This is an update to an earlier JMBzine post

Well even though I did get my license to practice law a couple of weeks ago (the Bar examiners were super-cool to go ahead and get me admitted as soon as the Oklahoma Supreme Court order went through), I decided to go ahead and participate in yesterday’s admission ceremony at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church.

The ceremony itself as a session of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, with all of the justices there presiding (I found it particularly moving to see Tom Colbert there on the bench, the first African-American member of the court, but also sad to see only one woman in the bunch).

They had a few speakers (if I recall the head of the OBA and then the head of the Young Lawyer’s division of the OBA) and then after that read each of the names of the admittees, and had us each stand up when they called our names.

After they administered the oath (which I affirmed instead of swearing) and then everyone went into another part of the church to actually sign the oaths and the register of attorneys’ (which I had already done 2 weeks ago).

This next picture is of my family up in the balcony (you can make out my Dad and my two youngest brothers in this shot)…

Here’s my friend (and NLG comrade) Joe Holman standing when his name was called…

Here’s picture of me taken by me during the ceremony…

Here’s a picture of my mom and I taken at the reception…

Later that afternoon after the ceremony I was in rather funky mood, so I went bike riding and dropped by the Fairlawn cemetery to see my hero Kate Barnard’s grave…

It was good visiting her, because it reminded me that she also worked within a corrupt system for good, and did good despite the corruption (and the eventual destruction of work in many ways), so maybe my role in a system that I struggle to believe in is ok.