Reverence and silent weeping dominated the audience of Michael D. Hausfeld's speech, "Welcome to the Legal Profession," Nov. 19. Hausfeld, a partner of Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld and Toll, has represented victims of war crimes committed during World War II by German industries and the Japanese Imperial Government.

The presentation was made at the National Youth Leadership Forum on law, which hosted hundreds of aspiring attorneys from high schools across the nation, including this reporter.

Junior Bryant Avondiglio of Andover, N.J., expressed how the speech impacted him.

"It was a moving wake-up call to the next generation of society," Avondiglio said. "It inspired me to want to bring out the voice of people who have been victimized by oppressive governments."

Hausfeld's speech included intimate details of stories from several victims of war crimes. Some of the parties were victims of the Swiss bank system seeking to recover family assets that had been frozen in Nazi accounts. One was a Jewish mother whose baby, along with thousands of others, was taken to a factory-operated nursery where the babies were left unattended in unsanitary conditions to die from neglect. Their corpses were dumped en masse into unmarked graves. Lastly, Hausfeld introduced one Philippine woman's odyssey in a Japanese "comfort station," where she was taken to be a sexual slave to Japanese soldiers. She was considered a necessary part of the well-being of the soldiers. Hausfeld tied the stories together by showing how international laws on humanities can help prevent these atrocities. He also used the stories to show how noble a law profession can be. The speech was followed by a question-and-answer session.

Senior Phil Abram of Amherst, N.Y., was particularly taken back by the "comfort stations."

I was shocked by the inhumane treatment of the innocent women in the stations," Abram said. "I think they were a poignant example of how the violation of human rights generally is an issue that should take some degree of precedence in the world's international judiciary system."

Junior Heather Bennett of Cheltenham, Pa., took the speech as an inspiration for justice.

"It was historically accurate, and his line, ÔYou choose how you want your world to be,' was inspirational for me to create a better world for my children," Bennett said. "It aided my decision to enter the law profession."