Confessions of a Lawyer in Transformationland

Mike Sarahan

   The other day somebody asked me to explain how I got from the legal world to the Conflict Transformation Program. I gave my standard joke in response: "I ran away, and they haven't found me yet." The truth, though, is that it's been five months and nobody has even been looking for me, so maybe I have to start explaining things in a different way.

   What if I say that I came out of the closet - literally. I look at the lineup of suits hanging in my closet, and I already think, "That seems like another place, another world, a long time ago." But it is where I come from.

   I have been a lawyer for 20 years. When I graduated from law school, I clerked for two years for the federal district court judges in Richmond. Then, along with a more experienced partner, I opened up my own law practice. We kept that going for two years, had a lot of fun and interesting adventures, and made very little money. Eventually I got a new job, working at the Office of the City Attorney in Richmond. Right off it felt like I had really found my niche in the world of public service.

   At the City Attorney's Office, we handled the government side of the City business and the business side of the City government. Just so long as I did not have to handle criminal prosecutions, that was all fine by me. I represented the City of Richmond and individual City employees when they were sued in civil cases, and we were sued a lot. I didn't have to worry about having enough to keep me busy.

   I also got a chance to work on ideas and issues that came before the Richmond City Council, our local legislative governing body. I drafted ordinances and resolutions requested by the City Council members and sometimes get explained and defended a particular legislative approach. I especially enjoyed the research activity, background checking and debating that went on behind-the-scenes. I have to admit, too, I enjoyed the feel and the thrill of the political world. I liked seeing the things I worked on played up in the newspaper, except if things had not turned out the best - nobody liked reading the paper that day.

   I was a thoroughly unrepentant lawyer early on. I was active with the Richmond Bar Association, and I looked forward to the chances to attend professional gatherings. There was always a lot of camaraderie, cheerful rivalry, not-so-cheerful rivalry, and trading "war stories." I got to serve as the Chairman of the Young Lawyers Section of the Bar Association back in 1989-1990 (at a time when there were 700 young lawyers and I was just about to turn "old.") That has been featured prominently on my resume ever since.

   At the office, things had their ups and downs as always, and then we had a real political makeover in the mid-'90s. I hung in there after my boss lost his job, and I got to be the Acting City Attorney for a stretch in 1994-1995. I was offered the City Attorney job in the funny, back channel, indirect, untraceable way that is typical of City Hall dealings. I indicated I was not interested for two reasons: 1) our younger son was born with a multitude of disabilities, and I had already dropped most outside activities to try to help with the care he needed; and 2) as far back as 1991, I began to sense a vague but very real pull, or a "call" as I took it, away from the practice of law.

   I can't say exactly what led me away from the legal world to where I am at the moment. The best I could come up with for the essay required by the CTP application form is this: "The way I see it, a lot of different experiences, thoughts, disappointments, dreams, frustrations, and prayers have led me in the direction of the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University." I left out the word "failures" the first time around, but it should be safe to add it in now.

   Many of the frustrations and disappointments I experienced were with the legal system itself. It is a logic system that, at times, defies logic. I have come to see the courts working in many instances as deflector shields, operating to protect and preserve the interests of those powerful enough, connected enough and smart enough to work the system. In order to keep yourself from harm in the legal system, not only do you have to know all the technicalities and nuances of the system, you have to observe and act upon each and every one, even before you have a clue that you have a problem. Something is backwards here from the way most people live their lives.

   I don't blame the judges, who seem to catch a lot of the fallout at critical times. It's the system they have inherited; it's the system that calls them to carry on its traditions. One thing this brings back to mind is a view I had from my window in City Hall, looking over at the courthouse, diagonally across the intersection. Just before 10:00 most mornings, I would see one of the judges making his way into his courtroom through a back entrance. The back hallway was visible from the street because the exterior wall was glass, or at least something you could see through. Over several years, I saw the morning scene repeated and repeated, truly like clockwork, the judge being escorted by his bailiff into the courtroom. Over time I began to feel sorry for the judge, like he was the one "being led" into the courtroom for whatever the day's docket might hold in store. In a sense, the judge's fate was being decided each day too.

   I began to judge my activities, and myself, more from a moral and spiritual perspective. Of course, I came up short too. Passages from the Bible, especially from the Psalms, began to sound like indictments - or at least inside jokes - about the things I thought were so important and the work I was doing.A good example is Psalm 19, singing out the Lord's praises:

The law of the Lord is perfect,
refreshing the soul.
The decree of the Lord is trustworthy,
giving wisdom to the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart.

   You can imagine how this made me feel when the ordinances and laws I was working on were so humanly imperfect, sometimes imperfect in design, sometimes imperfect in motivation. I laugh just in thinking about all the typographical errors that inevitably crept into my ordinance drafts.

   Our legal system may well be the best that man has ever devised. Still, I think that there is a better way. There must be a better way. Who can say that our legal system refreshes the soul? Or gives wisdom to the simple? Or rejoices the heart?

   I am convinced that the legal system is in most cases the least responsive and least effective tool for both social change and individual protection. The law is a lot like the moon. It has its shining moments, but it also has a big dark side. It serves up a cold, hard-edged justice of sorts, but I seriously doubt it is the system that Jesus will use when He comes back. How long?

   All that gives me another way to explain how I got here! I've come around the dark side of the moon, searching for some light. I'll go with that explanation for today at least. Tomorrow I may have another.

Michael Sarahan commutes two hours to CTP from his home in Richmond. He's never been seen in a suit!