Page 62 - ACTL Journal Win24

SIXTY-FOUR NEW FELLOWS INDUCTED
IN SAN DIEGO
AT THE LUNCHEON PRECEDING THEIR INDUCTION, PAST PRESIDENT JEFF LEON EXPLAINED TO THEM HOW THEY WERE CHO- SEN. AND THAT EVENING AT THE INDUCTION CEREMONY, DAVID GONZALEZ OF AUSTIN, TEXAS ADDRESSED THE FELLOWS ON BEHALF OF HIS CLASS OF NEW INDUCTEES. HIS SLIGHTLY ABRIDGED REMARKS:
We know how lucky we are. We know that from legal as- sistants to paralegals to associates to partners, that it was happenstance that we were in the right courtroom at the right time that someone noticed us. And I am mindful that the woman I met on the first day of law school, who has been with me for twenty-seven years – our anniversary is coming up – has done every single thing I have done but backwards and in heels and nursing one kid and having three others and nine chickens in tow because that’s what you do in Austin, Texas. And so we know that none of us on this stage got here by ourselves.
We have a combination of humility, of saying we don’t de- serve it, but pride in knowing that we’ve worked hard and appreciate the recognition. And so, as part of our response,
I attended the AI but I didn’t read a billion books; I just have three that I hope can guide a conversation tonight. And the first will be Doris Kearns Goodwin, A Team of Rivals. The second – it’s a fantastic book – was first writ- ten by James Carse and then Simon Sinek made another version called The Infinite Game. The third is by Arthur Brooks, Strength to Strength, which will give both an in- troduction to the class, as well as, I think, some of the attributes we’ve talked about in the past couple of days.
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln unconventionally took the three folks who were running against him for the nom- ination and installed them in his cabinet, which became a team of rivals. Where else do you take a dozen former prosecutors and another dozen former public defenders
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