A Providential Career in Law and Academia
Interview with Lisa Schiltz
Photo by Su Puloo
“Having a job that is so integrated with my faith has strengthened my faith; it surrounds me with people with similar commitments, who are doing similar work, which is affirming.”
Life’s events can seem to obstruct and derail our perfectly planned professional trajectory. These happenings, though, may be just what we need to let God push us in the direction that he has been preparing for us all along. Lisa looks back on the events that led her to the career as a law professor that she had never planned for and the blessings of following God’s providence.
About Lisa
Elizabeth R. Schiltz (B.A. Yale University), J.D. Columbia School of Law, M.A. Catholic Studies, UST) is the John D. Herrick Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy at the University of St. Thomas School of. Elizabeth teaches Contracts, Sales, Consumer Law, and Disability Law. She serves on the Board of L’Arche USA and the National Catholic Partnership on Disability. Schiltz received the Dean's Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2019, the Mission Award for Scholarly Engagement and Societal Reform in 2012 and 2017, the Dean's Award for Outstanding Scholarship in 2007, and was elected Professor of the Year by the graduating class of 2007. She and her husband, Judge Patrick Schiltz, have four children.
The Interview:
What do you do for work? What do your typical responsibilities include?
I am a law professor. I teach law students classes like Contracts, Sales, Consumer Law, and Disabilities Law. My primary responsibility is teaching, which involves planning lessons, conducting classes and grading exams. I co-authored two casebooks on subjects that I teach – Contracts and Sales. This upcoming semester, I will be working with a small group of students to design a clinic – a type of law school class in which students get experience representing real clients. This clinic will offer services to parents of children with special needs, in reviewing and implementing appropriate Individualized Education Plans.
My secondary responsibility is scholarship: researching and writing articles, and presenting the results of my research in talks. I am currently researching mostly in areas such as Catholic feminism, disability rights, and issues related to the sanctity of life, such as eugenic abortions and physician-assisted suicide.
My third responsibility is service – to my university and the community. I serve on a University curriculum committee and chair my law school curriculum committee. I am also co-director of the Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy, and interdisciplinary program that puts on talks and programs and runs a Student Scholar program. I also serve on the Board of L’Arche USA and the National Catholic Partnership on Disability.
What drew you to your current profession?
I was happy as a lawyer in a big corporate law firm, but my husband wanted to try teaching law. When I was pregnant with my third child (who we knew would be born with Down Syndrome), we knew that we would have to switch my life around. I basically followed my husband, and we were fortunate enough to both get teaching positions at Notre Dame Law School. I had a part-time, tenure track position that allowed me to teach one class a semester, and slowly learn how to be a scholar at a Catholic law school. I had not liked Law School myself, and would never have chosen to teach. But it turns out to be the most fantastic job I could never have imagined. Basically, though, I stumbled on it by wanting to support my husband’s dream!
How has your faith influenced your work?
I was lucky enough to start my legal career at Notre Dame, a Catholic Institution, where I was encouraged to incorporate my faith with my teaching and scholarship. This has continued in my current job, at another Catholic University with the same values. Most of my scholarship incorporates viewpoints that are heavily influenced by my faith commitments.
Photo by Chelsey Shortman
How has your work influenced your faith?
Having a job that is so integrated with my faith has strengthened my faith; it surrounds me with people with similar commitments, who are doing similar work, which is affirming. It also affords me the luxury of doing research into things that are of interest to me as a person of faith – such as understanding feminism in terms compatible with my faith commitments, and thinking about disability rights from the perspective of someone committed to a view of all persons as a creature of God.
Describe a challenge that your professional career posed/poses to your faith life and how you have come to face it.
Legal academia is not a particularly friendly place for women to are pro-life and openly supportive of the teachings and hierarchy of the Catholic Church. I have experienced condescending attitudes in professional conferences (particularly dealing with feminist legal theory), as well as open hostility. It can be very tempting to just avoid certain topics, or to hide certain commitments, in some settings. Having the ‘home base’ of a Catholic institution that supports my work has been indispensable in giving me the courage to persist in such work.
It has been helpful for me to have some different specialties in which I can engage where my faith commitments are largely irrelevant – such as Contracts and Sales (both required courses for law students). In those settings, I can engage colleagues on an intellectual level on a more even playing field. This gives me confidence and professional friendships that have been extremely valuable for me.
At the same time, I have been fortunate enough to have found a strong community of Catholic women feminists with whom I can openly engage the feminist issues without feeling the need to hide my commitments. That fellowship and support has been invaluable in strengthening my personal faith life.
In what ways is your profession a vocation?
My husband and I often joke that we are the only people we know who have consistently made career choices that have led to decreases in salary: from corporate law firms to academia, and then (for my husband), from academia to a federal judgeship. But we have always approached job decisions from the perspective of what sort of service we felt God was calling us to, and have never regretted answering his calls.
How have you balanced your career ambitions and reliance on God’s providence?
As explained above, I found my career calling, as a law professor, only through God’s providence. I knew that the birth of my third child with Down Syndrome was going to require me to step back from my high-intensity corporate law practice, as much as I loved it. I was literally a few months away from making partner, which had been my strong ambition. I also wanted to support my husband’s desire to leave his law firm practice and try teaching. I was open to any sort of part-time job that I might possibly find, and God provided me with a part-time teaching job. Though I never would have pursued this path on my own, my desire to serve my family led me to my calling.
As the mother of four children (one with special needs) I have always tested my career choice decisions in a sort of bargain with God – if He provided me some way to care for my children that I felt was in their best interest, I would continue to work; if not, I would quit. I have taken a number of pauses in my career, worked part-time for five years, and have certainly progressed at a slower pace than some of my colleagues, but I take comfort in the fact that God has always come through with the child care I needed for every stage in my career.
In my career as a law professor, I was always progressing at a much slower rate than most of my colleagues. At times, I was (and still am) keenly aware of how much more I could have written, published, accomplished without any family demands; there are objective measures of accomplishment in which I simply never come out as high as I would like to, and it never ceases to rankle me on some level. But I have come to truly appreciate how many of the professional detours that I’ve taken (often inspired by my family life) have enriched my scholarship stretched me creatively. The older I get, the more I trust the twists God continues to put in my career path.
What words of encouragement or advice would you offer to women struggling to find a balance of work and personal life?
I have written an essay about this called Dueling Vocations: Managing the Tensions between Our Private and Public Callings, published in WOMEN, SEX, AND THE CHURCH, Erika Bachiochi, ed., Pauline Books & Media, 2010.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.