The Servant Lawyer
IVP Academic, 2024
By Robert F. Cochran Jr.
WHO: Robert F. Cochran Jr., Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law Emeritus at Pepperdine University and senior fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.
HE SAYS: “Lawyers can have a significant social and personal impact for good, and thereby love their neighbor and, ultimately, God.”
THE BIG IDEA: This book offers a detailed vision of how lawyers can love and serve their neighbors through their work—the connection between Christian faith and what ordinary lawyers do.
THE PROGRESSION: In Chapter 1, “The Client: ‘This Person God Has Brought into My Life,’” the author looks at why and how lawyers should serve their clients. Chapters 2 through 5 examines the tasks lawyers assume: advocate, peacemaker, builder, trustee, prosecutors, defenders and counselors.
Chapter 6, “Lawyers as Prophets and Advocated for ‘the Least of These,’” explores ways everyday lawyers can serve the needs of underserved people. The book concludes with “The Moral and Spiritual Challenges of Law School and Law Practice,” a chapter that considers the moral challenges of law school and law practice, with a special focus on risks to the heart.
“The great social good that lawyers do is to uphold the rule of law.”
