Look for the Goodness in Law
By Stephanie Wormleighton
I can still picture the first time I told a stranger that I wanted to go to law school. I was in a swanky San Francisco wine bar with a dutiful-but-bored alumnus of a local program, and he asked the natural networking question: why law school? I don’t remember exactly what I said first, but I do remember what I said second—I’ve repeated it many times since.
My first response was something lofty about social justice, systems affecting inequality, ensuring that those without resources, power, or connections had excellent legal representation. The somewhat jaded reply came: “Oh, so you care about fairness.” He was dismissive, and I heard my idealism on review. “No,” I responded, surprising myself with my clarity and forcefulness. “I care about goodness.”
I’m now halfway through my law degree. While juggling Zoom cold calls and remote internships and pandemic-hindered attempts to build community on campus, my desperation to see the goodness of God has only increased. It turns out I was almost prepared for the emotional and spiritual challenges of the classroom. “The law only comes in when things are going wrong,” my best friend told me during her own law school journey. “Every case you read has happened because something has broken down from the way it should be.” I knew this in theory, but the pain on the pages felt different in practice.
I sought out a Christian professor for advice a few weeks into my 1L criminal law course. I needed to know: How do I read these horrible cases and not either numb myself to the suffering and brokenness or descend into an intercessory pit of despair every few days? He encouraged me to remember that these cases are about real people, with real families, traumas, and survivors. He encouraged me to take the time to pray for the people involved in the heavier cases, knowing that we have a loving God who hears. Essentially, he encouraged me to remember Philippians 4:8.
I have worked with refugees seeking asylum after too many tragedies, with desperate renters unsure how they’ll survive the next few pandemic months, with parents doing everything in their power to get their little ones back home, with others navigating a confusing and demanding municipal court system threatening their money and freedom because of difficulties paying the bills. I have seen the anger and tears of uncertainty and fear. But I have also seen the hope that comes from a court date and kind counsel. I have seen faith, relief, joy, courage, and profound connection amidst the loss and stress of these situations. It reminds me to look for goodness even—and especially—when the broken realities are the easiest realities to see.
One of the most consistent corrective words I sense from God is “look up.” In law school, and I expect in law practice, looking up does not happen naturally. Either we plow forward with blinders on to get through the task before us or we actively “look down,” dwelling on everything that is wrong, difficult, and disappointing about the status quo. If the case or task before us is not outright lamentable, it’s often boring or confusing or tiring. Sure, there might be enough to get us through it. Good friends in the hallways. Good feedback from that externship. Another round of finals to work towards and through. A handful of beers on a Thursday night. That first paycheck from the summer job. But I wonder how often law students like me are limping through, in survival mode, holding on to some hope that the next season will be better or easier or at least more financially secure. I wonder what would happen if we looked up. What would happen if we beheld the true, noble, right (also translated just), pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy God who’s always issuing an invitation for connection? How would we see the law, our clients, our classmates, ourselves, and even God differently?
In many of my classes, we talk through policy concerns, those strategic tradeoffs animating judges’ and legislatures’ decisions about how the law will work. Fairness and equity are often front and center, sometimes actively lauded and sometimes taken for granted as a core consideration. But when I think about fairness, that resolve I recall from my cocktail party conversation still gives me pause. Because in my Christian worldview, I’m not left with a version of justice that demands an eye in exchange for an eye, a death sentence for the most egregious wrong. No, the justice that I know is a challenging and profoundly merciful version. That justice looks like carrying the soldier’s pack two miles, like Jesus looking in Peter’s eyes and charging him to feed his sheep, like the adulteress left unaccused by those unable to cast the first stone, like the thief on the cross diverted to paradise instead. To me, justice looks far more like the goodness I’ve seen modeled by Jesus than the fairness we have settled for in the law.
This is why I find Philippians 4:8 to be so crucial in the study and practice of law. As those who are entrusted to work with the vulnerable, distressed, and brokenhearted, we have the special task of looking up, of orienting toward what is good and true and lovely—even in the quagmire. The law has relatively few right-and-wrong, black-and-white answers. Instead, lawyers must read, must wrestle, and must think. In this thinking, we must remember to think about these things that situate us in the goodness of God, knowing that it is faith, hope, and love that ultimately remains.
Stephanie Wormleighton is the Systems Coordinator for The Carver Project and a second year law student at Washington University in St. Louis.