This is an edited text of remarks by Chief Judge Sykes at the orientation for first-year Marquette law students on August 22, 2025.
I am a proud Marquette lawyer—Class of 1984—and I’m delighted to join you today as you begin your legal education at this wonderful law school. Forty-four years ago, I sat where you now sit. Back then, of course, we were next door in Sensenbrenner Hall. You have the good fortune to study and learn in Eckstein Hall, the Law School’s strikingly beautiful new home—courtesy of generous gifts from alumni and the extraordinary efforts and vision of Dean Kearney and his talented team here at the Law School.
This spectacular building opened 15 years ago, and since then it has become a vibrant forum for a wide variety of important public events—lectures and debates and discussions that bring together members of our legal community and leaders in the spheres of government, business, social services, and even the arts. Just last month, I was here with an audience of lawyers, judges, and opera lovers for the Florentine Opera’s sold-out performance of the comic opera about the unlikely friendship between Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg. Though these public events here at the Law School are not at the core of your legal education, I encourage you to take advantage of them and the other academic enrichment opportunities offered here in Eckstein Hall.
Of course, what will matter most in your three-year course of law study is not this impressive building or the community leaders who will visit during your tenure, but the content and character of the legal education offered here. You will find it to be first-rate, holistic, and multidimensional—as you might expect from a law school at a Jesuit university with an abiding commitment to “Care for the Whole Person” and a mission of promoting Excellence, Faith, Leadership, and Service.
The foundation of your law school education will involve learning the language and content of the rules found in the varied sources of our law: federal and state constitutions, statutes, regulations, court rules of procedure, and the common-law domains—primarily torts, contracts, property. These rules govern the relationship between the individual, the body politic, and the government; between the federal and state governments; and between private parties (both individuals and organizational associations, such as corporations). Many of these terms will be new, and some will be mysterious, but the language of the law matters enormously. In a democratic system grounded in the rule of law, the rules that bind us are written, not just declared. To become a lawyer, you must first and foremost learn the language and content of our basic legal rules.
But learning how to read and understand a legal text is the starting point; it’s not the whole of your legal education. Your professors will also introduce you to the multitude of substantive legal doctrines that pervade our law. These doctrines are developed in court cases—judicial opinions that establish the interpretive rules, standards, tests, elements, and forms of legal claims. Reading judicial opinions is not like reading statutes or regulations. When you study the judge-made doctrines in our case law, you will learn how to reason by analogy, how to notice and explain factual and legal distinctions, and how to apply abstract standards and tests in concrete and particularized factual settings.
But that’s not all: you will also spend time learning how to examine the “why” questions. Your professors won’t just teach you the language and content of the legal rules. They will encourage you to think about the reasons for each rule. What’s its history and purpose? To be sure, this second-tier inquiry is not itself the law. In our system, the legitimacy of the law depends on its promulgation in writing by a constitutionally appropriate authority. A misalignment between the language of the law and the lawmaker’s purpose is a conundrum that we’ve been debating for 250 years. You will need to learn how to understand and engage in that debate.
And finally, your professors will challenge you to think about the “ought” questions. Is the existing legal rule the best one? Has it stood the test of time, or is it antiquated and ripe for reconsideration? This last set of questions sometimes entails a utilitarian or practical inquiry: Is the existing legal rule the most efficient or the least costly? On the other hand, sometimes this inquiry calls for ethical or moral reasoning. What do we owe each other? How should we structure our government, secure our liberty and individual rights, and order our relationships in society? How can we best achieve the common good and promote human flourishing?
The study of law has all these dimensions. And there is one more: learning your responsibilities as a member of this learned profession and internalizing the ethics of lawyering. These include the multifaceted and sometime conflicting duties of being an advisor, an advocate, and an officer of the court.
Over the next three years, you’ll be challenged to think about and learn all these dimensions of the practice of law. I’m confident that your time here at Marquette will set you on a solid legal and ethical foundation from which to meet these challenges. Congratulations, and welcome to Marquette Law School.
Read more excerpts from Judge Sykes’ career
