Dn. Ken Liu

A young attorney recently told me that when she told her family she wanted to become a lawyer, an uncle asked, incredulously, “You’re a good Christian, why would you want to be a lawyer?!” I’m sure many of us attorneys have heard some version of this sentiment about lawyers during our careers.

When I went to law school in the 90’s, lawyer jokes were abundant. Our profession was widely derided, not entirely undeservingly. Attorneys were depicted as money-grubbing, arrogant, and unscrupulous hustlers – and those were the good ones!

Q: What’s the difference between a lawyer and God?
A: God doesn’t think he’s a lawyer.

But the role of a lawyer – properly understood – aligns quite naturally with our values as Orthodox Christians. After all, the legal profession is fundamentally a service profession. And as members of a service profession, we are held to higher standards than those in other careers.

As the Preamble of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct states, “A lawyer, as a member of the legal profession, is a representative of clients, an officer of the legal system and a public citizen having special responsibility for the quality of justice.”

Increasingly law firms are being treated as businesses, with some states even beginning to permit non-attorneys to hold ownership interests in firms.  To be clear, there is nothing wrong with having a profit motive, but our work is not to be merely transactional. And especially for us who profess to follow Christ, our duties and loyalties to our clients, the justice system, and society at large should be greater than our own self-interest.

As Christ taught his disciples, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43-45)

Those of us blessed with the skills and training to be a lawyer have a gift that others don’t. St. Peter exhorted us, "Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.” (1 Peter 4:10)

Are these admonitions merely applicable in our personal lives, or do they also apply in our professional realm?

Are we Christians merely on Sunday mornings, or do we follow Christ in all that we do, seven days a week?

Depending on our practice area, clients often come to us in times of distress. Do we take the time to listen to their heartfelt needs, or do we merely address their technical legal issues?

Do we objectify opposing counsel as adversaries to be crushed, or do we see them as colleagues mutually seeking to arrive at fair and just resolutions?

And how many of us know attorneys who treat their cases more as cash cows to be milked rather than problems to be resolved?

In his “Essays in Theology and Liturgy,” Fr. Alkiviadis Calivas calls upon us, after partaking of the Eucharist, to "return to the world and to immerse ourselves in the affairs and circumstances of everyday life, bringing the redemptive power of God and the blessings of the Eucharist to our wounded and broken world.”

As Orthodox Christian attorneys, may we always be mindful of putting those who God calls us to serve higher than ourselves, and our pocketbooks.

May 9, 2025

© Kenneth Liu 2025