A Lawyer Puts His Faith into Practice in Uganda

By Jim Gash, Calabasas, California

As appeared in

Two weeks. That’s all it was going to be. I was here in Uganda on a mission trip as part of the global justice project at Pepperdine University Law School, where I teach. We’d spend our January semester break helping out some kids who had been stuck in a juvenile detention home, waiting for their day in court. We’d offer legal counsel, prepare briefs to be sent to the judge, do some sightseeing and go home. That seemed like enough of a commitment for someone with my hectic schedule.

My colleague Jay Milbrandt had been urging me to get involved in the global justice program, but I’d put him off. Not only did I have classes to teach but I’m also associate dean of student life, and there was always something coming up. What little free time I had went to teaching Bible classes with my wife at our church or coaching one of our three kids’ soccer teams. Of course I cared about justice, cared very deeply. Justice is the soul of the law. My job was to teach that to my students, not give legal advice in Africa. “Later,” I told Jay.

Then last fall Jay and I went to the annual conference of the Christian Legal Society. Three days of talks and seminars culminated in a closing dinner with Bob Goff, one of the nation’s top litigators, giving the keynote address. Bob’s well over six feet and he towered over the podium, his voice booming as if he were addressing a closing argument to a jury in a murder trial.

“We have a moral, faith-based duty to see that justice is done for the least of us!” Bob talked about the pro bono work he was doing for kids in Third World countries, seeking to protect them from abuses like forced labor and prostitution. Lately he’d been focusing on Uganda where the judiciary was overworked and understaffed, often unable to process the cases of kids who were arrested, some of them with little or no evidence against them. He challenged us to use our legal skills for the poor and oppressed, especially the most vulnerable—the world’s youth.

“Our God is a God of justice,” he declared, then added, “and he’s nuts about kids.”

That final line got me. Something inside me clicked. You could help here, I told myself. Go overseas and use your legal training. It would be a good experience. And a good way to live out your faith. I leaned over and said to Jay, “We’re going to Africa.”

The two of us accosted Bob and asked what we could do. He told us about a children’s prison he’d visited in rural Uganda where children were stuck sometimes for years, their cases unheard, and sometimes used as forced labor. All they needed were a few volunteer lawyers to prepare summary briefs for them so a judge would agree to hear and process their cases. What if a group of us from Pepperdine went there? Bob could put us in touch with the right people.

And so it happened that three months later we were on a plane to Uganda. I had no idea what to expect. I’d been a lawyer for almost 20 years and had clerked for a judge, worked for a large firm and in private practice. I was used to spending months on depositions, but Bob said we could interview the children and learn their cases in a matter of days. All we needed to do was prepare a paragraph-long summary for each child. That would be enough for the judge. A two-week trip, that’s all it was going to be. I could handle it, then be back to my busy schedule at Pepperdine.

We landed in Kampala and drove north to the dusty town of Masindi. We met with a judge and got a list of the 22 cases we’d handle. Finally we were at the remand house, where the children were being held, answering Bob Goff’s call to faith and action. There was no guard or fence around the place, just a few teenagers milling about. Where could anyone escape to, way out here in the bush?