Transcript
Chapter 5 redeeming law
Integrity.
Gives the example of the Hyatt Regency hotel collapse in Kansas city and how the issue became one of "who was responsible for the structural integrity?"
We have integrity issues as well. We have responsibilities towards our family, friends, church, career and country.
A person of integrity lives the complete life; wholly submitted to God in all areas, not compartmentalized, not withholding, not bursting into pieces. The pursuit of integrity is a worthwhile good in itself.
As lawyers, we should seek to live an integrated life rather than a disintegrated one.
Commitments at the heart of Integrity
the life of integrity requires assent to the essential unity of thought, belief and action under the lordship of Christ.
The life of integrity is a life lived and perceived as a whole rather than as separate compartments, some of which are special to God.
Integrity requires a continual pursuit of life in and through community.
The life of integrity demands truth.
Chapter 6 Unity and the integrated lawyer
Commitment to wholeness has 3 presuppositions;
The moral and natural worlds are the same world
The Christian system (what is taught in the whole bible) is a unity of thought.
There is unity in our belief and conduct.
Our commitment to the essential unity of life involves a consistent life. (walk the talk)
It means a unity of belief and practice. Our conduct matches what we say.
False disjunctions and compartments.
We believe that faith trumps reason and that the hope of eternal life over the physical here and now.
We should consider the present state of mind as it will determine where we end up in the end. A unity of both faith and reason.
This is by rejecting the compartmentalized life and embracing the larger context of god's creative and redemptive work.
The kingdom of god
Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost
We are called to work with god in his redemption of culture.
If the good news that jesus proclaimed was that God was beginning to reclaim a lost creation and restore it to his creational intention, does it not call us to live for and seek the love, truth and justice of God in whatever way it is being challenged in the world?
Our call as lawyers is to minister God's truth, beauty, goodness, justice, mercy, compassion or love wherever it is lacking
AN INEGRATED PERSPECTIVE
The sort of life that exemplifies unity rather than compartments, dualisms, and inconsistencies provides a foundation for overcoming the stumbling blocks.
Our commitment to unity will have the following impact on us
Awareness
Boldness to challenge those who would build a materialist mansion out of stolen, metaphysical lumber.
Vocation- a commitment to unity also helps to replace the artificial-role mindset with pursuit of biblical vocation before God and in that vein, it directs us to our pastors as coworkers in the varied ministries of the kingdom of God.
Recovery of the doctrine of vocation(calling to do God's work).
We are called by the caller to respond faithfully where we have been placed.
In the law, we see God working through human hands to heal, protect, reconcile, feed and encourage.
God is at hand, loving our neighbors through our law practice.
Beliefs drive conduct, therefore it will transform our law practice or studies if we spend some time adjusting our beliefs about lawyers and their world.
Conclusion
Our first commitment at the heart of integrity is broad that warns against compartmentalization and dualistic thinking about our ministry.
Chapter 7 Community and Trinitarian lawyering
Can there be such a thing as a lone ranger Christian? NO!
The second essential of the life of Christian integrity is a commitment to life in community.
We are called to work out our callings in koinonia fellowship in the body of Christ.
We share in the give and take of mutually beneficial spiritual gifts, confess our sins to one another and are accountable to our another in love.
Most importantly, we are in community with God.
Holy Trinity and Community
We live in community because our God is both one and community.
Being laos (people of God) means that members of the people of God have communion with God and with one another without being merged with God or one another.
Implications for wholeness;
The sole foundation for our calling as people bearing the image of God is the relational in-going and out-going ministry of community with others and with god.
While the roles within community are diverse, no role is subordinate to another.
Characteristics of community
Unity through diversity. This idea preserves both the "one and the many in dynamic interrelations."
Multifaceted ministry. God's ministry is creative and unitive.
The community of the Christian past. God's ministry is eternal
The indispensability of others.
The antimodern nature of community. Community should stand against modernity and objectivism.
Lawyers and community
Koinonia fellowship implies that there are particular ways that Christian lawyers must seek community as part of their lives in the law within the body of Christ.
Communities of lawyers. First, we must seek to fellowship in communities of lawyers.
communities of lawyers might guide the conduct of members through informal consultation with one another on legal issues, by promulgating rules of ethics to supplement those of their jurisdiction
there is also accountability for all our actions.
Reasons for meeting in community
the historic community of saints. We must engage the rich heritage of those who have sought truth in law, guided by the spirit throughout history.
The local congregation as community. In order to function healthily, we need the perspective of those who are not lawyers but who can train and teach us what it means to be lawyers and Christians in the context of God's kingdom. E.g pastors, theologians e.t.c
Hurdling the Stumbling Blocks
Community and the ordinary religion. E.g thru joining law societies.
Many law students have the idea that the local congregstion is unimportant during the law school years. This stems from the big lie: I'll never be any busier than I am now in law school.
Interact with church leaders regarding your thoughts on calling and scholarship.
Community, the local church, vocation.
Gives an example of the His Church At Work HCAW model which has a technical component such as the daily email "work life lesson"
The local church driven ministry addresses the need for the recovery of vocational thinking in the context of the local body, a community that can actually do something about it.
The local church can be a community in and through which we learn how to love God as lawyers.
Community and the life of the lawyer's mind. We practice what we have heard wihin the boundaries of group of disciples, all learning together.
In conclusion, by mid life, a lawyer should be in position to teach to others the larger and thornier issues of the profession.
Chapter 8 Truth and the integrated lawyer
The chapter begins by addressing the deep layers of irony in pontious pilate asking Christ What truth is.
The truth himself stood before pilate, and the truth was that he was innocent.
God is truth and there is nothing true outside him.
The life of integrity flows from the multifaceted commitment to truth.
Discipleship
The life of integrity involves a discipleship relationship with the one "in (whom) all things hold together" (col. 1:17)
Christ is the way the truth and the life. To know him is to know the father.
Allegiance to Christ is commitment that defines all other commitments.
Christ said, "if you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will the truth and the truth will make you free.
A disciple is a student learner and pupil of the master. Therefore, a life of integrity is the life of the student before the master.
What do students do;
They diligently listen to the teacher(if you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples.)
A student is also in community with other students.(Christ chose 12, not 1)
Finally, students imitate their teacher.
Transparency
In some ways, personal transparency is the trait that holds the other commitments in place.
This means telling ourselves the truth about ourselves.
Quotes (psalms 51:3-6)
Xtians who are honest about their own sins are able to confess those sins, exposing them to the light of god's truth and grace.
Screwtape and the dim uneasiness of un confessed sin will find us reluctant to open ourselves to Him.
We pretend that if we don't mention it, maybe he wont notice.
Confession is the act of putting it all on the table, exposing all to the light, for God- and for us – to see.
Client representation
Lawyers take up cases where they are not confident of the rightness- the truth- of taking this sort of case or representing this type of client.
We jump b4 we pray and end up pretending with God that we haven't undertaken the representation.
The point here is not that we need to turn down more clients but that we need to make sure that we are not pretending before God.
Ethical decisions
We fear to investigate the ethical propriety of an action for fear that we might discover that we're doin the wrong thing.
Hiding behind the system
as a result of giving all moral authority to the system, many lawyers feel guilt and unease about their work but have no framework by which to approach God without opening up the can of worms that is their legal career.
Cheating on time and bills
When they exaggerate their time or billing costs, they find themselves reluctant to submit billing concerns to God.
Truthfulness and tragedy
When a delusion is vocational, the opportunity for delusion is far greater, for men and women of integrity may be more willing to rationalize that a wrong is for greater good.
TRUTH: Discernable, External, Normaive
How do we know the truth about our cases, the biblical basis for our practice or the righteous way to solve an ethical dilemma?
The first answer is found in community of believers. Thru worship, liturgy, accountability etc.
The second is seeing in light of God's work in history, to the story that explains all stories. Creation, fall, redemption.
CREATION
Firstly, we are creatures entirely dependant on our creator.
Second, God's creative activity is ongoing.
Third, God's good creation refutes any modern gnoistic tendency to view the physical world as evil and to be avoided.
FALL-
The fall corrupted the creation itself
Thus work itself originally a blessing, has become a toil.
REDEMPTION-
Christ is the centerpiece of God's plan of redemption.
He redeemed the world and we look forward to the eternal new heavens and new earth.
Legal institutions, courts and govts alike are all fallen structures on which Christ's redemption may operate.
Our cultural task is a redemptive one, working to direct people, institutions and entities toward the king.
In brief, the integrated life requires a commitment
To become a disciple of Christ and his teachings
To see, understand and interprete reality through that relationship because we know that all things hold together only in Christ.
In addition we need to understand our legal work through the mental map of Christian worldview.
Hurdling The Stumbling Blocks
This commitment will help us address the fundamental problems of legal education, the local church and the legal mind thru;
Discipleship and law school.
Study- be students of law and scripture
Devotion- students may not neglect private and corporate devotional time with the master
Relationship- disciples learn in community and law students need mentors, those in the profession and those in school, to sharpen them.
Worldview and the ordinary religion.
A commitment to truth orients us away from the pragmatism and naked instrumentalism of the legal academy
Truth vocation and the church.
Our commitment to truth also provides some needed tools for use in overcoming our stumbling block- the church's lack of vocation-centered discipleship.
Truth and the life of the lawyer's mind.
A commitment to discipleship and worldview requires that we submit our minds to Christ and seek to serve him as he commands with all of our mind.
In short, if we are to live in interity, we must think truthfully- theologically about our daily work.
CHAPTER 9
INTEGRITY IN PRACTICE
All of us desire to have confidence that we are doing the good works that God has prepared for us; yet there are stumbling blocks along the way. Mainly three
The typical law school and academic mission lacks moral depth.
The local church has forgotten the doctrine of vocation, replacing it with empty volunteerism, a new sacred secular dualism.
We as lawyers have failed to engage our minds theologically when it comes to the law, or else we have ignored the truth about our lives and practices.
There is a path to overcoming these barriers, and it lies hidden in the forest of the wholeness of human being, or integrity.
There are three major commitments necessary to this integrated life.
Commitment to unity of knowledge, belief and action
Commitment to life in community
Commitment to truth
Refers to Daniel as an example of a faithful lawyer in a hostile world.
This is but a suggestion about how we lawyers might allow the spirit of Christ to train us for holiness and usefulness in his work in the kingdom.
The author goes on to identify three disciplines, one outward discipline, one inward discipline and one corporate discipline.
Outward discipline.
Daniel knew the word of God and he knew how to apply it to his life and work.
If it is true that a true perception of reality is necessary to integrity, then our practices must lead us to truth about reality.
To know truth about reality, we need to know what God has revealed about reality.
All this requires wisdom, and wisdom requires study.
The lawyer's calling requires discipleship through study. This is the lawyer's outward discipline.
Schutt proposes 4 practical suggestions.
Get off the couch and do it- wisdom is an active pursuit
Seeking truth requires action on our part. It does not simply happen, it must be pursued.
Study scripture- developing a Christian worldview requires a biblical foundation.
There is a difference between devotional reading and reading for study.
When we read devotionally, we don't look for information. We look for experience or personal application.
Devotional reading is good and necessary but our discipline here involves study.
Lastly, experience, other books and live discussion are indispensable to fruitful study.
Invite john jay to your study group- we need to take advantage of others.
e.g involving the saints, pastors, friends, expertise. Etc
Study the times and maybe even The Times- we need to know sth about the culture we live in and try to relate it with what the scripture dictates.
Corporate discipleship
Daniel and his friends had another valuable asset in addition to their wisdom and knowledge: each other.
They did not study spiritual discipline in isolation, but in community.
Fellowship means making connections with others in the body of Christ.
The author makes 3 suggestions for engaging in fellowship.
Be connected to a local church
Meet for meat- meeting in person is better than other means of communicating.
Recognize the entire web of your legal life as part of your kingdom ministry.
Inward discipline
Daniel is a worshipper. He blesses the God of heaven when he receives God's revelation of the dream and its interpretation.
Daniel is a man of virtue whose wise words change the fate of his people within this hostile kingdom.
While we must function in communities God provides us, there is need for solitary reflection.
One way to describe this discipline is "true leisure". Aristotle taught that the very purpose of work was leisure.
First, true leisure is non-activity. It involves quiet and the absence of preoccupation within and outside us.
Second, leisure is the condition of considering things in a celebratory spirit.
Leisure is not napping, it is the condition of the inner person embracing what God has created him or her to be.
Stop working and first take time to discover who and what you are! This is true leisure, the last of the lawyer's disciplines
Here are some suggestions on how we can stop and be content
Seek physical isolation
Stop working so much
Stop pursuing distractions and mere amusements.
Use the tools at your disposal
Consider- our ways, how to number our days right.
Pray
Chapter 10 professional identity, integrity and modernity
Why don't sharks attack lawyers? Professional courtesy
Where do vampires learn to suck blood? Law School
What's the difference between a herd of buffalo and a lawyer? The lawyer charges more.
Role morality and professional identity
Perceptions may be different from reality. Many people think the lawyer's duty to the client is a blind one, completely devoid of moral considerations and seeking the victory of his client by any means necessary. Be it intimidating witnesses and hiding evidence. Not true.
2ndly the prevailing vision among lawyers is not too far from the caricature of blind duty to the client. Prof. allegretti believes that the standard vision of the lawyer's role resting on the adversarial system leads to the inevitable conclusion that the lawyer is like the proverbial hired gun of the old west.
He disagrees. The lawyer is the neutral partisan of his client.
The truth is that the ethic of zeal is a traditional aspiration and zealousness continues today to be the fundamental principle of the law of lawyering.
No matter how much we dislike this characterization of the dominant paradigm, our professional identity and cultural stereotypes are indeed major struggles for Christian lawyers.
Christian responses to the standard vision
Christian lawyer; oxymoron – the first model is to decide that a Christian cant be a lawyer.
In my view, Christians who respond like this exhibit unsatisfactory approach to evaluating the problem under our four commitments.
The system made me do it – a second unsatisfactory response is for lawyers to hide behind the system.
Disintegration- thirdly, lawyers decide to compartmentalize themselves
This model exhibits, a lack of integrity, no truth seeking, no connection to community, no vocational evaluation and a completely dualistic life.
Transforming the standard vision – the lawyer's typical apologetic consists of one of three unbiblical justifications. Thus the fourth suggestion by allegretti is necessary.
This response will assert that Christ is lord of all, even lawyers.
It rejects the artificial separation of life into private and public spheres, with faith commitments only relevant to the private.
In short, there is only our true identity wit Christ as his co-heirs and servants.
Moral conversation and the transforming vision
The principle of the lawyer's suspended conscience is based in the role morality.
Vocational thinking helps us to submit to Christ in all our roles and callings.
Prof. Shaffer discusses several important characteristics of lawyering based on moral conversation
Clients and lawyers will influence each other, so both will need to be open to change
A moral conversation requires time and space suitable for reflection.
Full information is required from both sides, and there is collaboration on the means and ends of the representation.
The lawyer treats his or her client as if the client is a child of God who has been sent to him or her.
The moral discourse involves risk and both parties must be open to change.
A lawyer must develop real professional skills in order to foster such a relationship. Thus lawyers must become morally attentive and law students should be trained in skills of sincerity, congruence and acceptance.
Moral isolation and modernity
In discussing the problems of integrated vision of professionalism, Shaffer discusses a middle ground which he also rejects, the ethics of isolation.
There is no openness to change or true moral give or take.
Rather than discussing the client's or lawyer's conscience, this approach places them both on the table, to either take or leave.
Ethics of isolation is easy to practice today because it is who we are as moderns.
In modern thought and culture, human reason and will has replaced God as the unifying center of reality. This leads to fragmentation.
Professionalism and the three commitments
First, let's not assume too much power in the modern mindset. Though we should not underestimate its influence all around us.
Secondly, we should not toss out our commitments to truth, unity and community because we realize they may be difficult to pursue as we thought.
Integrity is still the answer.
We thus need to develop a theologically complex self-concept.
Unity
We should evaluate the way we look at ourselves as lawyers
Lawyers must see their roles as attorneys as an extension of who they are at home.
Secondly we should embrace our task as truly countercultural and respond in a broadly countercultural manner.
Third, it is not enough, if we are to have a truly transforming vision to pursue moral conversation and reject false identification with gunslingers without pursuit of identification with Christ.
Community
We must remember that we are rooted in a community larger than lawyer-client privilege.
We must note that as we seek to love our client meighbours, they are just as tempted to disengagement as we are.
Professor vischer makes the following suggestions on integration.
Making relevan literature available to members.
Facilitating informal consultation among members.
More formal consultations with a panel of catholic lawyers designated to provide advice on ethics.
Truth
The process of ethical formation is much broader than anything that can be captured in ethics rules. This formation must begin with the narrative of God's dealing with creation
The narrative reminds us of the centrality of redemption in the lawyer's work.
God is at work to redeem fallen creation, including us.
It also reminds us of our own understanding of sin.
The Christian story should encompass the lawyer's worldview of not only view of the clients but also her view of herself and the function she serves in the legal system.
Structure and direction in the legal system
Schutt disagrees with the popular view that the state is untrustworthy as the minister of justice or that the adversarial system cannot work
The scripture say that we are to give the civil authority its due and that the civil ruler is appointed by God.
We are called to participate within these structures only as God permits and directs.
We are never called to abruptly eradicate every aspect of the established system and replace it with a totally new one.
We seek to change the world through slow, historical reformation, not revolution.
In law, we pursue moral conversation with our clients. Hating what's evil and avoiding it. But holding fast to what is good and participating in the goodness of the system.
The dangers in this mindset though include cultural optimism in the name of seeing good in the creational order.
Second in our zeal to work with God in his renewing efforts, we may begin to see legal work as redemptive in itself.
