from BU, Northeastern, or Harvard.

Suffolk Law Dean Camille Nelson focused on the inter-connectedness of excellence and public service. "It is my suggestion that those who think that excellence and service are mutually exclusive are wrong," she said, "just as those who take too narrow a view of service are misguided – in all areas of our professional lives attorneys are called to work on behalf of others. As the life stories and remarks of our special guests demonstrate, excellence and service are truly mutually reinforcing aspirations."

Suffolk University President James McCarthy shared a quote from JFK: "For what Pericles said to the Athenians has long been true of this Commonwealth: 'We do not imitate—for we are a model to others.'"

McCarthy added: "The same can be said of Suffolk University Law School and its alumni. You do not imitate; and you are a model, especially to our current students. You play a major role in creating Suffolk Law's reputation for giving students the real-life skills they need to hit the ground running and have an immediate impact on whatever they do."