Keywords
religion, mediation, legal practice, vocation, retributive justice, restorative justice
Abstract
This Essay asserts that the practice of law is experiencing a spiritual crisis at both the personal and professional level. The Essay seeks to determine the role that the crisis in our paradigms has played in the crisis our personal and institutional lives. Although the crisis in our paradigms are not necessarily responsible for all our problems, our institutions and systems can cause us to be estranged from ourselves and that is what is happening today in the practice of law. We, as a profession, are beginning to see the limitations of our old paradigm, with retributive justice as its base, and the promise of newly emerging paradigms, which move towards restorative justice. These new paradigms have the potential to bring us back to our professional roots and to a clearer understanding of the divine purpose of law.
Recommended Citation
Thomas W. Porter, Jr.,
The Spirit and the Law ,
26 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1155
(1999).
Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol26/iss4/7