BRISTOL — Modifying a quote from the late civil-rights attorney Charles Hamilton Houston, the keynote speaker at yesterday’s Roger Williams University School of Law commencement said there are three types of lawyers: social engineers, parasites on society and enablers to law abuse and neglect.

Linda Greenhouse, a former Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times, admonished the “enablers” who, for example, write legal memos stating the military isn’t confined to the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution (a right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizures) during a time of war.

She urged the 206 graduates to instead be social engineers, those who take the skills learned to make change and better the conditions for all. And although she warned the choices and “heroic” path aren’t always clear, “find and reclaim our deepest values” and help the profession “climb back from the abyss.”

Greenhouse continued, “There has never been a more important time to be a lawyer.”

She received an honorary doctorate degree from the state’s only law school yesterday along with Chief Justice Philip Rapoza of the Massachusetts Appeals Court. School President Roy J. Nirschel praised Rapoza on his contributions to law, domestically and internationally, particularly with crimes against humanity.

Nirschel also commended the Class of 2008. He and Dean David A. Logan called the day and extended-division students — it is the last graduating class for the school’s extended, or evening, law program — extraordinary despite the challenging course load, which included lectures and visits this past semester from three U.S. Supreme Court justices.

Day division valedictorian Allyson L. Picard said the classes were so grueling that it was hard to stop and enjoy life. She had an “overwhelming sense of gratitude” to the professors and others who “put up with us” during the stressful times and urged her classmates to spend the summer “in the library” studying for the “largest hurdle ahead of us,” the bar exam.

For a list of graduates, visit law.rwu.edu/sites/commencement/graduates.aspx

apina@projo.com