If students can’t defend dissent in law school, how will they defend justice in court?
They invited me here today as a cautionary tale, to remind you that it’s not too late. You still have time to back out and go find another profession . . .
I graduated from Yale Law School in 2011, and it really is an honor to be back addressing the incoming 1L class.
Until February of this year, I was a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, ending with a very brief but eventful stint as the U.S. Attorney. The work was challenging and meaningful. I spent years solving murders and helped victims of sex trafficking; I prosecuted a cult leader who extorted and trafficked Sarah Lawrence College students, and took on Sam Bankman-Fried, the unrepentant whiz kid who perpetrated a multibillion-dollar crypto fraud.
Consider this my shameless plug to intern at SDNY next summer.
Then, back in February, I resigned from this job I loved because I was ordered to dismiss a case against New York mayor Eric Adams for reasons that I did not consider consistent with my professional and ethical obligations.
Continue reading the entire piece at The Free Press (paywall)
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Danielle Sassoon is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. This piece is from Danielle's remarks to Yale Law School’s incoming class, delivered August 19 in New Haven, Connecticut.
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