Fall River judge receives an honorary law degree

Judge Phillip Rapoza, chief justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court, was awarded an honorary doctor of law degree by the Massachusetts School of Law in Andover at the law school’s graduation ceremony on Friday, June 4.

Dean Lawrence Velvel told the 135 graduates and more than 800 guests in attendance that the degree was awarded “for Chief Justice Rapoza’s work in the fields of American criminal law, international criminal law and the American justice system.”

Velvel said Rapoza is a grandson of Portuguese immigrants from the Azores and described his work in the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, where he served as a UN international judge on a war crimes tribunal.

Rapoza delivered the annual commencement address. Referring to his ethnic roots, he told the graduating students that like many of them, he came from a family of immigrants, for whom America was a land of opportunity. He also reminded them of the importance of education.

Rapoza, whose immigrant grandparents had no formal education and whose father did not graduate from high school, is a graduate of Yale College, magna cum laude, with a doctor of law degree from Cornell University School of Law.

Rapoza told the graduating law students that the foundation of the legal profession is service. He said that as lawyers they will have the opportunity “to provide others with access to our legal system and the benefit of our laws.” He also told them that “there is no more meaningful accomplishment than to make a difference in the life of another person.”

As lawyers, he said, they will have that opportunity almost every day. Quoting poet William Butler Yeats, who said “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire,” Rapoza told the graduates “Over the years, you must never lose that fire.” He concluded by telling them never to take any person for granted, including themselves.

“You are poised to do great things,” he said, “if only you will act greatly.”