Dean's Address

When I consider how traveling with the Academy has enriched my life, three areas stand out:

1.  First, the unique opportunities we have had to enrich our lives – both culturally and educationally - by traveling with the Academy.

2.  Second, through the IATL we have been fortunate to be in countries at truly extraordinary times, times of momentous change, at points in time when history was being made.

3.  Finally, by seeing firsthand the legal systems of other countries, we should be extremely proud of the American legal system and the contributions we as lawyers make to our country.

Culturally, think of the many things we have done as Fellows that we could not have done on our own, or, for that matter, with any other group, such as: having a private tour of the Sistine Chapel – being able to contemplate the power and beauty of Michelangelo's masterpiece without the noise and elbows of a few thousand fellow tourists.

We had a private dinner in the summer palace of Peter the Great - in the same room where the Czars held elegant state dinners.  The only difference being our evening was not presided over by Katherine the Great, but Ruth Ann the Great.  Unlike Katherine, Ruth Ann did not have anyone executed, although she did send Broadus home early.

We have had dinners, and receptions in opulent private palaces throughout the world – Vienna, Lake Como, Florence, Rome, Buenos Aires – Tom Giradi's.  We've been entertained by strolling minstrels- even the Beach Boys.

Speaking of cultural enlightenment, of broadening one's horizons, of being exposed to the real world, I took a tour of nightlife with Sally Hunter in Ho Chi Minh City and in Bangkok.  I do not consider myself naïve in the ways of the world.  I did not think I had lived a sheltered life.  But I have never seen things like I saw on the Sally Hunter Oriental Night Life Tours.  Sally is the main reason I am going to Japan – I encourage you that haven't to sign up for her tour.

In our travels we have had exceptional educational experiences.  In most countries we have had the privilege of being addressed by the United States Ambassador.  I don't know how many of you have taken a trip with the Flying Red Raiders, but I assure you no ambassador has ever addressed that group.  I have been impressed with how candid they were with us and the insight they gave us into the obstacles and hurdles America faces in their respective regions.

In addition to ambassadors, we have been addressed by prominent leaders from our host nations.  Not only national leaders in the legal profession, but political and business decision makers.

On George and Ruth Tompkins' trip to South America the Academy was addressed by the Minister of Justice of Argentina – the equivalent of our Attorney General.  Mr. Ocampo was not exactly the equivalent of our attorney general because he did not require George to drape the art before he talked to us.  In both Argentina and Chile the professional programs included justices from their respective Supreme Courts – the highest courts in each country.  After the lectures, no tape recorders were confiscated.

Two of the most moving experiences I have ever had were on the cruise to Vietnam hosted by Bob and Marlene Josefsburg. Four Fellows who had fought for our country in Vietnam shared their emotions on returning.  Suffice it to say, there were few dry eyes and no one doubted that it was much better go to Vietnam as a tourist in 1998 than as a soldier in 1968.

A few days later in Hanoi, U. S. Ambassador Peter Peterson spoke to the Academy.  During the Vietnam War, Ambassador Peterson had been a POW – kept prisoner a few blocks away from the new hotel in which we were meeting at the notorious Hanoi Hilton.  You could not help but respect his courage and to admire his willingness to return and help a country that had treated him so harshly.

Although Mikhail Gorbachev did not attend our meeting in Moscow as hoped, he did meet with Broadus in Florida – I promise, I was there.  All of you would have been proud of Broadus.  After Ruth Ann finally got through to him that we were meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev, not Nikita Khrushchev, Broadus did the Academy proud,  Broadus had done his homework and knew Gorbachev's first job with the Communist Party was working in the grain fields.  Talking through an interpreter, Broadus told Gorbachev that they had more in common than law degrees.  Gorbachev looked puzzled and asked, "What?"  Broadus said that he grew up on a farm driving a combine.  Gorbachev's face lit up and he and Broadus started talking about what kind of combines each had worked on – "Did you ever work on a Massey Furgesen?  Was yours self-propelled? Was it was pulled by a truck?."

Here you had a Broadus Spivey from Clarendon, Texas – whose only claim to fame prior to becoming a lawyer was going to the state finals in tractor repair - talking to a Nobel Prize Winner, a man whom I believe history will recognize as one of the two or three greatest men of our generation, talking, joking and laughing like two farmers drinking coffee at the Ranch House Café in Lubbock.  Only through the Academy!

Second, as Fellows of the Academy, we have been fortunate to visit other countries at extraordinary times.  We have been in countries that were in the process of revolutionary transformation; nations taking their first shaky, uncertain steps toward democracy; and nations experimenting for the first time in their history with the Rule of Law.  The IATL has not only witnessed these truly historic events, but we had the privilege to hearing from people that played crucial roles in these changes.

In 1994, when Ray and Audrey Tam led the Academy to China, new Chinese lawyers and judges were eager to learn about the American legal system.  The powers-that-be in China had finally realized that in order to prosper in the world community, China would have to embrace the Rule of Law.  Talking to these new lawyers in China, the concept of the Rule of Man as opposed to the Rule of Law became very real to us.  No longer was the Rule of Law a theoretical legal concept discussed by a boring law school professor, but a reality.  We met with men and women that were struggling to write laws and establish legal precedents that we have taken for granted for 200 years.

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