Formation

Beginning in January 2023, fellows will participate virtually in academic seminars that take place once a month for seven months (ending in July 2023). As seminar leader Luke Macik explained at the launch of The Good Counselor Project, fellows “will encounter the great books of literature, philosophy, history, and perhaps even mathematics (as Lincoln encountered Euclid’s Elements of Geometry when he was practicing law) that formed Western Civilization.” Reading selections will include, but are not limited to:

-The Iliad, by Homer
-Antigone, by Sophocles
-Plato and Aristotle
-Dante’s Inferno
-St. Paul the Apostle
-St. Augustine of Hippo
-St. Thomas Aquinas
-St. John Henry Newman

Service

As part of The Good Counselor Project, fellows will also be automatically enrolled in Napa Legal’s GCP Network, where they are afforded the opportunity to contribute to Napa Legal’s growing library of nonprofit resources and work directly with spiritual entrepreneurs to empower evangelization. The average GCP Network term is 2 years, during which fellows are asked to complete 3 points of engagement. To learn more about engagement, please visit Napa Legal's GCP Network page.

Community

The launch of this project is partly in recognition that the success and integrity of faith-based institutions depends on the legal professionals who lead and form such institutions. The ability to do this work requires several years of advanced education, certification, and experience. The specialized, technical nature of the educational path to law practice can be divorced from formation in the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, leading to the creation of what C.S. Lewis described as “men without chests”; i.e., individuals who are conditioned to believe—by virtue of their technocratic training—that truth is relative, the good is subjective, and what is beautiful is merely sentimental. Lewis writes how “in a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” The Good Counselor Project addresses this challenge by focusing on the humane formation of practicing attorneys. By participating in The Good Counselor Project, early-career attorneys will receive professional, personal, and faith formation through the Good Counselor Project lectures and Capstone retreat which will be held in 2023.