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The inaugural fellowship of The Good Counselor Project is open for application.
Join a select cohort of fellows to study the cardinal, civic, and theological virtues of the Western tradition.
Beginning in January 2022, fellows will participate virtually in academic seminars that take place once a month for seven months (ending in July 2022). 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
…and more!
As part of The Good Counselor Project, fellows will also be automatically enrolled in one of Napa Legal’s 12 Working Groups, 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 Working Group 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 Working Group page.
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.
Napa Legal is now accepting applications for its inaugural cohort of The Good Counselor Project.
The application period will now close on Monday, December 6, at 11:59 p.m. EST.
Successful candidates will be notified of their acceptance on or before Friday, December 10—at which point they will be mailed their reading materials for the program, with seminars beginning in January of 2022 and concluding in July of that same year.
Attorneys who have been practicing law for five years or less. Candidates with a background in transactional law and a demonstrated interest in issues related to religious liberty are strongly preferred. This program is designed from the Catholic perspective for participants of all faith traditions.
Seminar Leader
Leading the academic seminars for The Good Counselor Project is Mr. Luke Macik. Mr. Macik is headmaster of The Lyceum, a classical Catholic academy, where he has served since 2009. He has taught a wide variety of subjects including introductory Latin and Greek, literature, classical science, philosophy, sacramental theology, and Euclidean geometry.
