David Moore

Associate, Kirkland & Ellis LLP

My degree in Latin from Baylor was one of the most critical ingredients to the foundation for my career as a practicing attorney.

On a fundamental level, studying the grammars and vocabularies of Classical Latin and Greek uniquely whetted my own writing skills. Daily I reference my background in Classics while drafting, and over time I have found that my writing has taken on a distinct perspective and developed to be more precise and more mindful.

In addition, my experience as a Classics student taught me practical skills that benefit me in a professional environment, including the discipline to approach complex legal documents with the same diligence and thoughtfulness as my Latin translations and the agility of mind to improvise with confidence in the event that I am (admittedly) less prepared than I ought to be.

Above all, I reflect on my time as a student in the Classics department fondly because of how much I enjoyed the course material: while all of these skills were developing under the surface, I had the honor of studying some of the greatest literature the Western world has to offer on its own terms and how it was intended to be encountered on a day-to-day basis.