Good Counselor Project Impact Story: About the People, Not Just the Books

By Chris Wilkes

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When I first saw the email from the Catholic Bar Association announcing the inaugural Good Counselor Project call for applications, I couldn’t believe it. A program tailored to young attorneys wanting to receive a classical Great Books education later in life seemed too good to be true. Were there really others out there like me? At the time, I had very few friends serious about the faith;  faithful attorney friends were quite rare. It was such a specific niche. I knew I had to jump on the opportunity. I quickly put together my application and submitted it well before the deadline. I eagerly awaited the response, even following up the day they announced our cohort. I was ecstatic to be accepted, not just for the books (a nice bonus), but for the opportunity to meet other attorneys who shared my interest in faith and in the foundational works of Western Civilization.  

Being a cradle Catholic who “reverted” to Catholicism later in life was, at first, a lonely experience. Just like me, most of my friends had disavowed Catholicism by the time we graduated high school. We certainly weren’t exposed to the rich intellectual tradition of the faith. I had never heard of St. Thomas Aquinas; I knew almost nothing about the richness of the Mass. The oldest books I had read were the required works of Shakespeare in high school. Like most modern people, I thought of my ancestors as primitive. If they knew what we do now, they surely would have changed their antiquated views. In my view, faith and reason were incompatible. At least the modern Christians I knew admitted as much and focused their energies on social justice issues. I got my spiritual fulfillment from high school mission trips and obligatory Sunday Mass.  

I stopped practicing my faith all together soon after high school. I followed the modern alternatives. Like so many of the saints early in their lives, I tried to fill the void with hedonism, social justice causes, professional fulfillment, and material gain. I wish I could say I pursued the legal profession for noble reasons. I’m sure there was a part of me that wanted to genuinely help people, but the bigger motivation was vanity. I grew up poor--straddling the poverty line poor--and the prestige of being an attorney was alluring. I drudged through law school with little satisfaction. My early career started rough, and I bounced from one job to the next before landing at a prestigious firm handling corporate contracts. Despite my perceived success, I was miserable. I sought therapy and started worshipping the idol of self-help. My role models were not saints but men like Jordan Peterson and Carl Jung. I got rid of many vices but most remained, and I was unable to shake off the deeper emptiness in my life.

I wish I could say I came back to the faith through my own virtue, but it was more like God dragging me back kicking and screaming. Covid hit, I lost my job, and I was back into a bout of serious depression. Several months later, my best friend’s dad tragically died. He was a retired police officer and devout Catholic. We attended his funeral and then visited his home on a ranch in the middle of nowhere in South Texas. His room was littered with holy icons and he had the largest personal library I had ever seen. Like most Catholic men, I later caught the book bug myself. My best friend, who had been trying to talk me back into the faith for years, handed me a copy of his dad’s catechism.  

I had one of my first spiritual experiences reading that catechism. At that time, with little theological training, I couldn’t help but be intuitively drawn to its profundity. I knew what the Church taught, but this was the first time I understood why. From there, I dove deep. I consumed a hefty diet of great Catholic books, lectures, and podcasts. I was now convinced the Catholic faith was true. I went to my first confession since my confirmation. Many of my vices were miraculously lifted. With God’s grace, and my irritating persistence, members of my family followed in conversion. But my journey thus far had mostly been self-guided. What I prayed for now was a community.    

Fast forward to the first seminar meeting of the Good Counselor Project – a discussion of Homer’s Iliad. I was nervous. Despite being a lawyer, my fear of public speaking made me avoid the courtroom like a plague in my professional life. I attended the seminar, but mostly listened quietly during those sessions. I could tell many of the other fellows were better educated in the liberal arts than I was. My thoughts were mainly intuitive and big picture, which I later realized was not a weakness and was just fine. It was more about the process of learning together than about memorization. I opened up more and I couldn’t wait to meet the other fellows in person at the capstone, in-person retreat in Washington, D.C.  

Unfortunately, personal issues forced me to cancel the trip. I was devastated to miss out on meeting in person with this faith community I had grown to love, but it didn’t take long for God’s providence to kick in. Several months later, a fellow from my class reached out and told me he was thinking about moving to my hometown of Fort Worth. He wanted some advice, and I pointed him in the right direction the best I could. He later called to let me know the relocation had materialized. I was thrilled to have another attorney in town to discuss faith and philosophy with. We soon became good friends. God’s providence struck once again when the next year’s capstone retreat was scheduled to take place in neighboring Dallas. I couldn’t wait to make up for missing my own capstone retreat and get to meet some of the fellows from my class, as well as the new class. The experience was as invigorating as I had imagined. There’s something so encouraging about meeting fellow attorneys striving to pursue their professions and their faith with equal vigor. Attorneys with deep faith are an all-too-rare blessing, and getting together with so many like-minded attorneys was a gift beyond words. We talked for hours and laughed until we literally cried.  

At the end of the experience, I couldn’t tell you all the details of Dante’s Inferno or Homer’s Iliad. The lessons from those great texts are there, but more importantly I’ve been so encouraged to watch the fellows’ journeys and read their works online. I found a community and it helped me gather the courage to find another community in my local parish. As faithful people in an increasingly secular world, we need each other. Ideally, we would have deep communities of faith in our own neighborhoods and cities. But in the absence of that ideal, the Good Counselor Project fellowship and community fills a critical void in our society. When I reflect back on my Good Counselor Project experience, this incredible community of faith is what I’m most grateful for.  

I’m now deeply satisfied with my vocation as an attorney. God has once again led me to a path I wasn’t expecting. I now help individuals facing criminal charges. As if by destiny, I am helping many of the same types of folks my dad did in his 20 years of drug rehabilitation ministry. It doesn’t come with a view of downtown or the corporate clients, but it is fulfilling, holy work. I credit the Good Counselor Project with helping me deepen my vocation as an attorney and couldn’t recommend it enough to young attorneys looking to do the same.