Thursday, November 20, 2014

"Give us some real world advice: what is in store for us, as persons of religious faith, once we graduate and start practicing? Does being a person of faith make it easier or harder to be a good lawyer? What advice would you give a new, beginning lawyer?"

To my mind, being a person of faith makes it easier to be a lawyer. We are not all alone in dealing with reality. God is a God of Love. He created us with a purpose. He loves us. He has made provision for our shortcomings by sending his son, Jesus, so that we could, despite those shortcomings, be transformed through the work of the Holy Spirit into the sort of person, even the sort of lawyer, God meant us to be.

Here is some advice I might give:

1. Be a part of a faith community, study the Word, and have an active prayer life.

2. Study hard while one is in law school, and work hard in the profession.

3. Find a practice situation where there are older lawyers who can mentor you and whom you can admire, both as practitioners and people.

4. Get out of a practice situation in which you are unhappy as soon as you can.

5. Live a modest life, spend only what you must. Live below the standard of living at which you might otherwise be able to live or at which your peers appear to live. Do not borrow money to support an immodest life-style.

4. If God brings a person into your life who would make a supportive spouse and a good parent and who shares your faith, then by all means get that person to marry you and then, after a reasonable period of time, start a family with that person. God calls most of us into marriage and direct family formation. However, he calls some very special people into singleness. Jesus himself was single, as was the Apostle Paul.

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