Lawyers often claim the dubious honor of being the most dissatisfied with their jobs.

Attorneys complain about the long hours, constant stress, and their lack of contribution to societal good. Christian attorneys face additional spiritual uncertainty as we buy into the contemporary image of lawyers as amoral hired guns.

 

Today’s lawyer both expects and is expected to be a mere employee, obligated to advance the client’s wishes and goals at all costs, irrespective of the attorney’s own personal values or morals (The Lawyer’s Calling: Christian Faith and Legal Practice,

Joseph Alligretti). The American Bar Association’s Model Codes of Professional

Responsibility and Conduct claim to correct many of the ethical abuses inherent in the modern legal system by emphasizing the loyal and zealous representation of the client by the attorney, but little else.

 

Under these guidelines, the lawyer has been pigeonholed into being a neutral partisan by ignoring his own moral values for the sake of advancing the client’s objectives, limited only by the law itself. Is it possible to stop compartmentalizing our lives by divorcing our work and spiritual spheres? To combat the disillusionment of many lawyers with their profession, can we reconcile our work lives with our religious beliefs and think of our profession as a vocation, or religious calling from God?

 

This transformative model can be manifested in lawyers’ balancing the zealous representation of clients with their obligations to third parties and the legal system as a whole. Under this model, lawyers would serve as counselors and healers to encourage their clients to seek reconciliation and mediation, minister to clients to encourage moral reflection when pursuing questionable tactics, advocate for the poor and needy, and resort to litigation as a last resort. In direct opposition to the Model Codes, Alligetti challenges lawyers to say “no” to clients rather than abandon their own moral values and to refrain from tactics that are ethically ambiguous or distort the search for truth, both for their own and their client’s sake. When teaching from the gospel of Luke, Tim Keller addresses this struggle of striving to live out one’s Christian values in the temporal world. He illustrates Luke’s exhortations to “be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning” by living radically different lives devoid of secular definitions of wealth, success, and worthiness. The workplace is no exception. Luke’s depiction of the master waiting on the servants at the table reminds us that we, in turn, are expected to live our lives embracing the radically transformative truths of the gospel.

 

As Christians and as attorneys, the Book of Luke calls us to be humble in our dealings with others, to use no unfair leverage against them, and to always seek to serve others. How can we reconcile these Gospel truths with our professional code’s emphasis on maximizing every advantage and leverage that our client holds against the other party, whether in the courtroom or during corporate transactions?

 

As the Gospel demonstrates, we, as Christian lawyers cannot continue to ignore our scriptural responsibilities in carrying out our duties as legal professionals. It is through adopting this transformative model in the workplace that attorneys can hope to reform our individual spiritual lives, our profession, and ultimately, our world.