Knowing that I'll have the later chance to address you cloaked in the wisdom of a Chief Justice, I take the liberty this noon of speaking to you as a former member of NAAG - and, indeed, a current member of SAGE - an organization whose primary purpose is to remind its members that for every one smart thing one thinks one has done since leaving the Office of Attorney General, there are three dumb things one did as Attorney General.

My first NAAG meeting was in 1985 and like all newcomers I was anxious to make a favorable impression - or more accurately to avoid making an unfavorable one. This was particularly so because I had missed the orientation session for newly elected AGs held shortly after the 1984 election.

So arising early I went downstairs to the hotel lobby, asked directions to the Plenary Session and was directed to the appropriate function room - Ballroom A.

To my surprise the session was well under way. As inconspicuously as possible I took my place behind the "Vermont" placard and tried to catch up with the presentation as best I could.

The subject being discussed was the relationship of water towers and air exchange systems to airborne diseases. The topic was timely not only because the outbreak of Legionnaires disease had occurred in Philadelphia not long before but - coincidentally - because the water tower at the University of Vermont (which you may have already noticed) was the suspected cause of an outbreak of Legionnaires like influenza on campus.

Although there was passing reference in the Plenary Session to legal issues what really astounded me was the level of technical expertise that characterized not just the presentation but the animated debate among the States.

As I began to despair that I would ever be able to keep pace with a group of Attorneys General that could demonstrate such mastery of so arcane a topic, the moderator said: "We will take a break now. The Plenary Session of the National Association of Air Coolant Executives will reconvene at 9:15 a.m." As unobtrusively as was possible under the circumstances I moved to the coffee cart in front of Ballroom B where the Plenary Session of the National Association of Attorneys General was not yet underway.

I don't claim that was an easy mistake to make but in wandering into the wrong Plenary Session I had stumbled upon what Kurt Vonnegut once described - in a word he coined - as a "granfalloon." A "granfalloon" Vonnegut wrote is one of those countless examples of the American habit of organizing itself by group interest complete with nametags and Plenary Sessions, committees and conferences, breakfasts, and briefing books.

I would guess that everyone here is a member of more than one granfalloon - I am, for example, a member of the Conference of Chief Justices.

But I hope today to persuade those of you who may not yet believe it - that this granfalloon is the most important one of which you will ever be a part, although not for the reasons that may first appear.

If as the biologist tells us "all things are crouched in an eagerness to become something else," my experience with NAAG suggests that, at least in one respect, that "something else" may not be exactly what one has in mind.

The point could be made, I suppose, by a recitation of the names of those Attorneys General whose terms of office overlapped mine and who lost gubernatorial races - but Bill Sorrell tells me that the bus departing the hotel for dinner will be leaving at 6:00 sharp.

Beyond the obvious relevance of NAAG to the expertise that an AG may exercise in one's current office and beyond, is the capacity of State Attorneys General to collectively impact legal issues. The range and reach of multi-state litigation is impressive although if your experience is consistent with mine it is not always the product of policy choices and legal strategies seamlessly coordinated by Attorneys General.

I have something different in mind though than either shared ambitions for higher office (that would need a very large granfalloon) or shared interest in legal issues.

I am speaking instead of a fundamental appreciation of those rare challenges - while if not unique to those who hold the Office of Attorney General can be responded to by very few others.

If it is not true that only NAAG can make a difference, it is fair to say there are times when only NAAG did make a difference.

Tobacco is certainly one such issue. It strikes me that the political ramifications of the work of State Attorneys General in the tobacco litigations area are far different (and far less rewarding) than any of us would have believed given the enormity of what was accomplished. In terms of political benefit expected for Attorneys General as compared with political benefit received, it is as if at the close of the settlement, one said to the private lawyers: "I realize you anticipated some rather significant fees but you'll have to be satisfied with the knowledge that you've done the right thing." That would not - at least for the private litigators I know - have sufficed. But unless the members of NAAG are very different persons than when I was part of it - it is not only sufficient - it's why you're here.

That is not to say - again if this membership is as I remember it - that the subject of the public's failure to appreciate the significance of what AGs did in the tobacco litigation has not occasionally arisen in your conversations.

I will say - as one who has no standing to claim any part of your accomplishment (but at least was far enough along in preparation of filing litigation that I am recused from tobacco issues) that I took enormous pride in what you were able to do. And that my reaction to those who criticized your work is best summed up in what was once said of similar critics: "They spend their time looking for fleas in the lion's mane."

I have become something of an expert on criticism as a result of the comments prompted by Baker v. Sate, the so-called same sex marriage decision. I initially took comfort in knowing that many who were very critical of the opinion had not read it. That solace was offset however by the realization that many who praised the decision had not read it either.

It is, in fact, a point within the Baker opinion that I respectfully suggest may be worthy of your attention.

In press accounts of the Baker decision, the language most quoted was its final sentence which reads:

"The extension of the Common Benefits Clause to acknowledge plaintiffs as Vermonters who seek nothing more, nor less, than legal protection for their avowed commitment to an intimate and lasting human relationship is simply, when all is said and done, a recognition of our common humanity."

The phrase "our common humanity" as it is used in that sentence is in one sense self-evident, and, in another, perhaps less obvious. When the concluding sentence of Baker stands alone the words "our common humanity" have been understood - as they should be - to speak to the recognition of what is decent, humane, and worthy of protection in human relationships.

But there is another sense which I intended to convey in choosing the words "our common humanity." That sense was foreshadowed by the sentences immediately preceding the final one. And, if I may presume upon your courtesy one more time, I take the liberty of quoting those lines:

"The past provides many instances where the law refused to see a human being when it should have. The future may provide instances where the law will be asked to see a human being when it should not. The challenge for future generations will be to define what is essentially human."

When I speak of identifying the essence of what makes us human, I mean it in a fundamental sense - for judges are being and will continue to be asked the most basic of questions: What does being human mean?

We should be grateful, I suppose, that the first successful cloning of an adult mammal was of a sheep. The benign face of Dolly enables us, as a culture, to feel more at ease with the enormously complex issues raised by cloning.

As a society notorious for avoiding ethical questions, we might have been better served if the Scottish Biological Research Team had chosen to clone a wolf.

However clothed, if the prospect of replicating human beings does not prompt us to think deeply about the meaning of identity, family, nature, and the human essence, it is difficult to see what will.

For instance, a recent article in the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly surveyed the profound legal issues raised by human cloning. The note touches upon constitutional implications, the right to scientific inquiry, potential harms to children and families, and the power of biotechnology. It observes that some have objected to human cloning because it challenges our transcendence which the author writes is, "allegedly" key to the essence of being human. The note then concludes and I quote "the fact is that, in America, cloning may be bad but telling people how they should reproduce is worse."

The resort to the law and politics of assisted reproductive technology, is different only in kind - not degree - from those who would respond to the inquiry, "what is a human being?" with a jumble of science and law. Thus, to take another current example, how should the United States Patent and Trademark Office deal with a patent application for the production of a "chimera" - that is, a life form that is part human, part animal.

In a recent issue of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal the author asserts that patent applications could be tailored to seek patents on human-animal chimeras "assuming" - and I quote - "that the courts develop a suitable definition of what it means to be human."

That is a sentence that ought to have stopped the author - it should stop us all.

What, then, of the law? For as one author so naively put it: "The issue appears destined for resolution by the courts."

I find very striking - even in my limited reading of those who are grappling with the enormous ramifications raised by these issues - that those most troubled by the potential consequences find hope - not in human reason - but human emotion.

In Kevin Quido's essay "Human Cloning After Dolly: What Sort of Creatures Might We Become," he writes: "the prospect of human cloning should exact some reckoning of our common humanity."

That "reckoning" will be fast upon is and it is only a matter of time (and not much of it) before the members of NAAG will be called upon to help shape the law's definition of the human creature.

It is then that we will be most in need of - in the words of Leon Kass - ". . . the emotional expression of deep wisdom beyond reason's power to fully articulate it." That wisdom will not be found in the pleading of special interests, nor in the work of staff, nor within a single person. But the beginnings of it can start in a place where individuals of good faith and great responsibility are in touch with their own humanity.

I took part in many substantive legal discussions in this organization.

But although I was once immersed in the intricacies of habeas corpus reform, or the clean water act, or the requirements of the fair credit reporting laws, the details are gone. If I need to retrieve them I know where to go.

But where would I go if I lost what is now some part of me because of what I learned of excellence from Dave Frohnmayer; or optimism from Bob Abrams; or loyalty from Frank Bellotti; or grit from Pam Carter; or grace from Bob Spire?

"Once the realization is accepted" writes the poet, "that even among the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky."

The Gift you can give - and receive - is to continue the wonderful living side by side that is the hallmark of this granfalloon.

For if you succeed in sustaining the gathering of State Attorneys General as a place where "one can see the other whole against the sky," you will find that you have melded the law's purpose with democracy's promise - and merged your duty with your joy.