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Christian Precepts in the Common Law The Catholic Lawyer Volume 7 Number 4 Volume 7, Autumn 1961, Number 4 Article 4 Christian Precepts in the Common Law John G. Hervey Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/tcl Part of the Catholic Studies Commons, and the Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Catholic Lawyer by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CHRISTIAN PRECEPTS IN THE COMMON LAWt JOHN G. HERVEY* BRING YOU THE GREETINGS of the official family of the American Bar Association and of the Section of Legal Education and Admis- sions of that Association in whose cause I have labored for almost fourteen years. Those of us who are familiar with your institution share -with you the pride in your accomplishments during the past decade. We are as thrilled as you are by your plans for even greater excellency. I come now to address myself to a subject which has intrigued me for many years. Bear in mind please that what I now have to say is strictly personal. The ideas I propose to advance today have not been submitted to the Council for consideration. It is simply that your speaker has labored in the vineyard of legal education for more than thirty years. He has certain fixations which he believes are entitled to merit and he now shares them with you. But these fixations are not intended, in any manner, to reflect the views of the Council of the Section or of the American Bar Association. Some years ago I expressed the thought that the Church-related law schools of America should be different from secular institutions - that such schools unlike those which are supported out of legislative appro- priations, in training the lawyers of the future, should consciously synthesize the Christian precepts with knowledge of the law and with professional responsibility. It has been my practice each summer to peruse the catalogues of the approved law schools and my readings disclosed no substantial differences between the programs offered in the various law schools, i.e., whether Church-related, public-related, or independent. In some of the metropolitan areas, wherein law schools of all types are operated, the catalogue statements disclosed no differences in the stated objectives of the several schools. True it is that .the words have not been the same, but the stated aims could not have been more identical if the deans of the several schools had exchanged drafts prior to publication. t The following is the text, in part, of an address delivered at the 1961 Law Day Banquet of Saint Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas. * Dean and Professor of Law, Oklahoma City University Law School. 7 CATHOLIC LAWYER, AUTUMN 1961 There are reasons for some identity of the cynicism and moral indifferentism objectives irrespective of the type of insti- which pervade much law teaching in the tutional attachment. There is the obvious secular institutions. The faculty members time pressure with which both lawyers and can, even now, delineate and underline law schools are all too familiar. There is the Christian foundations of the common an ever-expanding range of technical sub- law which they now teach. The excuse that ject matter that must be covered within the "time does not permit" or that "bar exam time period allotted to law study. The subjects have precedence" is wholly unac- three-year program for full-time students ceptable to me. Every law teacher in every and the four-year program for part-time law school, non-secular as well as secular, evening students have become fairly stand- could, if he would exert himself, infuse the ardized throughout the law school world Christian precepts into every course pres- with a departure from standard practice in ently taught in the law schools. only a few institutions. The time limitation And now, with that off my chest, to re- and the lengthening range of materials to turn to my theme. Seven years ago I said be covered have been discussed and redis- that I believed firmly that every Church- cussed in formal meetings of law school related law school owes an obligation to people. Few schools, however, have been its sponsoring parent, to the profession, so bold as to venture forth on extended and to the public to be served, to empha- programs. size the Christian precepts which are back A concomitant of the limited time factor of the common law. The matter has been has been the specification of bar examina- taken seriously by the faculties in a few of tion subjects in the rules governing admis- the schools. In the reshaping and imple- sion to practice in the several states. Since mentation of their objectives, they have the traditional law school program is given heed to the exhortation of Saint geared to the preparation of graduates for Thomas More that "we cannot desire what immediate entrance into the practice of we do not know nor can man achieve what law, the curriculum planners, in every law he does not understand." school, have perforce had to keep in mind In the Spring, 1961 issue of The Catho- the "bar exam hurdle." lic Lawyer, published by the St. Thomas If you will indulge me an aside, I shall More Institute for Legal Research of St. return immediately to my theme. I would John's University School of Law, there is like to say that I do not acknowledge the a provocative article styled "Society Chal- validity of the argument, made by some lenges The Lawyer" by Vice Dean Theo- Church-related law school teachers, that dore H. Husted, Jr. of the University of the time limitations and the bar examina- Pennsylvania Law School which merits a tion hurdles make it virtually impossible careful reading by every law school teacher. for a Church-related law school to be dif- He states the problem thusly: ferent from a secular school. In teaching Members of our profession are largely re- the bar examination subjects within the sponsible for our political and constitu- traditional three-year and four-year pro- tional heritage based upon the existence grams, a law faculty in a Church-related of a rational order of truth and justice school, can, with the will to do it, avoid which man did not create, but which he CHRISTIAN PRECEPTS could discover. From this tradition the the law schools have not delineated and founding fathers drew the concepts of free- underscored the relationship of our inher- dom under law, of justice, of human equal- ited legal principles and the Christian pre- The ity, of representation and of consent. cepts of justice and human worth. legal profession can be justly proud of this is much that the law schools, es- contribution, but pride in this genesis does There not excuse us from the obligation of stew- pecially the Church-related ones, can do ardship. If our profession sired our consti- about it. Each law teacher can place the tutional system, we have all the more emphasis where he pleases in each course. obligation to see to it that it works -that He can develop or ignore the Christian your nation does not lose sight of those precepts. He can present the law as the self-evident principles upon which it was founded. In carrying out our obligations product of economics or of history or of of client loyalty, we must not ignore the sociology. He also can show it to be right fact that there is a law beyond the letter of reason in an attempt to promote justice a statute, beyond the doctrine of stare de- among God's highest creations. In evalu- cisis, to which we and they are subject. If ating legal problems yet to be solved the our loyalty to our clients and our pride in our technical skills cause us to lose sight teacher can proceed cynically, casuistically of justice and social responsibility, we breed or purposively. If he proceeds purposively, contempt for law. We ask the public to his starting point can be the natural law or show respect for law and lawyers while we Freudianism, Marxism, Existentialism or depreciate our currency or peddle shoddy any of the other fads of thought. under the label of law. merchandise The highest work and most challenging Dr. John Wu, distinguished professor of task today facing any Church-related law law at Seton Hall University, has well said: faculty is to inquire and judge as to each It is no exaggeration to say that Anglo- course: What are the relationships of the American Jurisprudence - the Common chief problems of this course to Christian Law of England before the 19th and the precepts? How can the course content be Common Law of America since the 18th infused with Christian concepts? What - the spirit of century is permeated with fixed legal doctrines, to be covered in this Christianity to a greater degree than any law and ethi- other system of law except Canon Law. course, contravene the moral You will find dark spots here and there; cal values? What can be done in this course but where the Common Law is at its best, to bring the law back to the point where you feel that Christ Himself would have the Christ, if present, would smile on the smiled upon its judgments. judgments in this field? Mayhaps your reaction is: "Well, Her- Believe me when I say that the field is vey, so what? What can the law schools do ripe.
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