Penn Law School graduates were able to take the stage once graced by performing arts legends such as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Strauss at the Academy of Music -- without playing a single note or dancing a step.
But the students' performance was perhaps even sweeter, as it capped the end of years of a grueling legal education.
And despite the legal profession's often shallow appearance in the public eye, the speakers preached the virtues of public service Sunday evening to the 26' Juris Doctorate and 66 Master of Laws graduates.
Anthony Amsterdam, a law professor at New York University, characterized public interest lawyers as filling the "turbulent, sometimes agonizing, always fascinating gap" between those in society who have the most, and those with the least.
"Our society is perpetually torn between the genuine idealism that declares America the land of equal opportunities and the appalling legacy of deep-rooted racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia -- and just plain meanness," Amsterdam, who received an honorary fellowship for public service at the ceremony, said.
Amsterdam said that in the wake of the signers of the Declaration of Independence -- men who preached freedom yet still owned slaves -- America was still searching for itself, and that public interest lawyers have the power to aid that process.
Former Harvard University President Derek Bok thought that he saw the beginnings of such change nearly 30 years ago as he was leaving the deanship of Harvard Law School to assume Harvard's presidency.
He recalled a survey of the entering law school class showing that 20 percent of the class planned to never practice law, and another 40 percent were uncertain if the profession was right for them.
"It was a time of turbulence and unrest," Bok said.
Those students that were pursing law careers were leaning toward public interest law. According to Bok, the big law firms began to take notice, offering sabbaticals and pro-bono work to appease their associates.
But 30 years later, not much has changed in Bok's mind, despite "all the social justice rhetoric that ran through the halls of the large law firms in 1971."
"Instead of becoming more socially conscious, law firms have become more business-like," Bok said, with firms trimming their social agendas to award ever-higher salaries.
But Bok once again offered his hope that the Class of 2001, with the proper ideals, could indeed make a difference.
"Law firms have to attract talent," he said. "They will adjust in the end to what talented young lawyers really want."
