‘You’ll never forget your first clients’: With law school over, Gonzaga graduates will now derive many lessons from clients, U.S. senator says

Whether it was a man on Virginia’s death row or a woman who was racially discriminated against in a housing search, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine learned from every one of his hundreds of clients in his 18 years of practicing law.

That was Kaine’s primary message to the 199 Gonzaga University School of Law students who sat in front him in black caps and gowns Saturday morning on the floor of the McCarthey Athletic Center. The Democratic senator from Virginia and Harvard Law School graduate received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on stage before addressing the graduates and their loved ones, who filled about half of the gymnasium’s seats.

“My clients taught me lessons that I still draw on today, long after I moved on from law practice to enter into elected office,” Kaine said. “They changed me as a lawyer. They changed me as a person. They made me better as a person, and they will do the same for you.”

Kaine entered public office in 1994, first serving as a city council member and then mayor of Richmond, Virginia, where he still lives. He became lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2002 and governor in 2006. He was elected to the Senate in 2012. He was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2016 as Hillary Clinton’s running mate.

But he first worked nearly two decades as a civil rights litigator and focused Saturday’s commencement address on three clients he served in his first year of practice.

“You’ll never forget your first clients,” Kaine told the graduates. “Those who come to you when you’ve barely hung your law license on your office wall.”

The first client was a Black woman who had moved to Richmond for a new job and was looking for a place to live, the same situation Kaine found himself at the time. She made an appointment to visit a vacant apartment unit, but when she showed up, the landlord told her the place had been rented, Kaine said.

Thinking she was rejected because of her skin color, Kaine’s client asked a white colleague to call and inquire about the apartment. The landlord told the white friend the apartment was still available.

Kaine said he drafted a Federal Fair Housing Act lawsuit against the apartment owner and settled the case shortly thereafter.

Kaine said he remembered he and the woman were in the same situation – both about the same age and starting their professional lives in a new city full of possibilities. But, they had different experiences because he was white and she was Black.

“My experience with that had been a positive, empowering and energizing experience,” Kaine said of his new life in a new city. “Hers, it had been dragged down by the instance of discrimination against her based on her skin color.”

The case also taught him that a home is not just a physical place, but an extension of who someone is.

“Being denied a place to call home is denying a piece of yourself,” he said. “For (the woman), this was compounded by the fact that it happened because of her skin color, something she couldn’t change.”

A case a few months later taught Kaine that not everything on the surface is what it seems.

He said he represented a woman with a mental disability who had recently married, but the woman’s legal guardian filed to have the marriage annulled, saying Kaine’s client didn’t have the mental capacity to marry. Kaine got the lawsuit against the woman dismissed, so the couple remained married.

Kaine said he discovered the guardian objected to the marriage because she had been pocketing the woman’s disability payments for years. With her newly married, the guardian’s ill-gotten monthly sum of money was under threat. The guardian was prosecuted for stealing funds from Kaine’s client.

The lawsuit presented as an effort to protect a mentally disabled person, but under that was the guardian’s effort to take advantage of his client, Kaine said.

“Whatever the issue seems to be at first, look deeper,” Kaine told the graduates.

Kaine had his legal license for six months when he took on a habeas corpus case of a client convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

He said he was tempted to decline the case because of his little experience and believed he had no chance of winning. On the other hand, he believed someone facing capital punishment deserves representation, and the man’s attorney suddenly moved to another state.

Kaine, who is opposed to the death penalty, agreed to represent him and did so for about 2½ years before his client was executed in 1987.

One of Kaine’s learned lessons came four months before his execution date when Kaine still had court arguments to file even though he knew they would be unsuccessful. Believing his client was likely going to be executed made filing those arguments difficult, Kaine said.

“I had work to do,” he said. “The case was life or death, but I just couldn’t make myself do it.”

He then recalled scripture talking about strength being derived from weakness. He said he cranked out his court pleadings and advocated for his client until the day he was executed.

“I’ve come back to this again and again in life,” Kaine said. “Fleeing from your weaknesses or pretending that you don’t have them makes you weak. But acknowledging your weaknesses, which can be very hard to do … makes you stronger.”

Kaine said he and his wife, Anne Holton, primarily moved to Virginia decades ago because they wanted to work with others to abolish the death penalty. The state did in 2021, 34 years after Kaine’s client was put to death.

“It was very slow, it was very hard, but we never stopped believing,” Kaine said. “So, whatever it is that you have in your heart about what you want to accomplish, it may take a very long time, it may be very, very hard, but you can do it. You can do it.”

Kaine told the students that Saturday’s graduation reminded him of the day he and his wife graduated from Harvard Law School 42 years ago.

“I remember that day as a whirlwind of family, friends and fun all accompanied by a sense of relief, gratitude, exhaustion, and especially accomplishment,” he said. “You have not chosen an easy path and there are challenges ahead, preparing for the bar exam, possibly moving to a new town starting into legal practice. But with hard work behind you and hard work to come, take the time to fully appreciate what you’ve accomplished because you deserve it.”

After one year of judicial courtship, Kaine said he took the Virginia bar exam, moved to a new city, got married and started his legal career within four months. Despite his undergraduate and legal education, he had so much to learn, and so do Saturday’s graduates, he said.

“Much of your learning will come from the lawyers and judges you work with in the starting phase of your legal career,” Kaine said. “Working with people who care about you and who care about your professional development will be one of the most important factors of whether or not you enjoy this great profession.”