by Sophia Allison

Christ is risen! Truly He is risen!

Our Holy Orthodox Church wisely instructs us to repeat these words – in church, in our private prayers, with our fellow Orthodox Christians – over and over for forty days following the joyous Paschal midnight service. We are truly blessed by this divine proclamation and its repetition. We are truly blessed by its power when we are with each other in the Paschal season (and, hopefully, all year). We “get it.” We get it because the Church teaches it to us. We get it individually, and together with one another.

When it comes to understanding what it is like to practice law – the obligations, the pressures, the conflicts, the highs and lows – I think lawyers would agree that only other lawyers really “get it.”  It is a camaraderie that we feel when we’re around other lawyers – in the firms where we work, in the legal organizations in which we participate.  Here, too, we get it, individually and together with one another.

But I suspect very few of us experience the “getting it” of being lawyers and being Orthodox Christians together at the same time.  Being in a group of lawyers where you can say “Christ is risen!” out loud is rare.  Being in a group of lawyers where everyone responds “Truly He is risen!” is extraordinary. 

Now imagine being in fellowship with such a group for a whole weekend during the Paschal season. Sharing our faith and insights about our profession, making new friends, talking, laughing, listening, and learning. If you were fortunate to attend the OCAN retreat, you know exactly what that was like! 

As I write this about ten days after the retreat, I am still awed by how amazing it was.  After the initial presentations we had an “ice breaking” exercise that was really fun.  Everyone knows that ice breakers can be forced and awkward, but this was different.  Within minutes, the room was filled with excited conversations and laughter – I could see and feel genuine connections being made.  Perhaps it was that incredible circumstance of everyone knowing that we were all both lawyers and Orthodox Christians together that powered such immediate and enduring rapport.  That vibe started strong and stayed strong the whole weekend. 

The retreat featured a fabulous, full schedule that included spiritual reflections, explorations of Orthodox charity, glimpses into legal issues at the diocesan/archdiocesan levels, discussions about what directions OCAN might take in the future, a hike, and time to mingle.  We had a fantastic CLE presentation on, inter alia, the tax implications of forming church-affiliated entities that I found riveting (and I am not a tax lawyer!).  The attendees represented a great cross-section of the legal community, and everyone had so many and varied things to offer: as lawyers, as Orthodox Christians, and as people.  And crucially, we did that which defines us as Orthodox Christians: we worshipped together, for Vespers and for the Divine Liturgy. 

If you couldn’t make it to the OCAN retreat this year, I sincerely hope you can make it to the next one.  It was a rich and worthwhile experience that I would wish on every one of you.

Christ is risen!  Truly He is risen!

Sophia Allison is a retired attorney, having spent six years in private practice and twenty-eight years at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, where her practice focused on the legal aspects of monetary policy implementation and payments systems law (among many other areas).  She graduated from the UCLA School of Law in 1989, where she was a member of the UCLA Law Review.  She and her husband are parishioners at Saint John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cathedral (ROCOR) in Washington, DC.

May 2026