Law School Welcomes Incoming Class at On-Campus Convocation

The ceremony was held in four locations around the Law School, with a featured speaker at each site and the event livestreamed to all.

Grant, who also serves as head of the Global Litigation Group’s special investigation unit for institutional securities and investment management at Morgan Stanley, offered advice from his own experience as a first-generation law student and urged the aspiring attorneys to focus on building professional and personal relationships that would support them as they built their careers.

“You must commit to giving back, sharing what you learn, and supporting your colleagues,” he said. “Not only the ones in this room, but the ones who will come after you, and the ones who have gone before. This profession is a circle of giving. You will find that it is rare in our field for a lawyer to be called on to invent a new wheel. Everything that you do is based on something that worked before.”

Cohen, the Jeffrey D. Forchelli Professor of Law, was introduced by Associate Dean Edward Janger, who noted Cohen’s extraordinary influence on intellectual life at the Law School and on the fields of commercial law and international business and trade law. In his remarks, Cohen reinforced the vital importance of lawyers and legal education in rebuilding a post-pandemic economy and responding to political crises.

“The world is evolving, we are evolving, and the law is evolving,” he said. “No matter one’s career goal, there’s no better place to be than in the profession that develops and applies the ground rules of our free society.”

The incoming class of 422 J.D. students and nine LL.M. students brings an impressive breadth of previous experience to the Law School. Kaitlin O’Connell ’25, of Bucks County, Pa., decided to attend Brooklyn Law after three years of hands-on experience as an investigative analyst at the Office of the Manhattan District Attorney.

“I want to be a lawyer to help people who are sometimes intimidated by the legal system, and it seems that my values and passions are in line with the Law School’s,” she said.

The start of law school also meant major geographic changes for some students, who come to Brooklyn from six continents, 31 countries, and 35 U.S. states. One week before Convocation, Ashley Velasquez ’25 moved across the country from Los Angeles to begin her legal education. “I chose Brooklyn Law School because I feel New York is a great place to learn about what it means to practice law in a big city and at large firms,” she said. “I knew that Brooklyn Law would be a place where I would be pushed out of my comfort zone and reap the benefits.”