A breeze blows off the ocean, cooling the patio perch of Pepperdine Law School where I’m taking a break from courses teaching me a bit more about human nature, including my own. The skies are blue this morning, not an unusual event down here where the angels gathered, according to those who first settled in this area many years ago. I am very grateful to be here, and I am thankful for the Bar Association and lawyers I know in the area to which I will some day return.

I’ve learned a lot in Seattle. I grew up in this area as a kid. I was privileged. Very privileged, and my career reflects it. White. Upper middle class. Good schools, best teachers. A mom and dad who loved me and my two sisters. Friends, and relatives nearby. A girl I fell in love with when I was too young to know what love even meant. Innocent. Sweet. A memory I’m glad is there.

I returned to the Northwest six years ago, after teenage and growing up years in California, the state we all kind of grin about, but maybe secretly admire or long for, at least in part. I studied law again, passed the Washington Bar and tried a couple more cases, learning a bit about the local and regional differences in attitude that exist in this land of mountains, gorgeous blue water, and sometimes blue skies. I built a home--two, actually--and then moved on into an uncertain but somewhat exhilarating future.

The law has changed. It is not what it used to be. We don’t practice like we did even just a few years ago. There is a new paradigm for lawyers. We are no longer just zealous advocates; we have pressure to be much more. We are, and must be, champions of the spirit of the law; advocates of a higher order. We participate in practices that help hold society together, and we also help move it forward when we bring matters of the heart, our heart, to the work we do.

We are lucky to be lawyers, in this lifetime, because change, and the need for change, is all around us. It’s in our friends, many of whom are crying out for tort reform and some sign of leadership from lawyers; in our sisters and brothers, many of whom are tired and dismayed with the contentiousness that has so marked our system so far; in our families, who are proud we are lawyers because they, above all others, really know who we are, and what we stand for.

They are looking at us whether we know it or not. They wonder about our power to affect the lives of others, which like any other power can be used for good or ill. They wonder about what we do, and what we will do next. And they hope for something better. Something grand from us, the guardians of the law.

So I am thankful to be a lawyer. I am thankful to be a part of the law, lawmaking, and how our system of government and our ways of conflict resolution work. Lord knows we need to resolve conflict. Whether with our family, our friends, our neighbors, other lawyers, other regions, or our global partners, we need to solve conflict, and reconcile differences.

A new revolution of community and global thinking needs to occur, and we get to be a part of that revolution. Every day, in every thing we do, we get to be a part of an emergence of a new way of thinking about the way we relate to each other, and about the laws that help keep our personal and societal houses in order.

Thanksgiving is a very good thing. It helps us remember who we are, and what we bring with us when come; what we have to deliver to and for others. We should be proud and happy to be lawyers, and to profess, as professionals do, that life is good. For all those who are watching us, including that little voice of consciousness within, we need to confirm that we are positively responding to the chaos (here read dramatic change from the way things were) that seems to surround us. By chipping in our own two cents worth, as lawyers, and as people with a heart, we can help make a new way of doing things emerge. And this is something I think we all can be thankful for. n