Remarks of Ian Klein ’20 – Student Bar Association President

Celebration of Texas A&M Law School’s Graduating Students, May 8, 2020

Howdy!

As a non-undergrad Aggie, when I came to the Law School and started hearing “Howdy” everywhere, it was weird and off-putting at first, but now, I don’t know how else to start.

I remember at our 1L Orientation, an alumnus – Greg Franklin – addressed us about the Aggie Spirit and what it means to be a part of the 12th Man: He kept using the refrain, “I can’t explain it, but I can show it to you.”

Over the next three years, all of you guys – the Fighting Texas Aggie Law Class of 2020 – showed me exactly what he was talking about. In a global University whose highest-ranking official is a border collie, it’s not the cheers filling the Saturday afternoon air at Kyle Field, but something much more profound. 

It’s the spirit of a class that, in the race to become God that is law school, refused to knock each other down to reach the finish line first, but consistently lifted one another up to run together.

It’s the spirit of strangers – with nothing in common but their fear of being cold called by Professors Harrington and McGrath – helping one another learn what is and isn’t a tangible object.

It’s the dozens of students who balanced their academic responsibilities with their even greater responsibilities as mothers and fathers, and whose kids can now proudly say, “My mom/my dad is a law school graduate!”

It’s the spirit of a community of students, faculty, staff, and administrators that faced the invisible enemy of COVID-19 with grace, solidarity, resilience, and above all, selfless service.

It’s the spirit of students who’ve overcome everything from poverty, illness, disability, loss, and heartbreak, to getting run over by a car, refusing to give up on their dreams, and fighting like hell to reach this day.

It’s Connor leading the War Hymn at T&P for the first football game of the season. It’s Claire fighting for her client before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. It’s Garrett and Jake's nine-second ring dunks, Nora and Sally and Seth talking down 1Ls in Academic Support, and a community that took the lonely and despondent first-year who flunked out of school, embraced him as part of the Aggie family, showed him that unexplainable and unassailable Aggie Spirit, and chose him to be its president.

It’s a class that published dozens of our own articles on Law Review, the Journal of Property, and law reviews across the country; won Advocacy competitions across the United States, beating the likes of Baylor, South Texas, and Texas Tech; is sending more graduates to federal clerkships and Vault 100 firms than any class before us; a school that is within striking distance of Baylor and SMU; and above all, it’s a family that refused to buy into the Machiavellian law school premise of “The Climb Is All There Is,” but genuinely lived by the rule, “I am my brother’s keeper.”

I still can’t explain it, but my friends, you guys showed it to me, and together, we showed the State of Texas, the United States, and the World that Aggie Law has arrived.

Congratulations to all of you: We did it! Double congratulations to those who passed the February Bar, and for the rest of us, let’s go beat the hell out of July and September.

I don’t know how else to conclude besides this: I love each and every one of you guys, and I know we’ll keep seeing that spirit until they call the last of our names at Muster. Thanks, and Gig ‘Em!