Martin Luther King Jr. and the Morality of Legal Practice Lessons in Love and Justice

This book seeks to reframe our understanding of the lawyer's work by exploring how Martin Luther King, Jr built his advocacy on a coherent set of moral claims regarding the demands of love and justice in light of human nature. King never shirked from staking out challenging claims of moral truth, even while remaining open to working with those who rejected those truths. His example should inspire the legal profession as a reminder that truth-telling, even in a society that often appears morally balkanized, has the capacity to move hearts and minds. At the same time, his example should give the profession pause, for King's success would have been impossible without his substantive views about human nature and the ends of justice. This book is an effort to reframe our conception of morality's relevance to professionalism through the lens provided by the public and prophetic advocacy of Dr King.

1. Human dignity: lawyers as (more than) technicians; 2. Agape: lawyers as subjects; 3. Personalism: lawyers as healers; 4. Justice: lawyers as prophets; 5. Realism: lawyers as fallen.

Robert K. Vischer is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of St Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis. He is the author of Conscience and the Common Good: Reclaiming the Space Between Person and State (2010). His scholarship explores the intersection of law, religion and public policy, with a particular focus on the religious and moral dimensions of professional identity.