Commencement 2022

Watch the #NUSL2022 Commencement Ceremony

Euphoric JD, LLM and MLS graduates received their degrees during the School of Law's commencement ceremony at Northeastern University’s historic Matthews Arena, on May 20. The Honorable Victoria Roberts ’76, legal pioneer and senior US District Court judge for the Eastern District of Michigan, delivered the commencement address and urged the class of 2022 not to let “the challenges of practicing law ever defeat you.”

“This is a class that embodies resilience and personifies excellence,” said Dean James Hackney in his opening remarks. “These are attorneys who will chart new paths for our profession, who will not accept the status quo, who will demand of society and of themselves that we never settle, that we always fight for what is fair and what is right.”
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The faculty address was delivered by Professor Lucy Williams.

JD Students Speakers:
Antonio Coronado ’22
Aly McKnight ’22

LLM Student Speaker:
Sofia Moquete LLM ’22

JD Name Callers:
Tai-Lyn Parboosingh ’22
Mia Lin ’22

LLM Name Caller:
Shefali Mishra LLM ’22

Commencement Speaker Bio: 

The Honorable Victoria Roberts ’76, legal pioneer and senior US District Court judge for the Eastern District of Michigan, will deliver Northeastern University School of Law’s commencement address on Friday, May 20, 2022. The only Black woman to have served as president of the State Bar of Michigan, Roberts was commissioned by President Bill Clinton on June 29, 1998, to serve as a US District judge for the Eastern District of Michigan, with the unanimous advice and consent of the United States Senate. Prior to that, Roberts was in private practice and served as the managing partner of the Detroit law firm Goodman, Eden, Millender & Bedrosian. She also served as an assistant US attorney in the Eastern District of Michigan.

An author, teacher and lecturer, Roberts has served as a faculty member for numerous legal education seminars, both in the United States and abroad. She traveled to Nairobi, Kenya and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to train lawyers and judges and to Serbia to lecture on collaborating/cooperating witnesses. She was part of a faculty that presented on Intellectual Property issues to Peruvian Judges in 2016 and to the ASEAN Judicial Colloquium on Civil and Criminal IP Infringement Cases in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2018. From January, 2008, until May, 2014, Roberts was an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor where she taught Federal Sentencing: Evolution and Dynamics.

“We are thrilled that Judge Roberts will deliver the commencement address for the class of 2022,” said Dean James Hackney. “She has been a role model, colleague and friend to so many in our community. How fortunate we are that she will share her wisdom with us on this important occasion.”

Roberts, who assumed senior status on February 25, 2021, has maintained strong ties with Northeastern since graduation. A long-time co-op employer, she served as the keynote speaker for the School of Law’s Women in the Law conference in 2013 and spoke on a Judiciary Under Fire panel as part of Reunion and Alumni/ae Weekend in 2021. In March 2022, she led a program for Northeastern Law’s Black Law Student Association, Increasing the Diversity Pipeline to Judicial Clerkships, designed to familiarize traditionally underrepresented law students with post-graduate career opportunities in the judiciary, and to increase the number of Northeastern Law candidates from underrepresented groups who apply for and obtain judicial clerkships.

Roberts is the recipient of numerous awards, including the two highest conferred by the State Bar of Michigan: The Roberts P. Hudson Award and the Champion of Justice Award. In May, 2004, Roberts received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Northeastern University. She was named Michigan Lawyers Weekly “Woman of the Year” in 2013 and received the Detroit Metropolitan Bar Association Foundation Dennis W. Archer Public Service Award in 2012. In 1997, she was named one of the Lawyers of the Year by the Michigan Lawyers Weekly. In 2020, the Wolverine Bar Association established the “Victoria A. Roberts Scholarship.”

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