Editor's note: American Bar Association President-Elect William Paul offered this advice to the May 1998 graduates of the University of Oklahoma College of Law—and to all of you readers who will one day be working to obtain justice for your clients, paying or nonpaying, while adhering to the highest standards of professionalism. Paul, a lawyer in Oklahoma City, will begin his term as ABA president in August 1999.

It is vital to posterity that our profession and an independent bar continue to live and flourish. You are its future and you must take up its banner and carry it in your time.

You must never forget what sets you apart as lawyers: that you are pursuing a learned art as a common calling in the spirit of public service. You are a member of a profession and you must learn and master the art of the professional and practice it well from day to day. Experienced lawyers will gladly be your mentors. You need only ask for their guidance. Then as you mature and grow in the profession, you must bear your shared responsibility as one of the guardians of the tenets of professionalism.

You have a commitment to serve the public and your profession. Honor that commitment. You will do this if you promote justice, professional excellence and respect for law.

You must remember that from the day you become a lawyer, you are held accountable to a higher standard than that applicable to the conduct of most. You are bound by rules of professional conduct and by a code of ethics. It is expected that you shall have integrity. It is unthinkable that you shall not.

Do not attempt to use your privilege as a lawyer to be a loose cannon firing at targets of your choice. Rather, show respect to opposing counsel, to judges and to all others involved in the administration of justice. Good lawyers always do. In the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy: "Civility is the mark of an accomplished and superb professional, but it is more even than this. It is an end in itself. Civility has deep roots in the idea of respect for the individual."

Through the years a primary source of good fellowship, of mutual support and a wonderful way for you to refresh your professional spirit will be to interact with your brothers and sisters who are lawyers. Develop and nurture camaraderie among your peers. Join and actively support bar associations and contribute your time, your energy, your talent and your money to the work of the bar and the work of the profession. Be a member of the American Bar Association. (Incidentally, the dues are waived the first year you are a lawyer, so you have all to gain and nothing to lose.)

You should perform pro bono service. You are not the complete lawyer unless you do. Pro bono service is a hallmark of the legal profession. For that reason the model rules of professional conduct make such service an ethical requirement. When I think of pro bono service I often think of two of the great novels of our century. The first is To Kill A Mockingbird, in which was chronicled the life of Atticus Finch, a country lawyer in the Deep South. You know the story and you know why lawyers think of Finch as a hero and as a role model. With great courage at a place and time which put him and his family in harm's way, he represented, pro bono, to the full extent of his professional abilities, a black man unjustly accused of raping a white woman.

And in Cry, The Beloved Country, a novel about South Africa, Mr. Kumalo, a black minister in rural South Africa, found his world collapsing about him when his son, who had gone to the city, was accused of the murder of a white man. Mr. Kumalo's friend arranged for a great lawyer of South Africa to represent his son.

As lawyers you will often occupy positions of trust. Your clients will place their confidence in you, and they will rely on you to function and to act for them in areas where you have expertise and where their own knowledge and experience may be quite limited. Never abuse that trust and confidence. Follow this simple rule: Always place the client's interest above your own. To do otherwise would be to dishonor yourself and our profession.

Our free society is the beneficiary of a precious gift. It is the gift of a social framework within which may be struck a delicate balance between the rights of the individual and the obligations to society. Most often we call it "the rule of law." It encompasses freedom, opportunity, equality, justice, dignity and individual responsibility. History demonstrates that this precious gift is enjoyed only by the society which nurtures it. And that is one of the reasons lawyers are essential. As lawyers you will become the nurturers of this magnificent gift, its guardians. This will be your calling. Recognition of this critical role, and of a shared responsibility for being such guardians, is a very important part of being professional in a free society.

It is a privilege to be a lawyer, not a right. Being a lawyer involves much more than having the skills and competence to perform legal work. It includes having a sense of treasured values, of independence, and a consciousness of being a member of an honorable profession, with noble ideals and rich traditions. It is difficult to define and is, in part, a state of mind. Although there are many aspects of our profession common to each of us, still there is no generic lawyer; there is no single or preferred model for a good lawyer, much less for a great lawyer. And what a lawyer will do when confronted by the challenge of a difficult assignment will be a product of skill, judgment, experience and informed intuition. Sometimes, what a lawyer does or says in the exceptional matter will sound chords never before heard, but which once heard are honored and revered by society, and which become actions, words and even doctrines for posterity. Such is the nature of our profession.

Soon there will be administered to you an oath on admission to the bar. Listen to the words and honor them. The undertakings to which you will commit may be briefly stated, but encompass the essence of the lawyer. For example, the oath of admission to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court contains only one sentence and requires but two things. One is to support the constitution of the United States. The other is that you conduct yourself as an attorney, uprightly and according to law. The second part of this undertaking, to conduct yourself as an attorney, uprightly and according to the law, is so simple, yet so complete. It is powerful and beautiful. It says that by conducting yourself as an attorney, you will be doing all that is required of you; that such conduct is synonymous with being honorable, of good character and high integrity, with being learned and independent. It says that you will serve society. It says that you hold a public office, that of attorney, and you should conduct yourself accordingly, by standards unique to officers of the court.

Finally, I offer this: There is something within us which causes us to want to make a positive difference. That is why many of you elected to become lawyers. A wonderful contemporary author, Rabbi Harold Kushner, has said: "People are not afraid of dying. They are afraid of never having lived." I believe that to be true, and if it is, you may be much encouraged because as lawyers, you can have the full life, you can live and you can live to make a difference.

For your own honor, for the honor of your law school, for the honor of all lawyers and for the honor of our profession, live your life as a lawyer in such a way so that when you leave the profession, it will be better than it was when you joined it, because of what you will have done.