Professor Jennifer Koh, Christian Lawyers in the Public Interest and Outside the Political Right -- BYU Law Review (forthcoming)

Professor Jennifer Lee Koh's article, Christian Lawyers in the Public Interest and Outside the Political Right, (SSRN) will be published in the BYU Law Review (forthcoming 2026). The article explores how Christian public interest lawyers outside the political right navigate the legal profession, social justice and faith. 

Abstract of Christian Lawyers in the Public Interest and Outside the Political Right

This Article provides an empirically-based portrait of a population that is typically hidden from the public eye and has received scant attention in legal scholarship:  Christian lawyers who engage in public interest work that falls outside the political right.  Throughout the legal profession, lawyers who treat their Christian faith as a component of their professional identity and who actively endorse a politically conservative worldview are visible and active.  With such lawyers’ increased prominence, growing political polarization, and reports of an overall decline in religiosity in the United States, the prospect of Christianity being perceived as synonymous with political conservatism seems greater than ever.  And yet Christian teaching famously calls on its followers to care for the poor, protect the vulnerable, and seek justice for the oppressed.  Where, then, does this leave Christian lawyers who engage in public interest work not associated with conservative causes? Who are they, and what factors might explain their relative invisibility? Beyond visibility, how does faith impact their public interest pursuits? How do they navigate tensions related to the politicization of Christianity?

Through semi-structured interviews with over thirty such individuals, this Article seeks to answer the questions posed above and explore how Christian public interest lawyers outside the political right navigate the legal profession, social justice and faith.  The findings suggest that Christianity operates as a strong motivating influence for those lawyers to enter and remain in public interest work. Unlike their counterparts on the right, they lack infrastructure or resources to support the integration of their professional and faith identities.  They often feel out of place in Christian contexts—and to a lesser degree, in secular professional ones.  They have adopted a range of responses to respond to the dissonance between their faith and justice commitments, particularly with respect to how and whether they engage with Christian conservatives and the extent to which they publicly express their faith.  These findings call for renewed conversations about how institutions devoted to public interest work can engage with spiritual faith, and vice versa, while acknowledging the challenges of alienation, politicization and partisanship.