José A. Cabranes, U.S. Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit, Portrait Dedication [34:10-39:27]

Of course not. But then we weren't ready to be comfortable at Yale. At least some of us weren't ready to be comfortable or to accept its welcome. Indeed, as John McCarthy, another classmate once remarked, most of us walked around in a state of low dread that first year. Nothing so dramatic is to require a clinical intervention but comfortable, no, not very. I for one used to think of the principal corridor that runs through the middle of the law school building as something like the dark and moist gullet of some gigantic prehistoric creature, something the size of the biblical fish perhaps. Once passed the entrance to the law school, I felt drawn along by irresistible parasitic forces. The dread increasing exponentially, the farther I traveled down the corridor. I imagined that I was being drawn to some awful fate. Sonia, Drew, and Rudy probably felt something less dramatic than that but still they weren't comfortable either. Her first question having been answered, Sonia's right or friend then asked, did anyone make you feel welcome at Yale? The answer quickly was Jose. Jose Cabrán made us feel welcome. At the end of a corridor that I imagined to be lined with sharp teeth, I found, just as Sonia found, and others too, then Professor Cabrán is a man with a ready smile, a capacious heart, and an open hand. This was entirely unexpected, especially as we anticipated something else and did not then know very much about the Yale law school. Gerald Torres, another classmate used to say that we were ill at ease because we were lacking blueprints. Gerald claimed that folks like the wonderful and brilliant Seth Waxman, or the really, really smart Martha Mino, had arrived at Yale with blueprints to help and negotiate that dreadful corridor, as well as all the other things that made up life at the Yale law school. We were without blueprints, blueprints, Gerald, hence low dread, constant low dread. Professor Cabrán has changed all that, of course. Instead of sharp teeth or in difference, he offered acceptance and encouragement and friendship, and he became a guide for us, a padrino, if you will, an intellectual guide, a practical guide, a cultural guide, a professional guide, a social guide. He made it accessible, he made it safe, he made it comfortable. What was once unintelligible and apt to excite dysphoria became something that made sense, something that could be managed, that could be taken in, assimilated, made our own. He did this with good humor, charm, loyalty, and kindness. He took us into his confidence, and by extension, he took us into the school's confidence. In effect, he gave us blueprints. We owe much to his kindness, and kindness is no small thing, nor is it as common as we would like to believe. To be sure our religions encourage it, our value systems promoted, and all of us believe at bottom that we practice it as seriously and with great skill. I try to practice kindness every day, sometimes I can even sustain it for several minutes at a time. I can go eight, nine, even ten minutes thinking kind thoughts, and not wish you my neighbor ill, or hoping that the axle will fall off the Lexus, that just cut me off on i95. I practice kindness the way the old 60s poster suggested that many of us practice love. The poster said, I love humanity, it's people I can't stand. Not sell with judge he practices kindness consistently, tenaciously, even precognitively. This is to say that it is deeply embedded in him. You might say that kindness is a reflex with him. It was through his kindness that a group of students with no experience that might prepare them for Yale came to feel part of the community that is the Yale Law School, and he is as kind today as he was back then, always ready to support, to encourage, to mentor. And today when I am at my very best, when I'm helping a law student make a choice or negotiate a path, I am following his lead, and generous example. For that, and so much more, I say thank you, Judge Cabránis, and congratulations to you on this lovely honor. And thank you to the rest of you for being here today to honor this very fine man. Thank you Felix. Our next speaker is Mark Gautridge, who is currently