SARATOGA SPRINGS — Jeanine Ferris Pirro urged Albany Law School graduates on Friday to remember victims in their quest for justice.

While people obsess over what made criminals go bad, victims’ needs often go unnoticed in the criminal justice system, especially children’s, she said.

“We use them as witnesses of the state, and then we say goodbye to them.”

Meanwhile, imprisoned criminals receive food, shelter, education and even therapy.

“We spend no time and no resources trying to heal the person who never asked to be part of the system in the first place.”

Pirro, the first woman elected Westchester County district attorney and the first woman jurist elected to the Westchester County Court bench, spoke to 227 graduates at the school’s commencement Friday at Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Of the new graduates, 213 received juris doctor degrees, five recieved master’s of law degrees and nine earned a master’s of laws and letters.

Now the graduates will spend the summer studying for the bar exam, which they’ll take in August.

Pirro, a 1975 Albany Law School graduate, told the graduates they’ll see changes in their careers in the legal profession.

In her day at Albany Law School, she was an anomaly as a woman entering the field.

“It took 157 years for me to get here,” she said, referring to speaking before the 157th graduating class. “I look pretty good, don’t I?”

In the new graduates’ years in the legal field, issues of free speech on the Internet and stem cell research are expected to be important.

“The Internet is the new crime scene,” Pirro said, citing the Missouri case where a mother was indicted this week for an Internet hoax that resulted in her daughter’s classmate committing suicide. “You’re at the beginning of an entirely new set of laws.”

In September, Pirro will star in a television show, “Judge Jeanine Pirro” on the CW network. She is also a judicial and legal analyst for the Fox News Channel.

Pirro is one of the reasons graduating class President Elizabeth Connolly chose to go to Albany Law School.

The Warwick woman intended to go to law school in either New York City or Washington, D.C., until she visited Albany Law and saw a picture of Pirro on the wall.

“Looking back on that day, I never would have dreamed that Jeanine Pirro would have been our commencement speaker,” Connolly said.

She noted that the day was more than happy for the graduates. “I can sum up that enthusiasm by quoting one student who said, ‘My mom is celebrating my graduation from law school like it’s the second coming of Jesus Christ.’ ”

And as always, the day seemed a little unreal.

“It seems kind of strange, because it’s all coming to an end — the past couple of years of going to class and all that,” said Jason Dasenbrock of Clifton Park, whose wife, Sarah Larsen, earned her juris doctor degree.

It’s been a whirlwind week for the couple, who tied the knot on Wednesday, just two days before Larsen’s graduation.

“We just wanted to get all the hard stuff taken care of,” Dasenbrock said.

Latham resident Erica Hines also married during her time at Albany Law, to second-year law student Kevin Hines.

The 24-year-old received her juris doctor degree on Friday and plans to obtain a science degree at the University at Albany so she can practice patent law.

Her father, Donald Young, said his daughter has always completed her studies in fast forward. “She’s quite a piece of work,” he said with obvious pride. “She just pushes herself to the max.”