Is it possible to be a serious Catholic and at the same time a successful lawyer?
A group of about 24 attorneys at Holy Family in St. Louis Park asked themselves that question last year and decided to meet monthly and search for answers. They call themselves the Tower Society, a reference to the Tower of London where St. Thomas More, the patron saint of lawyers, demonstrated his unwavering commitment to God’s law, a stance which cost him his life.
The Tower Society’s members said they face many challenges these days, including a contentious professional environment that often has little room for the virtues of mercy and charity. Artful advocacy can take precedence over a search for truth, and frequently success requires long days pursuing billable hours and searching for new clients.
Tower Society member Jennifer Bullard, 38, acknowledges these challenges, but believes Catholic attorneys have an even higher hill to climb. “A Catholic lawyer generally prioritizes family and Church, which does not always align well with the race for success in the legal arena.”
Tensions involving hot-button social issues have also increased in recent years, according to some members. Peter Favorite, 51, said that a number of Catholic lawyers have told him of law firm pressure “to regulate the very words coming out of their mouths — the pronouns they use for fellow lawyers — in a manner that does not correspond with the Catholic view that there is a ‘givenness’ to our bodies.” Bullard mentioned her law firm’s recent widespread praise, initiated by firm leadership, of a lawyer’s pro bono work to “correct” a birth certificate to reflect an individual’s preferred sex. Tower Society members agree that dissent from secular orthodoxies on abortion, gay marriage, and LGBT issues is becoming increasingly difficult.
Challenges like these can bring an increasing sense of isolation. “Accepting a degree of persecution or disapproval is certainly part of our faith,” observed Bullard, “but the reality is that we are made for work, and Catholic lawyers are finding joy in our work more and more elusive.”
Attorney William Bullard, 38, Jennifer’s husband, summed up the challenge this way: Tower Society members were drawn together “to strengthen our collective Catholic backbone.”
At some Tower Society meetings, guest speakers reflect on how the Catholic intellectual and social tradition can inform members’ professional work. Topics have included how Catholic lawyers might answer Pilate’s question: “What is truth?”; define the “common good”; and understand ways that Catholic social teaching intersects with efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.
Other gatherings are priest-led “Catholic Boot Camps” that focus on members’ spiritual formation. This is vitally important to successfully navigating an increasingly secularized workplace, said Father Joseph Johnson, pastor of Holy Family. Lawyers are highly educated in their professional fields, Father Johnson said, but he often finds that “their catechesis ended in eighth grade.”
At the Society’s March meeting, members spent several hours trading stories of workplace challenges. Though many described the problems in stark terms, “we decided we needed something more than an end-to-end pity party,” noted Jennifer Bullard. “We came searching for glimmers of hope and strategies for thriving in our profession.”
Some members emphasized that cultivating excellent legal skills goes a long way to securing one’s status at a firm. Tower Society member Nick Nelson, 40, agreed, and pointed out the importance of viewing excellence more broadly. “The Catholic attorney who is successful in attracting work and clients to the firm will make himself critical to the firm’s financial success and grease the skids for his acceptance,” he said.
William Bullard stressed the importance of building strong relationships with colleagues. “An important strategy for success and joy as a Catholic lawyer is simply being the best human being you can be with other lawyers at the firm,” he remarked. “Show a willingness to listen, engage in civil conversation, and pay attention to the little things — inviting coworkers to lunch who may never have stepped foot in a church before, sending a condolence or congratulations note regarding an important event in a partner’s personal life.” At the same time, said William, “let them know Catholicism’s importance to your life. You may find some surprising friends and allies in the workplace, even among some who strongly disagree with you on religious matters.”
Favorite pointed out that fellow firm members who’ve read only unfavorable accounts of Catholics in the secular media “are astounded when they find in you a joyful, multi-faceted Catholic, and are often interested to learn more about the ground for that joy.” Favorite remarked that when Catholics have expressed genuine care and interest in others at his workplace this has even led to some former skeptics he knows entering the Church.
Several Tower Society members said it is sometimes necessary to consider making dramatic changes. Nelson decided to leave a large, prestigious law firm and join a firm where he could better harmonize his professional life and his vocations as a Catholic husband and father. His new firm allows him time to assist in homeschooling his 10 children. He is also able to focus now on his professional and business development activities in many of the same church- and homeschool-related communities to which he already belongs.
Nelson acknowledges that Catholic lawyers face challenges. But he said they also have a unique capacity to promote the common good.
“In our fractured society, we increasingly see only caricatures of those with whom we disagree,” Nelson said. “But good lawyers know a key to legal success is to fully understand the other side’s point of view — finding the ‘steelman’ in the other side’s view of a matter rather than the ‘strawman.’” Catholic lawyers who can achieve such complete understanding of their opponents in the courtroom “have a special ability and responsibility to bring that skill to bear on the non-legal divisions that bedevil our world,” he said.
Johnson, a Twin Cities writer, is a member of the Tower Society.
To learn more about the Tower Society and discuss how such a group might be started at any parish, contact Mark Johnson at mjjohnson7993@gmail.com.
