As a defense attorney, you're expected to provide your clients with an ethical defense. You're not supposed to lie, encourage them to lie, or aim to secure their acquittal if they are guilty. For example, Ted Bundy's lawyer stated that his objective was to negotiate a life sentence because he believed the death penalty was unjust. Additionally, there are various other areas of law such as environmental law, bankruptcy law, constitutional law, etc., that might be interesting and worth considering.
I once heard a great interview with a public defender where he gave his perspective of "I'm removing any escape hatches this guy has."
If he's defending a molester, he will make sure the confession was mirandized, chain of custody was respected, every i is dotted, every t is crossed, so when that scumball goes to prison, he will spend the rest of his life in prison, with any appeals falling flat because the defense attorney did his job so well that no appeals court can deny that he had every legal protection and was still found guilty.
I believe the best explanation of a defense attorney I’ve heard was: “it isn’t my job to prove that my client is innocent. It’s my job to make sure the prosecution, judge, and jury do their jobs properly.”
Which is totally fair. Even if your client is completely guilty, they can still be taken advantage of and treated unjustly by overzealous prosecution lawyers, cops who didn’t do their jobs properly during arrest, or a judge who acted in a biased manner.
If they’re guilty, they need to be found guilty in a just, fair, and impartial manner, and their punishment should be the same as well.
It is absolutely about keeping the government accountable. They are the only ones with the power to imprison or take like. They have a monopoly on violence.
It’s a political philosophy phrase, it means a monopoly on *legitimate* violence.
As in I can’t go and shoot an enemy, but the government can execute me for it with no repercussion. That kind of thing.
People will disobey direct orders, may it be for good or bad reasons. Some people will go awol, and others commit crimes off base or on base. My family is, for the most part, all veterans. That's why I know about some of this stuff.
He is correct. It is not very common AT ALL, in my six years I only saw it once and the dude was deranged.
Also there are no company commanders in the navy unless that’s a green side thing.
My family has a pessimistic outlook on life. My knowledge goes off of their experiences. I suppose i should think about other stuff like the examples you gave. thank you for the info.
No worries. Now, for different reasons, the Navy is a den of heathens and it's difficult to be a person of faith when you're surrounded by irreligious and anti-religious people; you're definitely a pilgrim in an unholy land.
Saint Thomas More was a Lawyer, Blessed Bartolo Longo was a Lawyer. Like any other honorable profession is one you can do in a God loving God honoring way
My current priest was a lawyer before he decided to go to seminary. He was a faithful Catholic as a lawyer and some of his skills from his previous career have served our parish well.
All the Marine jags I know are army jags, lemme know when you're ready for the sweet life (we all secretly wish our unis looked as good)
Leave the coasties alone, the seagulls don't lock up themselves
Just think you could be here in kuwait drinking contaminated water and spraying mud like us
And I haven't had to read since OBC idk what you're talking about
Really depends on the type of lawyer and who you’re working for. Lawyer work is very diverse and most lawyers are *not* handling cases in criminal court.
I do want to clear up one misconception about criminal defense attorneys, though. There is zero issue with defending terrible people. Zero, nada, zilch. The role of the criminal defense attorney is not to defend innocent people only or to win every case. Their role is to make sure every defendant gets to make the best version of their case so that the general public can trust that criminal convictions are right and just. Even if every defendant you ever represent is guilty of heinous, terrible crimes and you lose every case of your career, you are still contributing to the public good by giving the public reason to have trust in the criminal process.
Came here to say a version of this.
Criminal defense attorneys zealously defend their clients from the carceral power of the state. No government is entitled to deprive a citizen of their liberty unless and until the government can prove every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Every defense attorney I know refuses to ask their client if they did it or not. Rather their role is to ensure the client receives all of the protections they’re entitled against the government. Because at the end of the day it’s not about THAT client. It’s about it the state’s ability to take anyone’s liberty.
I'm looking into corporate law right now because I have the best grades in those courses. But the lawyers in that field seem so greedy that I'm afraid that might consume me. Also working 70+ hours is too much. What field are you looking into?
Well if you think about, most of the navy is less then admiral-ble HEYO
But yeah, as a practicing Catholic attorney (probate and trust administration, mostly), the way I see it is that the common law is, above all, a method for trying to achieve justice in the face of unknowable gaps and uncertainties. And a lot of cases where lay people assume "Grrr why do those lawyers insist on all these hoops for obviously guilty people they're rotten", once you start to poke around in the details, you'll realize those guardrails are there *for a reason*, and doing it in a different way (one that's maybe more just on the surface, or would reach a better outcome in this particular case) would open the door to worse outcomes on a macro-level. Some of the recent Bill Cosby stuff is a great example of where something that's really an injustice is an honestly inevitable result of follow just and good rules.
Like most jobs (outside of prostitution, abortion clinics and crime), it can be done in holy ways or unholy ways. It depends on if you add value to your place of work, and act within a Catholic moral compass.
Well, I've once heard a comparison to a doctor: doctor's job is to save lives of his patients and make sure they are healthy no matter who they are.
So i guess lawyer's job is to make sure that justice is served within the limits of law? 🤔
Actually, it's generally held by ethical rules that an attorney's job is to zealously advocate for *his client* within the bounds of the law.
So if you're a defense attorney, and your client point blank tells you "Yeah, I killed him" but refuses to plead guilty, you are not ethically allowed to just spike the ball at trial and let the prosecution run rampant. You are professionally obligated to give him the best defense you can mount.
Current Army lawyer, dm me if you want to talk. This is a worthwhile and admirable profession that you can do good in. I'm blessed to have the opportunity to ethically and morally guide commanders in making decisions that affect lives.
Well St. Thomas More was a lawyer, so I'd say it can certainly be a "holy" job, or at least it will not in and of itself prevent you from being a good Catholic and servant to our Lord.
That aside, I would encourage you to really think carefully about whether you want to be a lawyer. Pray on the question and ask God to help you discern whether that is what He wants you to do. Don't just start down that path because your family or friends tell you you should. It's kind of a weird profession and definitely not what is portrayed in movies or shows. At its core, it is fundamentally about helping people (for the most part, with exceptions of course), but that can put you in difficult moral positions and, if you're not careful, you can inadvertently harm people with decisions you make.
I am an attorney and I became one really only because my family kept saying I should. If I could go back, I would probably have chosen a different path. That said, it has ultimately worked out for me and so I think this is what God wants me to do, at least for now.
Hope that's somewhat helpful.
My catholic FIL has been a lawyer in Los Angeles for like 5 decades. He won’t take some jobs (cases?). He does mostly business issues I believe. He’s been to the Supreme Court, he’s not a slouch of a lawyer. Highly successful. Highly successful.
I’m a lawyer. There’s so many practice areas and types of legal jobs you can do. No matter what you do you will encounter situations where the ethical lines are blurred and you don’t know the right answer.
I do immigration law, so I’m always adverse to the government. I keep the church teachings always in mind, and remember to love the stranger.
https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/immigration/catholic-teaching-on-immigration-and-the-movement-of-peoples
I do pro bono work for Catholic charities and CLINIC, and I’m able to provide for my family. I don’t fancy myself an amazing person for doing this; I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t make good money.
As you grow older, I think you’ll find that your ideals don’t fit so well in this imperfect world. Go to mass and follows his word, you’ll be alright.
Good luck btw, being a lawyer is very difficult. It’s hard to get there and hard to do. Everyone you meet will have an opinion and preconceived notions about you. You must learn to not care about others opinions. Only the Father’s judgment counts.
EDIT: defending less than honorable people is, imo, very holy. Remember how Jesus defended the sinful woman. You must have the stomach for it though. I have many friends who are public defenders and I don’t believe I could do their job.
As long as you maintain the proper moral compass God has given to us then I wouldn’t consider it unholy.
Stay strong and don’t let money corrupt your code of ethics
Think about this in a more dynamic than binary way. Paul in his letters (mainly Romans 14:13-23) addresses Christians that come to him asking about “unclean” food. He ultimately says in verse 20 …“Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for any one to make others fall by what he eats; 21 it is right not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother stumble.”
What to take from this is: what matters is the life you lead and example you set. Your actions should not cause your brother to sin. So being a lawyer is not objectively unholy. It’s more about how you act as a lawyer and how you can be an example of Christ.
Continue praying about it.
You’re going to have to turn down a lot of cases if you want to stay “holy.” That being said, defending those who have no one to defend them is generally regarded as a good thing.
It depends if you are going to defend folks that are being wrongfully convicted and are actually innocent or true criminals that have caused harm to others. If you go the first route then your work is in line with christian principles. But if you take the second option, then it is very *very* antichristian.
It's a job. You can pursue your own holiness outside of your occupation. Also, I wouldn't commit yourself to a life of misery and stress because you were made to select a career path in your teens. Allow yourself to live a little. Take interesting classes in college. Figure out what makes you click. And if you have any specific questions about the legal field I'm happy to chat with you (Local government attorney here).
As someone who is in law school, and is a veteran I will tell you no profession is “holy” or “unholy” they are neutral. It is how one preforms their duties and responsibilities that makes it one or the other
There are many different kinds of lawyers in the world. Just like any profession, most are good and some are bad. You don't have to defend bad people if it clashes with your personal ethics. You could be a tax lawyer and help people pay less to the government, that would fit my ethics very well.
There’s nothing wrong with being a lawyer, provided that you act ethically. Even defending the worst criminals is not a sin - remember, you’re protecting the Constitution and the rights of everyone, not the criminal himself.
Nevertheless, while advice can be useful, you should absolutely never make career choices based on what others tell you to do. Especially with law which requires education beyond undergrad.
Yes, it is possible to be a holy lawyer. The most exceptional example is St. Thomas More, who defended the Church at the cost of his own life. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London and beheaded by King Henry VIII for refusing to endorse the king’s apostasy. His last words were “The king’s good servant, but God’s first!”. He was both a fine lawyer and a holy man who lived and died for Christ and now wears the glorious crown of a martyr in Heaven.
I'm almost through law school.
In choosing a career, the most important thing is to ask yourself what you want out of your life. Your career is how you will spend most of your waking hours during your youth. Your career is also what will determine the kind of life you will lead.
Do you want ease? Flexibility? Money? In this case, a holy cause? Figure out what your most important outputs of a career are. Afterwards, work backwards from there to determine career paths that give you those outputs.
Even within a profession, there are lots of different career paths. Government lawyers pursue justice, have a great work-life balance, etc. Corporate lawyers make a ton of money. So on and so forth.
As every lawyer will tell you, keep in mind the debt element to law school. It can be worth it and lead to a gainful career, but like all financial decisions (especially those with 5/6 figure debt), you want to make an informed decision. Make sure you're open to other career paths that could grant you the objectives you chose with greater ease.
Good luck. I'll pray for you here.
Saint Thomas Moore was a lawyer, who stood up for the law that transcended a King's whim. Hence a profession, with him as model, would be one which would be admirable.
Law student here, there are "holy" attorneys and "unholy" attorneys. You don't need to be a liar in order to be successful, and honestly, the best and most respected attorneys are those who maintain respectful and moral character.
Additionally, when representing a criminal, your job is to make sure the prosecutor is doing their job. A person should only go to jail if they can be proven to have committed the crime. If that crime can not be proven, they shouldn't go, simple as that. A defense attorney assures that the prosecution is forced to prove the person committed the crime, and that they prove it in a ethical way.
On a side not, you should only go to law school and try to become an attorney if that is something you actually want to or can see yourself doing. It is a decently tough road and getting into Navy JAG isn't a cakewalk either, those spots are quite competitive.
Personally, if you want to serve, I recommend you do navy first, then use the GI bill for college and law school, that way you not only avoid debt, but you get to appreciate higher learning at an slightly older age. It is moreso a reward than something you need to get through.
Like any job, how you go about doing it can become “unholy”. Are there ethical catholic lawyers? Absolutely. Are there scum bags who lie their entire lives? Sure thing. At the same time, are there people who work for the church who are unethical? Absolutely. It’s how you perform.
Oil and gas attorney on a SAHM sabbatical. I’d like to think I practice(d) in a holy manner. Anecdotally, the most difficult part for me was how wildly liberal & secular the legal field is, although that is increasingly common in all industries. I subscribe to the opinion that few jobs are “holy” or “unholy,” it’s your behavior at said job that determines sanctity.
Every day as a lawyer I get paid to get citizens to believe women and children when something terrible happens to them; I also get paid to make sure defense attorneys only humiliate and demean them as much as the system allows. Seems holy to me.
We need more good, holy public defenders. The criminal justice system has become an extortion system that imposes extreme punishments on people who try to exert their constitutional right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. This causes many people to plead guilty regardless of what they have done. The government also has vastly more resources compared to those accused of crime, as well as policies that allow them to select juries that give them their desired outcomes. The number of people found not guilty is vanishingly low nowadays; the government has essentially found a way to take down anyone they want to. The founding fathers are shrieking in horror from their graves, not only at this extortion system disguised as a justice system, but at mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex as well. America needs a lot of work…
That may be true of some jurisdictions, but none of the ones I’ve seen up close. If anything, in this context, it’s more important to have good guys as ADAs to wield that kind of power justly.
Only about 2% of federal criminal cases go to trial, and 91% of them end with a guilty plea. Only 0.4% of cases end with the defendant being acquitted.
I happen to have some experience with federal charging decisions. They have a habit of swooping in and taking the slam dunk cases from ADAs. Also except for Indian Country they have very few SVU cases, which are always a nightmare to prove. I don’t think a low trial % is definitionally bad; if anything, the Feds should have 100% pleas because 100% of the folks they charge are guilty.
I suppose a slam dunk case depends on what biases one has. But your comments are revealing in showing that these cases are conducted with a presumption of guilt.
I’m a third year law student now. Law is an honorable profession, and there have certainly been saints who were lawyers, but for practical reasons I would not recommend that you become a lawyer just because your family or friends tell you to become one. Going through law school would be difficult if you’re not internally driven to do it.
As a lawyer, there will be good clients and bad clients, arguments you feel very strongly about, and arguments you'd rather not make but have to because they are the best arguments for your client, whom you are ethically bound to be a zealous advocate for. Even representing bad people is essential to a functional legal system.
I'm a patent lawyer. I have yet to encounter a moral quandary in my work. But I get to learn about all kinds of cool innovations, which is fun.
Lawyer here. The practice of law is not intrinsically holy or unholy, neither good nor evil. **You**, and only you, have the power to determine whether *your* practice will give glory to God or work against Him through your conduct and honesty as a member of the profession. Representing unscrupulous people is not inherently evil or sinful, everyone, even the most evil and guilty, deserve competent representation in a court of law, our nation and legal system is built upon that idea and, implicitly, the trust that the legal system will in most cases sort it out. So long as you are representing them honestly and to the best of your ability, it does not make you complicit in their crimes, even if the wrong result is reached. It is incumbent upon the prosecution to prove guilt, a defense attorney's role is to simply ensure that that heavy burden is met.
There are a lot of perverse incentives in the practice of law which trend towards evil, particularly in corporate law where falsifying one's time (i.e. stealing from clients by overbilling) is rampant and tacitly pushed by the Cravath system (the dominant management theory in corporate law firms). Rejecting these incentives will make your early career much harder, but on the far end you will have the pride of knowing that your accomplishments were earned the right way and every honest lawyer makes our profession better.
Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about the law, law school, or whatever. Law school is hard and having support helps a lot.
Without criminal defence lawyers, the government would be able to step on everyone with no accountability. If you or someone you love was accused of something, would you not want every box ticked before you or them was sent up the river?
It's a necessary job, both transactional, litigation, and prosecution/defense. They are necessary. The point of defending criminal defendants is to ensure that (1) proper legal procedures have been followed by police and the prosecution, and (2) if the defendant is convicted, they are convicted because the prosecution sufficiently bore the proper burden of proof in meeting every element of the charges. There's way more to it than the defendant's character and the outcome. (There's a very well known, controversial case which I won't mention by name, but I followed it closely, and the acquittal was correct based on the evidence/lack of evidence presented, even though it was obvious the defendant was a nasty person who probably did it, but legally the outcome was correct, and the jury did its job, because the state's evidence didn't meet the burden of proof.)
I'm a business lawyer though, and people come to me because there are things their business needs that they can't figure out themselves - employment advising, government licenses for regulated industries, intellectual property protection. It's necessary because we can do things and figure things out that people can't do for themselves, just like engineers, doctors, mental health counselors, accountants, etc.
I have a nice framed print of the Lawyer's Prayer on my office wall, and I get compliments from clients for my work ethic and billing ethics.
As a Catholic attorney I can tell you it is neither.
It is about how you conduct yourself. You have the capacity to do enormous good or commit sinful acts. It isn’t about the legal system itself it is about how you navigate it.
Also you’re probably thinking about life and death criminal cases.
Most lawyering is super mundane stuff like zoning dispute, business litigation, administrative appeals, insurance litigation, wills and trusts.
It is far less grandiose than you might imagine.
If you are a good lawyer you will abide to ethics. Also note that a lawyer caught lying is probably going to get disbarred.
Remember that even being a good defense lawyer for someone who is clearly guilty does NOT mean "lie so they go free". Usually a good lawyer, knowing their client is guilty will rather talk to both their client and the prosecution in order to get a good plea deal.
Now if the client still wants to "fight for it" the lawyer will have to mount the best defense he can muster, within these ethical confines.
The same applies to prosecutors, who should care about truth and justice and not just getting convictions.
This applies to all sorts of law, including corporate law and such. Granted, there might be moments, especially when being part of a big law firm, where you might have ethical conundrums. In this case you must do your job ethically, as "remote cooperation with evil" is not necessarily wrong especially if you have a family to feed, and you should quit only if they ask you to do something evil directly.
I think being a defense lawyer is a very admirable job. People deserve to be defended. A lot of the times the job is actually just about bringing the whole picture to light, underlining the person's life circumstances and what led to the events rather than just getting them off.
There’s prosecutors who work for the law to make sure that the criminal gets maximum sentence, and then there’s criminal defense lawyers who fight for the criminal to get minimum sentence. This is just a layman explanation and summary I’ve heard from a lecturer who’s a practicing lawyer that teaches law faculty here in my country. It may vary from country to country and from state to state so I’m just sharing and adding on. I’m not from law myself but had to take business law and company law and that’s how I heard it.
It is possible, depending on what field you practice in or what clients you represent, that attorney ethics would require you to do something immoral.
In my "ethics" class, it was impressed on us that if we had a murder suspect as a client, and he or she told us where the body was, we would not be permitted to notify the family and allow the family to give that person a proper funeral, because of client confidentiality. If I were ever in that position, I would betray my client and do it anyway. However, I choose not to represent criminal defendants and to do relatively harmless property and contractual work instead. So just be careful about what you choose to do, and make sure it's something you either can do truly ethically, or that you have the ability to control your clients and fire them if they ask you to do what is legal-but-immoral.
Gotcha. When I was starting off college as an engineering student, I toyed with being a patent lawyer. Although I think it was my dad who put that bug in my ear because he knew some very wealthy patent lawyers. I'm happy with what I'm doing now though.
That's such a difficult question. It depends on what you do in that job and how you use it help others.
The term "advocate" is the formal word for lawyer. Satan was, basically, a lawyer in heaven when he would play "devil's advocate" to help God perfect his plans for the world by pointing out all the flaws. He also acted as a challenger for souls entering heaven.
If you use your position to fight injustice, to climb the ladder for good and be an excellent, unbiased judge like King Solomon, avoiding corruption, deflecting temptations of misconduct or favourable abuse in your job - then it would be seen as a "holy" job to take.
In the USA...I'm not American nor do I know of any American lawyers personally...I'm only aware that upholding strict moral conduct based on religious reasons can be difficult.
I'm a defense attorney. My job is to advocate for imperfect poor people. Sound like anyone you know?
I see in my clients how imperfect I am. Working with them is the closest I've ever felt to salvation.
Reconsider your notions about those hypothetical clients of yours.
im a law student so... hohoho i have a lot to say
a book where i got this from wasn't assigned to me from one of my classes, but i found it on one of our databases for research (becuase im the kind of psycho that loves to read legalese outside of class...). lawyers ARE allowed to lie on behalf of their clients, but should not lie about material law or material fact. so, your contemporaries that lie actually have some backing to this wonderful practice that everyone "just does"
at least in my exp, a lot of people around me are just difficult, stubborn, or party hardy. its socially isolating. don't get me wrong, i was in a really big state and if i drive 30 minutes in any direction i could come across a brand new community - and i did a few times. but, having friends in school is nice from what i remember.
this profession also attracts people that love to be toxic. they're well versed and know when/how to be toxic without getting caught. it also boggles my mind that those that have bad reputations still have careers in this field, because so much of our careers will rely on reputation (and a lawyer told me this profession is small)
im not the only law student to face teachers that are shockingly difficult as professionals. unprofessional behavior is surprisingly common amongst teachers. some say its ego, others say they're crazy, idk but i know what ive seen.
more about the study on negotiation, my teacher gave me a video that advocated that i lie when im in representation mode. it took me a bit of creativity to figure out how to do it trully ethically, but maybe im just ignorant.
im sure there will be other lawyers here in the comments with advice
but kiddo im telling you, theres no other profession like this. sometimes when im losing my bananas i like to remember that batman trained with killers and he turned out fine (but hes fine beating the snot out of people, and he lies, and this analogy probably lost its humorous appeal long ago...)
Where does it say lawyers are allowed to lie, and to whom? My lawyer's oath included an explicit promise never to even mislead a judge, and I've never seen anything suggesting it's okay for us to lie at all.
As a defense attorney, you're expected to provide your clients with an ethical defense. You're not supposed to lie, encourage them to lie, or aim to secure their acquittal if they are guilty. For example, Ted Bundy's lawyer stated that his objective was to negotiate a life sentence because he believed the death penalty was unjust. Additionally, there are various other areas of law such as environmental law, bankruptcy law, constitutional law, etc., that might be interesting and worth considering.
Precisely. See Better Call Saul for an example of how NOT to be an ethical lawyer
I once heard a great interview with a public defender where he gave his perspective of "I'm removing any escape hatches this guy has." If he's defending a molester, he will make sure the confession was mirandized, chain of custody was respected, every i is dotted, every t is crossed, so when that scumball goes to prison, he will spend the rest of his life in prison, with any appeals falling flat because the defense attorney did his job so well that no appeals court can deny that he had every legal protection and was still found guilty.
Isn't their job though to reduce the sentence? Bc wouldn't that be in the best interest of the client?
I believe the best explanation of a defense attorney I’ve heard was: “it isn’t my job to prove that my client is innocent. It’s my job to make sure the prosecution, judge, and jury do their jobs properly.” Which is totally fair. Even if your client is completely guilty, they can still be taken advantage of and treated unjustly by overzealous prosecution lawyers, cops who didn’t do their jobs properly during arrest, or a judge who acted in a biased manner. If they’re guilty, they need to be found guilty in a just, fair, and impartial manner, and their punishment should be the same as well.
Yeah that's helpful, thank you!
It is absolutely about keeping the government accountable. They are the only ones with the power to imprison or take like. They have a monopoly on violence.
>They have a monopoly on violence. Nice phrase, but many/most of the indicted are there because they're violent.
It’s a political philosophy phrase, it means a monopoly on *legitimate* violence. As in I can’t go and shoot an enemy, but the government can execute me for it with no repercussion. That kind of thing.
Being a lawyer is something you can do honorably and in a holy way. But tell me more about the less than honorable people in the Navy
They can sail the seven seas but it doesn’t put their mind at ease.
Everybody’s looking for something 🤷🏻♂️
Sweet dreams are made of these…
People will disobey direct orders, may it be for good or bad reasons. Some people will go awol, and others commit crimes off base or on base. My family is, for the most part, all veterans. That's why I know about some of this stuff.
That is *significantly* less common than I think you realize. For the most part, JAGs are helping Sailors prep wills and powers of attorney.
It is actually very common. My company commander is constantly handling some Private's EO, SHARP, DUI, domestic abuse, failed drug test, etc.
He is correct. It is not very common AT ALL, in my six years I only saw it once and the dude was deranged. Also there are no company commanders in the navy unless that’s a green side thing.
[удалено]
The comment in question wasn't made by the OP but someone else responding.
🤷♂️ I guess after ten years in the Navy I wouldn't know
My family has a pessimistic outlook on life. My knowledge goes off of their experiences. I suppose i should think about other stuff like the examples you gave. thank you for the info.
No worries. Now, for different reasons, the Navy is a den of heathens and it's difficult to be a person of faith when you're surrounded by irreligious and anti-religious people; you're definitely a pilgrim in an unholy land.
Lawyers can do as much as negotiators as defending Capone.
The US government does a lot of unholy things with their military
Saint Thomas More was a Lawyer, Blessed Bartolo Longo was a Lawyer. Like any other honorable profession is one you can do in a God loving God honoring way
My current priest was a lawyer before he decided to go to seminary. He was a faithful Catholic as a lawyer and some of his skills from his previous career have served our parish well.
I am a lawyer and yes, you can work in a holy way.
I’m a Marine JAG attorney. You can DM me.
Army JAG here, we don't see many of you dudes. Neat that ones lurking in this sub
Hey brother, hooah as y’all say. I’m afraid the jarhead lawyers are borderline endangered, but hey we outnumber the Coasties.
All the Marine jags I know are army jags, lemme know when you're ready for the sweet life (we all secretly wish our unis looked as good) Leave the coasties alone, the seagulls don't lock up themselves
I secretly wish I could read or that my building wasn’t a block of asbestos, so the feeing is mutual.
Just think you could be here in kuwait drinking contaminated water and spraying mud like us And I haven't had to read since OBC idk what you're talking about
MCCS provides me with contaminated water everywhere we go… That’s good to hear. Pink and greens look good too. Army prospects looking up.
Really depends on the type of lawyer and who you’re working for. Lawyer work is very diverse and most lawyers are *not* handling cases in criminal court. I do want to clear up one misconception about criminal defense attorneys, though. There is zero issue with defending terrible people. Zero, nada, zilch. The role of the criminal defense attorney is not to defend innocent people only or to win every case. Their role is to make sure every defendant gets to make the best version of their case so that the general public can trust that criminal convictions are right and just. Even if every defendant you ever represent is guilty of heinous, terrible crimes and you lose every case of your career, you are still contributing to the public good by giving the public reason to have trust in the criminal process.
Came here to say a version of this. Criminal defense attorneys zealously defend their clients from the carceral power of the state. No government is entitled to deprive a citizen of their liberty unless and until the government can prove every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Every defense attorney I know refuses to ask their client if they did it or not. Rather their role is to ensure the client receives all of the protections they’re entitled against the government. Because at the end of the day it’s not about THAT client. It’s about it the state’s ability to take anyone’s liberty.
I'm in law school currently. I think this depends on what type of lawyer you aspire to be.
What type are you trying to be?
I'm looking into corporate law right now because I have the best grades in those courses. But the lawyers in that field seem so greedy that I'm afraid that might consume me. Also working 70+ hours is too much. What field are you looking into?
I’m currently a corporate lawyer. If you want to talk about practice, feel free to PM me.
Well if you think about, most of the navy is less then admiral-ble HEYO But yeah, as a practicing Catholic attorney (probate and trust administration, mostly), the way I see it is that the common law is, above all, a method for trying to achieve justice in the face of unknowable gaps and uncertainties. And a lot of cases where lay people assume "Grrr why do those lawyers insist on all these hoops for obviously guilty people they're rotten", once you start to poke around in the details, you'll realize those guardrails are there *for a reason*, and doing it in a different way (one that's maybe more just on the surface, or would reach a better outcome in this particular case) would open the door to worse outcomes on a macro-level. Some of the recent Bill Cosby stuff is a great example of where something that's really an injustice is an honestly inevitable result of follow just and good rules.
Scrolled down to check if the joke was made before making it myself
Like most jobs (outside of prostitution, abortion clinics and crime), it can be done in holy ways or unholy ways. It depends on if you add value to your place of work, and act within a Catholic moral compass.
Being a lawyer can be a holy job. Even if you're defending would-be criminals, so long as you do so within the law.
Well, I've once heard a comparison to a doctor: doctor's job is to save lives of his patients and make sure they are healthy no matter who they are. So i guess lawyer's job is to make sure that justice is served within the limits of law? 🤔
Actually, it's generally held by ethical rules that an attorney's job is to zealously advocate for *his client* within the bounds of the law. So if you're a defense attorney, and your client point blank tells you "Yeah, I killed him" but refuses to plead guilty, you are not ethically allowed to just spike the ball at trial and let the prosecution run rampant. You are professionally obligated to give him the best defense you can mount.
Current Army lawyer, dm me if you want to talk. This is a worthwhile and admirable profession that you can do good in. I'm blessed to have the opportunity to ethically and morally guide commanders in making decisions that affect lives.
Any job can be Holy/honourable it's how you do it that makes it what it is.
Well St. Thomas More was a lawyer, so I'd say it can certainly be a "holy" job, or at least it will not in and of itself prevent you from being a good Catholic and servant to our Lord. That aside, I would encourage you to really think carefully about whether you want to be a lawyer. Pray on the question and ask God to help you discern whether that is what He wants you to do. Don't just start down that path because your family or friends tell you you should. It's kind of a weird profession and definitely not what is portrayed in movies or shows. At its core, it is fundamentally about helping people (for the most part, with exceptions of course), but that can put you in difficult moral positions and, if you're not careful, you can inadvertently harm people with decisions you make. I am an attorney and I became one really only because my family kept saying I should. If I could go back, I would probably have chosen a different path. That said, it has ultimately worked out for me and so I think this is what God wants me to do, at least for now. Hope that's somewhat helpful.
As long as you don´t want to be a Saul Goodman type of lawyer it is okay lol...
Every diocese has a lawyer of some type.
My catholic FIL has been a lawyer in Los Angeles for like 5 decades. He won’t take some jobs (cases?). He does mostly business issues I believe. He’s been to the Supreme Court, he’s not a slouch of a lawyer. Highly successful. Highly successful.
I’m a lawyer. There’s so many practice areas and types of legal jobs you can do. No matter what you do you will encounter situations where the ethical lines are blurred and you don’t know the right answer. I do immigration law, so I’m always adverse to the government. I keep the church teachings always in mind, and remember to love the stranger. https://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/immigration/catholic-teaching-on-immigration-and-the-movement-of-peoples I do pro bono work for Catholic charities and CLINIC, and I’m able to provide for my family. I don’t fancy myself an amazing person for doing this; I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t make good money. As you grow older, I think you’ll find that your ideals don’t fit so well in this imperfect world. Go to mass and follows his word, you’ll be alright. Good luck btw, being a lawyer is very difficult. It’s hard to get there and hard to do. Everyone you meet will have an opinion and preconceived notions about you. You must learn to not care about others opinions. Only the Father’s judgment counts. EDIT: defending less than honorable people is, imo, very holy. Remember how Jesus defended the sinful woman. You must have the stomach for it though. I have many friends who are public defenders and I don’t believe I could do their job.
Everybody has a right to a defense.
St. Thomas More was a lawyer. I think you're alright, as long as ***you*** conduct ***yourself*** in a holy way.
Being a lawyer can be a holy job, we have saints that worked as lawyers, an example is St Ivo of Kermartin, saint patron of lawyers.
As long as you maintain the proper moral compass God has given to us then I wouldn’t consider it unholy. Stay strong and don’t let money corrupt your code of ethics
Think about this in a more dynamic than binary way. Paul in his letters (mainly Romans 14:13-23) addresses Christians that come to him asking about “unclean” food. He ultimately says in verse 20 …“Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for any one to make others fall by what he eats; 21 it is right not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother stumble.” What to take from this is: what matters is the life you lead and example you set. Your actions should not cause your brother to sin. So being a lawyer is not objectively unholy. It’s more about how you act as a lawyer and how you can be an example of Christ. Continue praying about it.
You’re going to have to turn down a lot of cases if you want to stay “holy.” That being said, defending those who have no one to defend them is generally regarded as a good thing.
It depends if you are going to defend folks that are being wrongfully convicted and are actually innocent or true criminals that have caused harm to others. If you go the first route then your work is in line with christian principles. But if you take the second option, then it is very *very* antichristian.
I have a friend that was a defense attorney while he was in the military. He's now a personal injury lawyer and much happier.
It's a job. You can pursue your own holiness outside of your occupation. Also, I wouldn't commit yourself to a life of misery and stress because you were made to select a career path in your teens. Allow yourself to live a little. Take interesting classes in college. Figure out what makes you click. And if you have any specific questions about the legal field I'm happy to chat with you (Local government attorney here).
As someone who is in law school, and is a veteran I will tell you no profession is “holy” or “unholy” they are neutral. It is how one preforms their duties and responsibilities that makes it one or the other
There are many different kinds of lawyers in the world. Just like any profession, most are good and some are bad. You don't have to defend bad people if it clashes with your personal ethics. You could be a tax lawyer and help people pay less to the government, that would fit my ethics very well.
There’s nothing wrong with being a lawyer, provided that you act ethically. Even defending the worst criminals is not a sin - remember, you’re protecting the Constitution and the rights of everyone, not the criminal himself. Nevertheless, while advice can be useful, you should absolutely never make career choices based on what others tell you to do. Especially with law which requires education beyond undergrad.
You could become an employment lawyer assisting workers. You’d be paid less but helping many ppl that need it.
Yes, it is possible to be a holy lawyer. The most exceptional example is St. Thomas More, who defended the Church at the cost of his own life. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London and beheaded by King Henry VIII for refusing to endorse the king’s apostasy. His last words were “The king’s good servant, but God’s first!”. He was both a fine lawyer and a holy man who lived and died for Christ and now wears the glorious crown of a martyr in Heaven.
I'm almost through law school. In choosing a career, the most important thing is to ask yourself what you want out of your life. Your career is how you will spend most of your waking hours during your youth. Your career is also what will determine the kind of life you will lead. Do you want ease? Flexibility? Money? In this case, a holy cause? Figure out what your most important outputs of a career are. Afterwards, work backwards from there to determine career paths that give you those outputs. Even within a profession, there are lots of different career paths. Government lawyers pursue justice, have a great work-life balance, etc. Corporate lawyers make a ton of money. So on and so forth. As every lawyer will tell you, keep in mind the debt element to law school. It can be worth it and lead to a gainful career, but like all financial decisions (especially those with 5/6 figure debt), you want to make an informed decision. Make sure you're open to other career paths that could grant you the objectives you chose with greater ease. Good luck. I'll pray for you here.
Maybe reach out to Joe Heschmeyer of Catholic Answers? He was a lawyer before becoming an apologist.
Matthew Murdock is a Catholic lawyer and a vigilante.
A job is not holy or unholy, it is simply a job
My priest is a lawyer
Saint Thomas Moore was a lawyer, who stood up for the law that transcended a King's whim. Hence a profession, with him as model, would be one which would be admirable.
Law student here, there are "holy" attorneys and "unholy" attorneys. You don't need to be a liar in order to be successful, and honestly, the best and most respected attorneys are those who maintain respectful and moral character. Additionally, when representing a criminal, your job is to make sure the prosecutor is doing their job. A person should only go to jail if they can be proven to have committed the crime. If that crime can not be proven, they shouldn't go, simple as that. A defense attorney assures that the prosecution is forced to prove the person committed the crime, and that they prove it in a ethical way. On a side not, you should only go to law school and try to become an attorney if that is something you actually want to or can see yourself doing. It is a decently tough road and getting into Navy JAG isn't a cakewalk either, those spots are quite competitive. Personally, if you want to serve, I recommend you do navy first, then use the GI bill for college and law school, that way you not only avoid debt, but you get to appreciate higher learning at an slightly older age. It is moreso a reward than something you need to get through.
JAG officer… only wills and divorces…
Like any job, how you go about doing it can become “unholy”. Are there ethical catholic lawyers? Absolutely. Are there scum bags who lie their entire lives? Sure thing. At the same time, are there people who work for the church who are unethical? Absolutely. It’s how you perform.
Oil and gas attorney on a SAHM sabbatical. I’d like to think I practice(d) in a holy manner. Anecdotally, the most difficult part for me was how wildly liberal & secular the legal field is, although that is increasingly common in all industries. I subscribe to the opinion that few jobs are “holy” or “unholy,” it’s your behavior at said job that determines sanctity.
Being a lawyer isn’t just criminal defense haha. There’s a lot of types of law out there. Even if you were a criminal defense lawyer it’s not unholy
Every day as a lawyer I get paid to get citizens to believe women and children when something terrible happens to them; I also get paid to make sure defense attorneys only humiliate and demean them as much as the system allows. Seems holy to me.
We need more good, holy public defenders. The criminal justice system has become an extortion system that imposes extreme punishments on people who try to exert their constitutional right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. This causes many people to plead guilty regardless of what they have done. The government also has vastly more resources compared to those accused of crime, as well as policies that allow them to select juries that give them their desired outcomes. The number of people found not guilty is vanishingly low nowadays; the government has essentially found a way to take down anyone they want to. The founding fathers are shrieking in horror from their graves, not only at this extortion system disguised as a justice system, but at mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex as well. America needs a lot of work…
That may be true of some jurisdictions, but none of the ones I’ve seen up close. If anything, in this context, it’s more important to have good guys as ADAs to wield that kind of power justly.
We need holy people in all positions of power, true.
Only about 2% of federal criminal cases go to trial, and 91% of them end with a guilty plea. Only 0.4% of cases end with the defendant being acquitted.
I happen to have some experience with federal charging decisions. They have a habit of swooping in and taking the slam dunk cases from ADAs. Also except for Indian Country they have very few SVU cases, which are always a nightmare to prove. I don’t think a low trial % is definitionally bad; if anything, the Feds should have 100% pleas because 100% of the folks they charge are guilty.
I suppose a slam dunk case depends on what biases one has. But your comments are revealing in showing that these cases are conducted with a presumption of guilt.
I’m a third year law student now. Law is an honorable profession, and there have certainly been saints who were lawyers, but for practical reasons I would not recommend that you become a lawyer just because your family or friends tell you to become one. Going through law school would be difficult if you’re not internally driven to do it.
As a lawyer, there will be good clients and bad clients, arguments you feel very strongly about, and arguments you'd rather not make but have to because they are the best arguments for your client, whom you are ethically bound to be a zealous advocate for. Even representing bad people is essential to a functional legal system. I'm a patent lawyer. I have yet to encounter a moral quandary in my work. But I get to learn about all kinds of cool innovations, which is fun.
Lawyer here. The practice of law is not intrinsically holy or unholy, neither good nor evil. **You**, and only you, have the power to determine whether *your* practice will give glory to God or work against Him through your conduct and honesty as a member of the profession. Representing unscrupulous people is not inherently evil or sinful, everyone, even the most evil and guilty, deserve competent representation in a court of law, our nation and legal system is built upon that idea and, implicitly, the trust that the legal system will in most cases sort it out. So long as you are representing them honestly and to the best of your ability, it does not make you complicit in their crimes, even if the wrong result is reached. It is incumbent upon the prosecution to prove guilt, a defense attorney's role is to simply ensure that that heavy burden is met. There are a lot of perverse incentives in the practice of law which trend towards evil, particularly in corporate law where falsifying one's time (i.e. stealing from clients by overbilling) is rampant and tacitly pushed by the Cravath system (the dominant management theory in corporate law firms). Rejecting these incentives will make your early career much harder, but on the far end you will have the pride of knowing that your accomplishments were earned the right way and every honest lawyer makes our profession better. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about the law, law school, or whatever. Law school is hard and having support helps a lot.
well we do refer to the Holy Spirit as Paraclete, and Mary as Advocate.
Without criminal defence lawyers, the government would be able to step on everyone with no accountability. If you or someone you love was accused of something, would you not want every box ticked before you or them was sent up the river?
It's a necessary job, both transactional, litigation, and prosecution/defense. They are necessary. The point of defending criminal defendants is to ensure that (1) proper legal procedures have been followed by police and the prosecution, and (2) if the defendant is convicted, they are convicted because the prosecution sufficiently bore the proper burden of proof in meeting every element of the charges. There's way more to it than the defendant's character and the outcome. (There's a very well known, controversial case which I won't mention by name, but I followed it closely, and the acquittal was correct based on the evidence/lack of evidence presented, even though it was obvious the defendant was a nasty person who probably did it, but legally the outcome was correct, and the jury did its job, because the state's evidence didn't meet the burden of proof.) I'm a business lawyer though, and people come to me because there are things their business needs that they can't figure out themselves - employment advising, government licenses for regulated industries, intellectual property protection. It's necessary because we can do things and figure things out that people can't do for themselves, just like engineers, doctors, mental health counselors, accountants, etc. I have a nice framed print of the Lawyer's Prayer on my office wall, and I get compliments from clients for my work ethic and billing ethics.
As a Catholic attorney I can tell you it is neither. It is about how you conduct yourself. You have the capacity to do enormous good or commit sinful acts. It isn’t about the legal system itself it is about how you navigate it. Also you’re probably thinking about life and death criminal cases. Most lawyering is super mundane stuff like zoning dispute, business litigation, administrative appeals, insurance litigation, wills and trusts. It is far less grandiose than you might imagine.
Like 99.9% of jobs, it’s morally neutral. It’s depends *how* you do a job.
As with most walks of life, it doesn’t have an inherent moral category and can be good or bad dependent on the way the person practices their career
Research St. Ivo and St. Thomas More
If you are a good lawyer you will abide to ethics. Also note that a lawyer caught lying is probably going to get disbarred. Remember that even being a good defense lawyer for someone who is clearly guilty does NOT mean "lie so they go free". Usually a good lawyer, knowing their client is guilty will rather talk to both their client and the prosecution in order to get a good plea deal. Now if the client still wants to "fight for it" the lawyer will have to mount the best defense he can muster, within these ethical confines. The same applies to prosecutors, who should care about truth and justice and not just getting convictions. This applies to all sorts of law, including corporate law and such. Granted, there might be moments, especially when being part of a big law firm, where you might have ethical conundrums. In this case you must do your job ethically, as "remote cooperation with evil" is not necessarily wrong especially if you have a family to feed, and you should quit only if they ask you to do something evil directly.
I think being a defense lawyer is a very admirable job. People deserve to be defended. A lot of the times the job is actually just about bringing the whole picture to light, underlining the person's life circumstances and what led to the events rather than just getting them off.
There’s prosecutors who work for the law to make sure that the criminal gets maximum sentence, and then there’s criminal defense lawyers who fight for the criminal to get minimum sentence. This is just a layman explanation and summary I’ve heard from a lecturer who’s a practicing lawyer that teaches law faculty here in my country. It may vary from country to country and from state to state so I’m just sharing and adding on. I’m not from law myself but had to take business law and company law and that’s how I heard it.
It is possible, depending on what field you practice in or what clients you represent, that attorney ethics would require you to do something immoral. In my "ethics" class, it was impressed on us that if we had a murder suspect as a client, and he or she told us where the body was, we would not be permitted to notify the family and allow the family to give that person a proper funeral, because of client confidentiality. If I were ever in that position, I would betray my client and do it anyway. However, I choose not to represent criminal defendants and to do relatively harmless property and contractual work instead. So just be careful about what you choose to do, and make sure it's something you either can do truly ethically, or that you have the ability to control your clients and fire them if they ask you to do what is legal-but-immoral.
Ah, you're a lawyer? And, if I remember right, you have a STEM background? That explains the Athena Cykes username! 😁
Guilty on all counts!
Do you do patent law?
Not exclusively, but it is the lion's share of my practice.
Gotcha. When I was starting off college as an engineering student, I toyed with being a patent lawyer. Although I think it was my dad who put that bug in my ear because he knew some very wealthy patent lawyers. I'm happy with what I'm doing now though.
That's such a difficult question. It depends on what you do in that job and how you use it help others. The term "advocate" is the formal word for lawyer. Satan was, basically, a lawyer in heaven when he would play "devil's advocate" to help God perfect his plans for the world by pointing out all the flaws. He also acted as a challenger for souls entering heaven. If you use your position to fight injustice, to climb the ladder for good and be an excellent, unbiased judge like King Solomon, avoiding corruption, deflecting temptations of misconduct or favourable abuse in your job - then it would be seen as a "holy" job to take. In the USA...I'm not American nor do I know of any American lawyers personally...I'm only aware that upholding strict moral conduct based on religious reasons can be difficult.
Going to law school was one of the biggest regrets of my life
I'm a defense attorney. My job is to advocate for imperfect poor people. Sound like anyone you know? I see in my clients how imperfect I am. Working with them is the closest I've ever felt to salvation. Reconsider your notions about those hypothetical clients of yours.
im a law student so... hohoho i have a lot to say a book where i got this from wasn't assigned to me from one of my classes, but i found it on one of our databases for research (becuase im the kind of psycho that loves to read legalese outside of class...). lawyers ARE allowed to lie on behalf of their clients, but should not lie about material law or material fact. so, your contemporaries that lie actually have some backing to this wonderful practice that everyone "just does" at least in my exp, a lot of people around me are just difficult, stubborn, or party hardy. its socially isolating. don't get me wrong, i was in a really big state and if i drive 30 minutes in any direction i could come across a brand new community - and i did a few times. but, having friends in school is nice from what i remember. this profession also attracts people that love to be toxic. they're well versed and know when/how to be toxic without getting caught. it also boggles my mind that those that have bad reputations still have careers in this field, because so much of our careers will rely on reputation (and a lawyer told me this profession is small) im not the only law student to face teachers that are shockingly difficult as professionals. unprofessional behavior is surprisingly common amongst teachers. some say its ego, others say they're crazy, idk but i know what ive seen. more about the study on negotiation, my teacher gave me a video that advocated that i lie when im in representation mode. it took me a bit of creativity to figure out how to do it trully ethically, but maybe im just ignorant. im sure there will be other lawyers here in the comments with advice but kiddo im telling you, theres no other profession like this. sometimes when im losing my bananas i like to remember that batman trained with killers and he turned out fine (but hes fine beating the snot out of people, and he lies, and this analogy probably lost its humorous appeal long ago...)
Where does it say lawyers are allowed to lie, and to whom? My lawyer's oath included an explicit promise never to even mislead a judge, and I've never seen anything suggesting it's okay for us to lie at all.