Cooley Law School holds spring commencement for Tampa Bay campus
Judge Perry Little: ‘Number one, get involved in community service. Number two, do networking and you will never know who you may meet.’
Graduates of Cooley Law School’s Tampa Bay campus were honored during a commencement ceremony at the New Tampa Performing Arts Center on April 23.
Retired 13th Judicial Circuit Judge Perry Little delivered the keynote speech. Little, who served as the longest-tenured judge in the 13th Circuit, spoke on his own experiences to highlight to the graduates that they are not, “traveling this road that nobody else has traveled.”
“I am a product of the Martin Luther King era. I was encouraged to try to get in a position to help people who could not afford legal services,” said Little.
He shared his path from lawyer to judge and offered advice to graduates on how they may best be able to pursue their dreams.
“In 1977, I was appointed to the county court bench. So, you know I had to come from nowhere in order to get there,” said Little. “Number one, get involved in community service. Number two, do networking and you will never know who you may meet. I remember going to a National Bar meeting in Miami. In that room were prominent Black lawyers, and I said to myself, ‘if they can do it, maybe I can do it.’ That’s what gave me the inspiration to try to do what I could do to get where I wanted to be. Remember, the world is not going to give you a way; you have to make your way.”
Colby Weron: ‘E Plurbus Unim, out of many, one. That timeless phrase has anchored this country since its founding. It reminds us that despite our differences, backgrounds, beliefs, experiences, we stand together stronger than we do apart.’
Colby Weron, who served as president of the Student Bar Association, was chosen by his peers to deliver the class farewell remarks. He began his remarks by offering a moment of condolence and prayer for the victims of the April 17 shooting on the campus of Florida State University.
“E Plurbus Unim, out of many, one. That timeless phrase has anchored this country since its founding,” said Weron. “It reminds us that despite our differences, backgrounds, beliefs, experiences, we stand together stronger than we do apart.”
“I want to offer a simple and sincere message,” continued Weron while sharing the importance of spending time with family and community and always trying to be one’s best person. “We do not want what we care about to slip by. Don’t blink, life moves by very quickly. In the blink of an eye, years become decades. Don’t allow ourselves to look back on why we didn’t act when we had the chance to do so. As Dr. Martin Luther King famously said, ‘the time is always right to do what is right.’”
Weron spoke about the importance of unity. He said, “the world will try and pull us in countless directions. Our country, our state, our county and at every level, policies may change and the headlines will shift. People will debate fiercely, but the individual – the person seated beside you, in front of you, behind you, your neighbor, and your colleagues – don’t lose sight of the individual. When the differences between government and citizens seem wide, there are always safeguards that unite us.”
The ceremony formalized the conferral of juris doctor degrees on the 31 graduates of Cooley Law School’s Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Class.
Each Cooley Law School class is named for a distinguished member of the legal profession, and the spring graduating class honored U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who entered Harvard Law School after completing military service. He received his LL.B. in 1866 and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar on March 4, 1867. In September 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Holmes to the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court left by the passing of Justice Horace Gray. Justice Holmes served nearly 30 years on the Court, and until his last four years, he never missed a session and walked nearly two miles from his home to work every day. Justice Holmes died on March 6, 1935; two days short of his 94th birthday. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery next to his wife of 57 years.
