College of Law Graduation 2020

The College of Law will celebrate the Class of 2020 with a virtual commencement ceremony. The graduation ceremony will take place as originally planned on Saturday, May 16, 2020 at 10:00am MST. While the ceremony will unfortunately not be able to go on in an in-person format, the College of Law has devised a way for the graduating law students to still be recognized for their incredible achievement in an exclusive law school ceremony online.

Dean of the College of Law Klint Alexander, along with Assistant Dean Lindsay Hoyt will preside over the ceremony as usual, and it will be live streamed through the law school media site. Following remarks from the deans and the ceremony speakers, each student in the Class of 2020, as well those who graduated in December will have their name read along with their picture on the screen.

Traditionally, the graduating class selects an outstanding faculty member as well as an outstanding student from amongst their class to speak at the ceremony along with the graduation speaker. This year, the Class of 2020 has selected Professor Michael Duff as the Outstanding Faculty member, and their peer Emily Williams to represent the class with her remarks. Both will also be present on the live-stream to offer their congratulations to the class.

This year’s graduation speaker is the Honorable William Simpson of the District Court of Wyoming, Fifth Judicial District. Due to the limiting travel precautions in place for the COVID-19 response, Judge Simpson will not be able to participate in the live-stream at the College of Law. However, his remarks, along with Ms. Williams and Professor Duff’s, are immortalized in the commencement program.

All details of the ceremony, including the link to the live-stream can be found on the College of Law graduation website. The link to the ceremony will go live 15 minutes prior to the start. For anyone unable to watch the ceremony live, the link will remain accessible and archived. Students are encouraged to share the link with family and friends near and far to help celebrate their achievement.

Additionally, the digital program will be available to download and print on Wednesday, May 13^th along with a composite class photo.

Finally, we would like to offer a special message to our students in the Class of 2020. We know that this semester has been full of surprises and obstacles well beyond our control. We are deeply saddened that we cannot honor your achievements and give you a proper send-off into your legal careers. However, we do think that it is important to offer some sort of closure and we hope that our efforts have at least removed some of the sting.

On behalf of the College of Law we would like you to know:

We see you. We love you. We are proud of you. And we cannot wait to see all of the extraordinary things you accomplish in the future!