2 September 2024
I am honored and happy to welcome 115 new Y1 students and 21 incoming Erasmus exchange students to Riga Graduate School of Law (RGSL)! Greetings also to our Masters students, Y2 and Y3 students, and of course I would like to congratulate all academic and administrative staff members. Congratulations to all of you on the beginning of the academic year 2024/ 2025! May it be successful and rewarding!
Let me use this occasion as a chance to give you three points to think about before you start your academic journey here, at RGSL.
Firstly, your study results, your attitude towards studies and your achievements here at RGSL will serve you as a business card. Every day you will meet lecturers to whom one day you will need to ask for a letter of recommendation for your masters studies. You will work together with other students who later might become your business partners. You will interact will employees of RGSL who might recommend you for an internship or a job position. It is therefore important to be professional, considerate and kind from this moment onwards. Today you start building your professional reputation, and reputation does matter.
Secondly, it is my duty to inform you that being a law student does not give rights to independently give legal aid. Even if they are your family, relatives or friends who have legal issues and ask for your advice, you should not provide it. It takes bachelor and master studies and a professional qualification exam to earn the right to call yourself a lawyer. Incorrect legal advice can have grave consequences, and the lawyer’s title should be treated with respect. Please keep it in mind.
Thirdly, today is a new beginning. Today you can start a new life, start setting new goals and start working towards them. The good thing is that nothing that went wrong in your previous studies in your high school or gymnasium matters anymore. All of you have the chance to become the best students, and the success of your studies is in your own hands. But the thing is that you need to want it, and that you need to work towards it. I would like to invite all of you now to make a promise to yourself that you will try to do your best every single day. It is important to have this agreement with yourselves. Because if it gets difficult, if in some mornings you do not feel like waking up early and coming to the first lecture, if you notice that you start to get happy with the minimum passing grades, remember this moment when you promised yourselves that you will try to do your best every single day.
I sincerely wish you lots of success in you studies. Once again, congratulations on the beginning of the academic year 2024/2025!
Dr. Laura Ratniece, Rector of Riga Graduate School of Law