‘Don’t be Afraid to Disrupt Yourself’
Remarks Offered by Ajit V. Pai, ’97, at the 2025 Law School Diploma and Hooding Ceremony
Dean Miles, thank you so much for your kind introduction and for your decade of dedicated service to the University of Chicago Law School. Dean-designate Chilton, you have big shoes to fill—and I am confident that you’ll do just that.
Congratulations to the Law School graduating Class of 2025! What an honor it is to be a part of this special day. To the faculty, families, and friends of these University of Chicago graduates: thank you for all you have done to help these graduates reach this milestone in their professional lives. It is especially moving to see all the parents here. I see some have tears in their eyes, knowing that their children—finally—might be off payroll and getting their own cellphone plans.
Being back in this beautiful place brings back memories—and a reflection. We spend our time in Law School classrooms thinking about how the law shapes and mostly constrains people. We analyze why things can’t or shouldn’t be done. Having spent three years here in that mode, I think we tend to internalize that kind of thinking. We constrain ourselves. This is one reason why the legal profession is so small “c” conservative—and why legal careers so often follow a well-trodden path.
But trust me when I say to you: the great gift of the diploma you have earned is that it gives you the power to disrupt your own career in countless ways.
But before I get into what I mean by all that, I want to make a confession: I think Dean Miles has made a terrible mistake. To put it kindly, I am a subpar choice for this role.
For one thing, I don’t feel like I’m a real lawyer in the grand tradition of the Law School. My class, the Class of 1997, consists of people who have achieved incredible things. Among them, we have federal judges, major law firm partners, prominent law professors, respected corporate general counsels, and even a Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. For my part, I’ve made a mark by drinking coffee out of a large mug and being memed—perhaps by some of you.
For another, if you look at my résumé, you might conclude—reasonably—that I’ve had trouble keeping a job. Indeed, depending on how you count them, I’m currently working in my 15th job since graduating 28 years ago. Journeymen for the Cubs and running backs for the Bears have had longer tenures.
And finally, all this pomp and circumstance only digs a deeper hole for me in my family. You see, when I told my Indian immigrant parents that I was returning to the University of Chicago for a hooding ceremony, they were excited—at first. At long last! I would be receiving a medical degree. You can imagine their disappointment when I told them that I was not receiving that prized credential, but doing law school commencement—again.
Anyway, Dean Miles sadly ended his tenure with a thud, so I’m afraid you’re stuck. Rest easy: I’ve been given a strict prohibition on speaking forever. One might even call it a rule against perpetuities. (I guess I did pick something up in property after all.)
Anyway, since I’m a somewhat non-traditional lawyer, I’m going to take a somewhat non-traditional approach. You see, I’ve read the remarks that many of my predecessors in this role have given from this very pulpit. They preached sound advice: Work hard. Be resilient. Treat people with respect. Do something positive for society.
I mean this sincerely: you would do well to live by the wise counsel they offered those who came before you.
But I’m not going to repeat their words here. You can find all of that on the Internet—which still exists, by the way, despite my best efforts. Nor am I going to play the “greatest hits” from my own career, such as they are. You can find all of that on the Internet, too.
Instead, I’ll offer what little wisdom I have to share after 28 years as a “lawyer” and many professional twists and turns.
To start: there’s a lot of talk these days about “disruptive innovation.” When people hear this, they think of things like artificial intelligence or blockchain or quantum computing—new technologies that will upend the settled way of doing things. But one thing I was fortunate to realize early in my career is that this concept can apply to people, not just technologies. That is to say: don’t be afraid to disrupt yourself.
I’ve lived this principle. In fact, change has been the only constant in my career: leaving a comfortable in-house position for a low-paying and stressful but rewarding job on Capitol Hill, or jumping into private equity, having to learn finance on the fly. These weren’t easy changes—in fact, in many ways, I can assure you that they were quite humbling. But I’ve come to find that non-linear changes can have non-linear benefits.
Of course, these kinds of career changes aren’t natural for many of us. As I hinted at the beginning, we lawyers tend to be risk-averse. Maybe it’s in our nature. Or maybe it’s a function of studying law. Whatever the reason, I want to convey to you—at the risk of offending my host—that your law degree might pave the way for you to do something tangential to, or even completely unrelated to, the law. Sure, you can become a federal judge, a prosecutor, a partner, or a general counsel. But maybe you’ll find even greater fulfillment as a high school teacher. A priest. A screenwriter. A tech executive. A baker. All of those are represented in my own class. Or maybe you would relish being a full-time parent.
Looking back, some of my greatest memories stem from when I spent six months at home with a then-infant son. I actually heard that the U.S. Senate confirmed my nomination to serve as an FCC Commissioner while feeding him a bottle.
Some may roll their eyes at all this. And I’m not surprised. Because let’s be honest; lawyers can be snobby. Some will judge you based on where you went to school. And then they will judge you based on whether you clerked. And then they will judge you based on how prestigious your current legal job is. And then they will find some other arbitrary metric by which to judge you. It’s easy to succumb to the peer pressure, or even the fear of peer pressure, that nudges you onto a tried-and-true professional track.
And so I cannot say this strongly enough: do not let others’ expectations about what you should be doing with this degree, or your own perception of others’ expectations, obscure the path to your own personal happiness. You are not failing yourself, and you are not diminishing your diploma’s value, by doing something different.
Now, are you taking a risk? Well, sure. But that’s the nature of risk and reward. There are no returns if you don’t make a calculated bet. And in any case, something else I’ve learned over the years is that nothing is set in stone; you can change course. Always. If something doesn’t succeed, you can disrupt yourself again. Life is not res judicata. (I guess I did pick up something in civil procedure after all.)
By the way, here’s another point that’s relevant no matter what you do. Some people entertain the fantasy that a law degree can empower its holder to be autonomous someday. You can just roam the streets dispensing judgment as you see fit. That’s not how it’s going to be. No matter what you do, even if you ascend the heights of the profession or field, you’re going to have a client. You won’t be answerable only to yourself, within or outside the law.
For my part, I’ve had a lot of clients: a judge, and then the Department of Justice, and then a corporate general counsel, and ultimately two U.S. Senators, an investment committee, a board of directors, and in a way, the President of the United States. Even a corner office didn’t immunize me from having to take these clients into account. And then there are the broader constituents: the legal community, or the business community, or the American public writ large.
What will distinguish your work for these clients is not just being loyal, but being thoughtful—or as Hamilton might have said, exercising not will, but judgment. (I guess I did pick something up in con law after all.) In what you write, in what you do, in what you say, focus on what you think is correct—and honorable.
That might seem obvious, but it’s not always so. For at some point, you may have to make a choice between telling a client what is easy or popular and what is right. Doing what is right may come at a cost. Your client may not like it. Your co-workers may criticize you. You may be demoted or even fired. People you know may distance themselves from you. You may find yourself questioning whether you did the right thing by doing the right thing.
I hope that in those moments, you do what you think is right—even when, especially when, it’s hard. At best, your client will come to agree with you, and you will be admired for having the courage of your convictions. Even critics will concede that you were correct. At worst, you’ll be able to sleep at night knowing you did what you believed was best for that client, and thereby did something—something small, perhaps, but something nonetheless—to build a more honorable society. And you will retain possession of the only asset that really matters, when you think about it: your integrity.
I’d like to think that this is the path I’ve followed in my career. I suppose I’ve always had a naïve faith that things would work out—that even in challenging roles, especially public-facing ones, my clients would come to see things the way I did. And you know what? Things did work out. Others did come around. It may have taken some time, but they did. And they will for you, too.
Well, as much as I would like to filibuster in the grand tradition of Washington, I will close my remarks there. Congratulations again to the Class of 2025. I am truly excited to see where you take it from here. Thank you again, Dean Miles, for inviting me today. And thank you to this marvelous institution. How lucky I am to have been a part of the University of Chicago. I will always bleed maroon—especially if I find myself one day down the street, receiving that elusive medical degree.
Thank you very much.