Paige Thombus (PhD Candidate, University of Victoria, Canada): Called to the Bar: Religious Lawyers in the Secular Practice of Law

Location: HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences

Date: 2025 April 3. 10:00-12:00

The research explores the relationship between religious identity and legal practice. It begins with a very basic research question, “From the perspective of religious lawyers, how do religion and religious identity shape the experiences, values, and practices of those who are engaged in the practice, teaching, and study of Canadian Common Law?” While this question yields generous information on the day-to-day practice of religious lawyers, conversations were far more nuanced and in-depth.  The objective of the project is fivefold:

1. to identify and explain the ways in which faith and/or religious identity informs some or all aspects of lawyering for religious lawyers
2. to understand the ways in which legal professional ethics (e.g., the Federation of Law Societies of Canada’s [FLSC] Model Code of Professional Ethics) and legal duties—(e.g., fiduciary duty and zealous advocacy) might conflict with or complement religious beliefs, values, and practices and how religious lawyers navigate the relationship between professional and personal ethics
3. to explore, from the perspective of participants, the impact of secularization on religious lawyers and the broader legal profession
4. to understand how other salient characteristics (especially across racial, sexual, and gendered lines) intersect with religion to shape, influence, and inform the experience of religious lawyers and their legal practice; and to determine how certain intersecting identities create unique challenges/opportunities
5.  to understand, from the perspective of religious lawyers, what benefits they bring to the profession as a result of their religious identity.