As a Christian law student my aspirations of practicing law were rooted in the desire to help other people. To me nothing felt nobler than becoming a successful attorney who devoted his practice to defending those in need of help.
As my law school career matured and I drew closer to the day that I would be a licensed attorney I felt myself pulled more and more toward the practice of family law.
I had assisted other attorneys in both criminal defense and family law, however, criminal defense did not suit my inner desire to enrich people’s lives. I felt I was simply helping people stay out of trouble and preventing them from learning lessons from the mistakes they made. Maybe I was in some way making their lives worse by holding them back from any meaningful change they would learn if only I had not helped them avoid punishment for their bad decisions.
However, family law was a practice area where I had the freedom to pick and choose my clients and ensure that I only represented the “good guy.”
The only issue was that the most significant portion of family law cases consisted of divorce. This was a moral struggle for me in the beginning. Is this where God wanted me to be?
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