Better Late Than Never for Ted Kennedy's Law Diploma

Hat tip: Above the Law, Morning Docket: 05.22.14

Better Late Than Never for Ted Kennedy's Law Diploma

Karen Sloan, The National Law Journal
May 21, 2014

When former U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1959, he was too busy to collect his diploma—he was already hard at work on the presidential campaign of his older brother: John F. Kennedy.

His J.D. diploma finally made its way to the family on May 18, when dean Paul Mahoney presented it to U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy, Ted Kennedy’s grandnephew, during this year’s commencement ceremony.

The UVA Law Student Bar Association had asked Joseph Kennedy—himself a Harvard Law graduate, former assistant district attorney and congressman from Massachusetts since 2013—to deliver the law school’s commencement address.
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It turns out that Ted Kennedy never gave the registrar a forwarding address. The office held onto his diploma for 55 years. Ted Kennedy died in 2009 after serving in the Senate for nearly 47 years.