Attorney General Eric Holder '76 to be Keynote Speaker at Columbia Law School Graduation

New York, May 7, 2010—Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. ’76 will be the keynote speaker at the Columbia Law School graduation on May 14.

 

About 700 J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. candidates from 39 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and more than 50 countries will be awarded degrees.

 

The graduation ceremony begins at 2 p.m. on the South Lawn of Columbia University.

 

Holder, the nation’s 82nd Attorney General and the first African-American to hold that office, attended the Law School after graduating from Columbia College in 1973 with a B.A. in American History.

 

This is the second Law School honor bestowed upon Holder this year. In February, he was awarded the Medal for Excellence, presented annually to an alumnus or past or present faculty member who exemplifies the qualities of character, intellect, and social and professional responsibility the Law School seeks to instill in its graduates.

 

Also being honored is Alex Raskolnikov, the Charles Evans Gerber Professor of Law, who will receive the Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching as voted upon by students.

 

The award is named after a famed longtime professor of conflicts of law and torts at the Law School, who developed the first standard admissions test for American law schools. He died in 1990.

 

Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, stands at the forefront of legal education and of the law in a global society. Columbia Law School joins its traditional strengths in international and comparative law, constitutional law, administrative law, business law and human rights law with pioneering work in the areas of intellectual property, digital technology, sexuality and gender, criminal, national security, and environmental law.

 

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