With Monica Goodling, the former Justice Department White House Liaison and graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regent University Law School, preparing to testify before the House Judiciary Committee this week over her role in the firing of several US Attorneys, the Chicago Tribune decided to take a look at the late Jerry Fallwell’s Liberty University, which is likewise “training a new generation of lawyers, judges, educators, policymakers and world leaders in law from the perspective of an explicitly Christian worldview":
Bright and enthusiastic ranks of conservative Christians of all denominations are enrolling in these new law schools. Their unabashed goal: to "confront the culture," as Falwell put it, and "change the world," as Regent's motto proclaims.
Matthew Krause, among Liberty's first law graduates, is one of them.
"I think we've complained too long about the destruction of our culture without taking any affirmative steps to remedy it," said the lanky, 26-year-old Texan. "We don't want abortion, but what are we doing about it? Let's get into the courts and find a way to combat that. Same-sex marriage we don't feel is right or a good thing for the culture. How are we going to stop that? You have to do that through the legal processes. Then, at the same time, vote in politicians who share those ideas and beliefs."
In a dark brown suit, blue-striped shirt and blue and brown striped tie, Krause already dresses like an attorney. But he also has the big smile, firm handshake and outgoing personality of the kind of politician he ultimately hopes to be.
"I've got this crazy goal to be the governor by 2022," he said, with the confidence of one who doesn't consider the idea the least bit crazy.
But first, Krause will return to Texas with his wife, Jennie, and newborn son, Jeremiah, to open a Dallas office for Liberty Counsel, a plum job for a Liberty law graduate.
Partnering with Liberty University, Liberty Counsel is a non-profit organization offering free legal assistance in the areas of "religious liberty, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family." The organization was founded in Florida in 1989 by Mathew Staver, who became dean of the university's law school last year. Top Liberty law students have the opportunity to work on pro bono cases, many of them dealing with constitutional issues.
The number of cases involving religious rights or the traditional family are on the rise, a trend consonant with the increased participation of Christian lawyers in the last decade, Staver said. And, he said, he discovered that "when we showed up, we could win."
While Liberty has not yet matched Regent’s record of getting some 150 of its graduates hired by the Bush administration, that is not stopping it from setting even loftier goals:
Fisher said four Liberty graduates will clerk for judges, one at the appellate level. Such jobs pave the way to a clerkship with the U.S. Supreme Court and beyond, said Staver, a fact of which Falwell was well aware.
"We'd be pleased if we trained up a John Roberts and a Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas and an Antonin Scalia," Falwell told the Tribune, with a wide smile. "We'd feel like we hit a home run."
