José A. Cabranes, U.S. Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit, Portrait Dedication [21:10-26:12]

Thank you Robert. Our next speaker is also from Yale. Dorothy Robinson is the vice president and general counsel of Yale University, a position that she has held since 1986. She also shares something in common with all of us, that is all of the judge's law clerks, the judge hired her. In this case, as assistant general counsel in 1978, please welcome Dorothy Robinson. Thank you very much, Jessie. In that afternoon, Judge Cabronna's family members, friends, and distinguished guests. It is a very great honor for me to be here to celebrate Judge Cabronna's by the unveiling of his portrait and to have been asked to speak at this occasion. It brings back distinctive memories as I well recall being in this room in December 1979 and the judge then leaving his service as Yale University's first general counsel was sworn in as district court judge. I'm here to offer a few words about the judge's years as general counsel at Yale, and later his service as a trustee or what we call a fellow of the Yale Corporation. I was hired by Judge Cabronna as a young attorney in those early years as was my colleague Linda Lorimer, Vice President and Secretary of the University. I know that I will speak for both of us when I characterize Judge Cabronna as simply an extraordinary teacher and mentor. One whose influence on both of us was absolutely formative in our own careers and played no small part in our rising to the challenges of serving Yale University as vice presidents under President Rick Levin. We both are enormously grateful for that time of learning with someone so immensely talented, so keenly observant, and so willing to share with us insights that would remain useful and even gather strength through the decades, and we find ourselves using his phrases still. Judge Cabronna's created and shaped the position of general counsel at Yale from the time of his arrival in 1975 when he was appointed Yale's leadership team by President Kingman Brewster as the legal advisor, a title he fashioned after the position of the same title at the State Department. He was one of that bold first generation of general councils at universities across the country who started the work of organizing how their institutions each with its own character and style would respond to the growing demands of expanded regulation and multiplying sources of liability without compromising the essential values and identity of an academic institution. He also performed the important work of government relations for Yale, maintaining a network of contacts to ensure appropriate communication on topics of institutional concern to national policy makers. As I thought about how I might capture for you in words, a portrait of our honoree in those pioneering days of general councilhood, I read through some old files, and I noticed a memorandum that Judge Cabronna's wrote in 1979 to President A. Bartlett-Jimati advising the President on qualities to look for in his successor as Yale's general council. There is no way that I can offer a richer description of Judge Cabronna's himself than to read you a portion of that memorandum with the author's permission. He wrote and I quote, I believe it is of the utmost importance that the position of general council be filled by a practicing lawyer. The person's experience should not, however, be limited solely to private practice. He or she ought to have had a good deal of vocational and avocational experience with the world of public policy, that is, government and politics. Experience in the not-for-profit sector, including education, may be valuable, but it is not essential. It is far more important that he or she be flexible and creative in the handling of people and bureaucracies and be able to understand some of the irrationalities of the political processes. I say who has a more natural instinct for the latter than Judge Cabronna's?