SAR Snapshot: The Servant Lawyer
A new book by Professor Robert Cochran tackles the challenges and opportunities for Christians in legal practice
Bob Cochran is a law professor who spent most of his career at Pepperdine Law School. He has recently published a new book, The Servant Lawyer: Facing the Challenges of Christian Faith in Everyday Law Practice. Drawing from experience in the law office, the courtroom, and the classroom, Professor Cochran shares practical insights for Christians seeking to be faithful in their legal work and the rest of their lives.
I was honored to write the foreword to Professor Cochran’s new book. Here is a portion of what I wrote:
In its most streamlined form, Professor Cochran’s sage advice boils down to the Great Commandment: love God and love neighbor. Loving God anchors lawyers in their vocational purpose to pursue the things of God and to participate in the restoration of a broken creation. Loving neighbor reminds lawyers to attend to the people around them as they go about that work—other image bearers who are themselves often broken, tired, lonely, or afraid. As Professor Cochran reminds us, lawyers not only speak with wise and persuasive words but also act as counselors, advocates, peacemakers, and reconcilers. These responsibilities emerge within specific roles like corporate advisor, prosecutor, defense attorney, public interest advocate, commercial litigator, and law professor.
As this book’s title suggests, lawyers are also servants. They are known for how they treat others: their clients, their adversaries, their coworkers, and their subordinates. Professor Cochran reminds us throughout this book the ways that lawyers serve the people they encounter, whether through the power of their profession or the kindness of their ordinary acts. His illustrative stories from his own career as a lawyer and professor model servant lawyering and offer a guide for practitioners who may encounter similar situations.
Professor Cochran also connects a new generation of readers to recently retired or recently departed exemplars of Christian lawyering such as Tom Shaffer, John Noonan, John Nagle, Joseph Allegretti, and Mary Ann Glendon. The collective wisdom of these writers has shaped generations of lawyers who seek to love God and love neighbor in the ways that they practice, teach, and adjudicate law. Professor Cochran’s fresh engagement with their work ensures that we will continue to learn from them.
I end my foreword by noting my personal gratitude for Professor Cochran’s life and work. I hope those of you in the law or considering law school will similarly benefit from his wisdom.
Next week’s Some Assembly Required post will be a special Tuesday edition, featuring an except from my new book. I hope you enjoy the preview!
Thank you, John , for your thoughtful and encouraging words this morning. I am looking forward to Tuesday’s excerpt.
It sounds like an interesting book. As pointed out by Tom Holland (the historian), but there is a strong argument to be made that the very notion of the rule of law (& law as we know it) is largely dependent on the implicit assumptions that come with Christianity. While secularism (at least in the West) is a sort of Christian-secularism, it still stands that the legal profession (as much as any other) requires faithful Christian witness.
Thomas Morus, ora pro nobis.