Becoming a Better Lawyer

I just had a birthday. In my younger days, my birthday was cause for celebration of what I believed would be an exciting future. However, I recently have begun to use the occasion to reflect upon my past and the many turning points in my life, all culminating in the who and what I have come to be. Although I still look to an exciting future still to be experienced, I do so with greater circumspection, realizing that I cannot disregard or dismiss my past if I am to fully engage in my future.

My law school dean and mentor, the late and legendary Angus S. McSwain, once said that human character is built up of the innumerable and apparently insignificant choices a person must make in the course of a lifetime. "It is not the work of a minute, or a week, or a year," he said. "The going is rough. But every day, as we make decisions that seem small and unimportant, we are fitting together the pieces of the pattern which will show the picture of our real self."

As I reflect upon those choices that I have made in my life which seemed at the time to be small and insignificant, the result of their cumulative effect is humbling, and I am bound to acknowledge the fact that God has used my choices - even those improvidently and unwisely made - to place me in a position to be of service to Him and to His people. And I must admit that I never intended to design a plan for my life that would place me in the position in which I now find myself. My plan was to create for myself a certain level of financial security. Rich and famous would have been nice, but I was willing to settle for "comfortable". The thought of being of any meaningful service to God and to His people never entered my mind.

When I decided that I would become a lawyer, I labored under the common misconception that all lawyers are wealthy, and although many of us earn above-average incomes, the truth is that lawyers are no different from most people who are trying to make a living. Although I have been blessed with what some might call "success" in my career, I have undergone many of the same struggles experienced by many others - mostly due to my many improvident and unwise decisions that I previously mentioned.

The miracle is that the struggles I have experienced have been the instrument by which I discovered that there is more to life than acquiring wealth and financial security. That is not to say that financial security is an unworthy goal. Instead, my quest for it must be tempered by my acknowledgment of the fact that I am under a greater obligation to seek and do what I believe God would have me do, and that performing His work should be my first priority. And when my priorities are properly placed, I find fulfillment that transcends any financial security that I might achieve through the accumulation of wealth.

I must admit that I still struggle with the almost overpowering compulsion to try to increase my own wealth. But as the birthdays come and go, and as these times of reflection are put to good use, I am becoming much better at recognizing and doing that which I am called to do, and as I improve upon that, I become a much better lawyer.

R. David Weaver