Show Notes
On this episode of Nuance, Case is joined by retired Florida Supreme Court Justice Alan Lawson. Lawson discusses the challenges faced by judges, as well as how his faith formed the way he served on the bench. He also shares insights into the judicial system, his transition from the Florida Supreme Court to private practice, and his work with Mi Esperanza, an organization focused on empowering women in poverty. He emphasizes the importance of community support, the need for justice and mercy in society, and the critical role of the church in addressing systemic issues.
Episode Resources:
https://lawsonhuckgonzalez.com/
Shelter Global www.giveshelter.co
Mi Esperanza: www.thewomenofmyhope.org
Association for a More Just Society: https://www.asj-us.org/
Nuance is a podcast of The Collaborative where we wrestle together about living our Christian faith in the public square. Nuance invites Christians to pursue the cultural and economic renewal by living out faith through work every facet of public life, including work, political engagement, the arts, philanthropy, and more.
Each episode, Dr. Case Thorp hosts conversations with Christian thinkers and leaders at the forefront of some of today’s most pressing issues around living a public faith.
Our hope is that Nuance will equip our viewers with knowledge and wisdom to engage our co-workers, neighbors, and the public square in a way that reflects the beauty and grace of the Gospel.
Learn more about The Collaborative:
Website: https://collaborativeorlando.com/
Get to know Case: https://collaborativeorlando.com/team/
Episode Transcript
Case Thorp
There you are, standing at the heart of the state of Florida’s public square. On one side, you have the imposing walls of the state legislature, 22 stories tall. The Florida legislative building is only one of four in the country that scrape the sky. On the other side of this plaza is the Florida Supreme Court. It stands with classical aplomb, built in 1948 at the height of the neoclassical architectural era. This white replica of a Greek temple provides a counterweight to the skyscraper across the way. Standing here, you feel the silent weight of law and justice pressing in from every angle. These buildings, separated by a little more than a stone’s throw, represent the two essential engines of governance, the creation of law and its interpretation. In this narrow space between them, the purpose of law itself is put to the test. Here, the notion of justice lives not in statutes or documents, but in the will to pursue what is right, what is true and what is beautiful. And it’s upheld by the individuals bound to ideals greater than themselves. It’s a place where the abstract becomes real, where lofty values meet the practical decisions that shape society. Now in such a setting, the role of one person can seem small against the towering institutions and well-trodden paths of history. Yet, time and again, individuals have proven that the courage of a single person can change the direction of laws, sway the outcomes of cases, and redefine the meaning of justice itself. When one man steps forward to champion what he believes is right, he holds within his hands not only the possibility of his own transformation, but the potential to inspire others to seek truth and beauty, serving the common good. It’s here in the shadow of these structures of governance, this individual, man or woman, becomes a reminder that the pursuit of justice is not merely a civic duty, but a sacred calling, uniting reason with the conviction to make the world more just, one decision at a time. And so friends, that’s who we are here to speak with today. One such individual, a mere man, but what a man, retired Florida Supreme Court Justice, Alan Lawson. Alan, welcome. Thanks for being with me.
Alan Lawson
It’s a pleasure to be with you. Thank you, Case.
Case Thorp
So how’d you like that opening, huh? Do you stand with aplomb like the building you were in?
Alan Lawson
That was really good. Yeah, I’m impressed. Probably not usually. Let me try.
Case Thorp
Well, friends, I want y’all to know Alan is joining us from a very unique place. He is in Honduras where he and his wife travel frequently and stay for weeks and months on end to serve in the community there. And so, Alan, describe your setting for us and what are we hearing in the background?
Alan Lawson
Okay, so we’re about 45 minutes away from the capital city of more than 2 million Tegucigalpa, Honduras and we’re in a little village called Santa Ana and there’s a mission center here that I was supposed to do this podcast from and the beautiful young couple that run it, she was pregnant and they rushed out last night and locked all the doors because she was delivering. So I got there and it was locked. So we’re on a street side cafe. And there are a lot of loud motorcycles that go by some buses and construction trucks. But in front of me is a little booth with all sorts of things. It looks like probably little toy trucks and things like that that they sell along the street. it’s an interesting scene. I was telling, you know this, Case, this is our 25th year anniversary of coming to Honduras and doing things like providing food, sharing Christ’s love, providing educational materials. They don’t provide those for students in school.
And so they’ll get a list of things that include toilet paper and pencils and paper and workbooks and everything that they would need, rulers and things like that. And if they don’t, can’t afford that stuff, then they may go to school for a little while, but they won’t stay because they just can’t learn in that environment. And so we do the school supplies every year and then we build houses. And this year we’re building in Santa Ana, which is why I’m up here today. And it’s our first concrete house that we’re building. And we’re building it for a little girl, well she’s not a little girl anymore, young lady who was two when we first met her in 1999.
Case Thorp
That’s special. Now she has a family of her own. That’s really neat. Well, one thing that Alan has always served me and our family for many years when Alan was here in Orlando, I would take him to lunch at least once a year. And my question was, Alan, do you remember the question?
Alan Lawson
I don’t.
Case Thorp
Well, it was a very important one for me. How can my children turn out like yours? Just so blessed with your parenting. So Alan is a good friend that has helped me to shape my children. Well, to our viewers and friends, welcome to Nuance and where we seek to be faithful in the public square. I’m Case Thorp and I just want to encourage you as always to like, subscribe and share. Well, let me tell you a little bit about Alan.
So when Justice Lawson was appointed to the Florida Supreme Court in 2016, he brought with him a wealth of experience from years serving as a judge in the Fifth District Court of Appeal and as a circuit judge in the Ninth Judicial Circuit. His judicial philosophy is grounded in a belief that the role of the courts is not to legislate from the bench, but to interpret the law as it stands, respecting the separation of powers. His career reflects a lifelong dedication to pursuing justice, not just as a profession, but as a mission. He currently is a lead partner in Lawson, Huck and Gonzalez based in Tallahassee, married to the amazing and talented Julie and with two adult children and three grandchildren. And like you heard, he is joining us from Honduras. And I love that you’re bringing some color to this very boring Presbyterian kind of podcast. Well, let us let other folks get to know you a bit better. Could you just give us a quick overview of your life’s journey and particularly your encounter with Christ and growth with Him through these years.
Alan Lawson
So I was born in a very loving Christian home, born in Lakeland, Florida, a multi-generational Floridian on my dad’s side, my mom is from North Carolina originally. Then we moved to Tallahassee when I was two years old. Dad worked for the state of Florida, mom was an RN, and I grew up and accepted Christ at an early age, nine, and took that very seriously, that relationship, very seriously. I had very prayerfully considered what I wanted to do in life and in terms of career, I decided ultimately that I wanted to be an Air Force fighter pilot. And so in high school, I applied for the United States Air Force Academy and was the principal nominee to the US Air Force Academy from our congressional district. And so they have a principal and then 10 alternates in case the principal gets knocked out for any reason. I was so overconfident. I thought there’s no way I’m going to get knocked out. So I didn’t really have a plan B. And a couple of weeks before I was supposed to leave, I found out that I did get knocked out because of something that was going on with my kidney. The doctor did some medical tests and it looked like I might have kidney disease and so I went into the hospital as a senior in high school and then the test was done before I found out and got the final answer two weeks before I was supposed to leave and did a kidney biopsy and the ultimate answer was I didn’t have kidney disease but they disqualified me anyway and so I got the word two weeks before I was supposed to leave that that I wouldn’t be going.
I ended up going to Tallahassee Community College and got my EMT certificate, I figured I could use that and I was considering medicine. And I just took a variety of classes to decide what I wanted to do. I continued to work as an EMT throughout college and law school. Then ultimately I took a law class from a retired Supreme Court Justice named Fred Carl. And he had had such a phenomenal career and had used his law degree to do some things that made a difference in his community and in the state of Florida. He had also served in the House of Representatives for the House of Representatives and I decided you know, that just appealed to me and I’m very analytical, very logical, and so the law was appealing and his career sort of inspired me. So I went to law school after graduating from Clemson, I finished up at Clemson and came back to FSU and got my law degree and then practiced civil litigation for a number of years. Julie and I, most importantly, never would have met if I’d gone to the Air Force Academy. So we met during my first year at TCC, which was her first year at FSU. And we dated a little bit then, but fell in love later when I was in law school and got married right after law school. And then we had our children early in my law career.
And I went on and was a partner in a major Florida law firm and then left that, went to work for the Orange County Attorney’s Office. You’re there in Orlando, my first big case, they hired me because they were spending a ton of money on outside counsel to handle the litigation over the Orange County courthouse construction. And so I got hired.
Case Thorp
Well, I was just there two hours ago.
Alan Lawson
I got hired to handle that case for the county and then stayed on until I got appointed to the bench in 2002 by Governor Bush. And then I had a 22 plus year, about a 22 year judicial career.
Case Thorp
And what a journey. And here you are now with sort of the opportunity to kind of kick back and relax and yet know you’re leaning in, leaning in both in your law firm and of course in your mission service.
Alan Lawson
And you asked about my spiritual growth too, and I want to go back and say that my faith has been a bedrock in everything that I’ve done. A trial judge, trial judges are called on to, they have a lot of discretion in what they do in applying the law.
In child custody cases, for example, after doing civil litigation for about 15 years, I was on a felony bench the four years I was a trial judge. But you have amazing discretion in most cases in terms of the length of sentence. There are cases where, at the time, with a juvenile, they could go from probation as a juvenile to life in prison. And it was all what you believed to be the right thing. That’ll put you on your knees when you have that much responsibility and seeking God’s wisdom.
And I continue to, I believe that we are created by God in His image and that the primary purpose in life is to develop that relationship with Him and then let Him flow love through you to the world around you. And so that’s just, that’s been and continues to be the journey.
Case Thorp
Well, you mentioned your mom in Tallahassee. So I got to worship with your mother at First Baptist Church Tallahassee just a few weeks back. And it was fun to kind of get a sense of your roots. And she is quite a formidable woman in the legislature herself, right?
Alan Lawson
Yes. That’s Julie’s mom, Fran Carlton. Of course, my mom would have been there too, Velma Lawson. And they’re both formidable, but Fran was..she was a TV personality at first. She had the first woman’s exercise program on television in the country. And it was syndicated in a lot of places. She was the early Jane Fonda, Fran Carlton. It was Jack LaLanne first and then Fran Carlton. And Governor Reubin Askew put together a council on physical fitness and asked Fran to join that council. And they came up with recommendations that they brought to the legislature and the legislature didn’t pass them and so Fran decided she was going to run for the legislature and she did and she won and then she passed them herself the next year but there weren’t a lot of women in the legislature back then, I think 12 maybe if in the house at the time when she was in the 70s and so she she was up in leadership and had a really important position. She was very formidable and then left there because she needed to spend more time in central Florida. Her mom had some dementia issues and she became clerk of court and served in that capacity in Orange County for a number of years.
Case Thorp
That’s very special. So, I mean, there’s legislation in the blood. There’s community service in the family. Now, you and I have talked about this before, but I feel like if I were a judge, it would be very hard to find myself in a legal situation where there’s a conflict between your moral and ethical beliefs, but also how you have to uphold the law in certain ways that might not be what Alan would prefer. How do you navigate through that?
Alan Lawson
So the hardest decisions that I made as a judge were really on the trial bench, and they were decisions where your discretion was curtailed. For example, some of the minimum mandatory sentencing laws. You’ll get a case where, this is typical, where there’ll be a large drug organization that’ll be taken down. There’ll be a long undercover statewide investigation.
Case Thorp
Real quick, let me ask, is that a politician’s bus going by to tell him to vote for him?
Alan Lawson
No, it’s a truck that has vegetables in the back and they’re going through, you know, all the vegetables that they have for sale.
Case Thorp
I love this! Okay, okay. I’m sorry, back to the US trial system.
Alan Lawson
So what they’ll do is they’ll cut deals in order to make their case stronger. But the people at the very bottom who just like carried the drugs one or two times and got caught don’t know anything, so they can’t testify and they aren’t that helpful. But the people at the top of the organization are very helpful. And so the one case I so distinctly remember.
The drugs were coming from Columbia going into Miami and then they were being transported up the turnpike and to other places. And of course, law enforcement knew all this because they had been monitoring calls and that kind of thing. And then they planned the arrest in Osceola County because in South Florida at the time, they just weren’t prosecuting as many of the drug crimes as severely. And so, state prosecution decided to bring this one in central Florida. So they arrested someone when they were on the turnpike going up with drugs. Now almost everybody involved in this larger conspiracy was from South Florida, but there were I think 24 defendants. So that was one of my early years as a trial judge. And the most responsible, culpable person pled to seven years in prison and agreed to testify. Top of the chain. Yeah. And of course state attorneys, and this is not, I mean, they are elected officials and they can lose their job if they waive minimum mandatory all the time. Right? So they felt like they couldn’t waive them for everybody. And so who was left? There was one young lady who was a lawyer in Columbia, and her mom was sick.
And somebody convinced her to swallow cocaine in these big plastic things and then get on a plane and come to Miami and she was going to pass the drugs and they arrested her in the Miami airport. And so she was like one of the last defendants and they weren’t going to let her get away with anything but a 25 year min, so she just went to trial.
And, you know, in those kind of cases, if I had had to impose that sentence, you know, that’s just completely unjust in my view. And so those were the hard things. Now, she got acquitted on the jury, because the state missed something, but I won’t tell that story. It’s a great story someday, but as an appellate judge, there are really issues of law. And you know what your job is. It’s to say what the law is. It’s to interpret the law and say how it applies to facts. And so it’s a very academic exercise. So even if you don’t like the law, you don’t get that. I never got that emotional about interpreting a law in a way that I just didn’t like. I mean, it’s the answer. It’s the answer. I don’t like it. I would have drafted it differently. I would have done it differently. I wish it hadn’t passed, but it’s the law. So, I mean, really that wasn’t so hard for me anyway to do that. I did the longer I had the position and the more I learned about, and we can talk about this in a little bit, I’ve spent about seven years now studying neuroscience and neurochemistry and neurobiology. And I’ll just pause and tell you that the Supreme Court of Florida, people think about them in terms of the decisional role that they have, the decisions that they make, and that is only a fraction of the job. The Supreme Court is responsible for the entire system of civil and criminal justice in Florida.
They don’t write the laws, but they administer the system. Lawyer discipline rests with the Supreme Court. Judicial discipline rests with the Supreme Court. The rules that govern ethical conduct for lawyers and judges are the Supreme Court’s rules. The rules of procedure for every court are the Supreme Court’s rules. And so administering the system, that includes the education of judges too.
Case Thorp
So you spent time doing that. And is that different than the US Supreme Court?
Alan Lawson
I believe so. I believe under the federal system that the Chief Justice alone has that role, sort of an administrative role. So I think it is different, but I’m not as familiar with their system.
Case Thorp
Okay.
Alan Lawson
But under Florida’s constitution, and there are some states that have different regulatory agencies for lawyers, for example. But in Florida, it’s all in the Supreme Court. And when I got there and realized that, OK, I’m going to be making really, really important decisions, it’s more academic, where the rubber meets the road in terms of where Floridians receive justice or not depends on the judge in the courtroom, how they show up, and the job that they do. And so the thing that really got me most excited about the role as a Supreme Court justice was the ability to influence the education and training of trial judges and to really get to know them and really do a lot of speaking on how do you make good decisions, how do you be objective, how do you, and so it was in that context that I started studying neuroscience because how do we even perceive things, how do we become more objective, those kind of questions led down that path.
Case Thorp
Well, how do we learn? How do we transform? Big concept for us at the Collaborative, and that’s why we emphasize spiritual formation so much. This is perfect because it leads into my next question. Since you had the opportunity to care for and shape and form so many judges and others in the system, over the course of your career, are you more or less encouraged with the integrity of the system or the depth and the quality of our judges?
Alan Lawson
I’m very encouraged. I know so many of them. I think, I mean, we lose sight of the fact that we have the best system that the world has ever devised, right? And that we pour more resources into it than most places around the world.
And then we focus solely on the problems and we have a long way to go. We do have a long way to go. And a lot of that is that our judges are, and hopefully AI and things will help as technology advances, but they really are overburdened. And it’s hard to get, I mean, when you have, like even when I was there, it was like 2,000 felony cases a year, and those were new cases. Many of them you saw more than once because you put someone on probation, they’d violate and you’d see them back. I mean, it was just like this. And it’s hard for people to maintain confidence in a system that is rushed all the time.
Right? Because when you get there, you need to see that that jurist is giving your case the full-time attention that it needs. And it’s just almost impossible in a rushed system.
Case Thorp
Well, my next door neighbor is a federal immigration court judge. And I’m, I mean, just so blown away by a lot of her stories and experience, but she’s exhausted. She’s overwhelmed. She knows that she’ll never see the bottom of her docket. And then you mentioned about the amount of money and intentionality in our system. So you knew, I imagine, Amanda Cowan. Amanda, sadly, passed and is now in glory, but she took me one time with her to the Orange County jail where she served in the prosecutor’s office. And I was blown away by the experience itself, but we walked in at 7:30 in the morning and she processed for the arraignment, all the folks that had been brought in the night before by Orange County and Orlando police. And she had a huge three ring binder sitting on her desk from staff that had been there all night long, preparing the paperwork for these folks. And I was just so moved to think, my goodness, in some other unfortunate countries, you might just be thrown in a hole and forgotten. But here, by golly, every single person gets a right to an arraignment. And that’s expensive. And that’s still beautiful.
Alan Lawson
It is, yeah, it is both. And people don’t realize it there. There is a judge on duty 365 days a year 24/7 in every county in Florida and every other state. I mean, because of the due process requirements that are so dear, dear because they are really enforced in our country because a lot of countries have them on paper, but…
Case Thorp
Okay, so institutional health matters to us, knowing how it then impacts so many people’s lives. I hear you say you’re encouraged by the quality of our justice system, particularly the judges in Florida. Talk to me about attorneys. Talk to me about some of the antics that may go down in a courtroom over the course of your career.
Alan Lawson
Yeah. So, I mean, I’m encouraged by the judges that I’ve gotten to know over the years and have helped train in that kind of thing because they really do care and they really are diligent and they really are, you know, 97% are doing a phenomenal job. The system is overwhelmed and in many instances, we’ve, many, particularly the urban areas, sort of devolved to a point where the lawyers aren’t doing necessarily the best job and there are a lot of arguments that are made that just aren’t valid, that shouldn’t be made and that kind of thing. I see that more now that I’m back in practice than I did on the Florida Supreme Court. Because on the Florida Supreme Court, it was a high level generally of practitioners who are coming in front of us. And so there is a lot of breakdown in our system and in our civil justice system it’s very difficult because things are expensive and they take a long time and so so we do have a ways to go the legislature over the last five years, maybe a little longer, has really focused on that and has been giving the branch more resources. And I think that they’ll continue to do that. We’ve had lawyers that have been at the top of the Senate, President of Senate and Speaker of the House, that really know and understand the system.
And what you also find is that we have 67 different counties in Florida, 20 judicial circuits, and things work very differently in each one of those. The most crowded dockets are the most difficult. Like, Dade particularly is really, really difficult. Broward is difficult just because of the numbers and the volume. And I think because there’s a culture down there of younger lawyers who want a pay increase, and so they will run against a sitting judge who’s doing a good job without regard to whether that person is doing a good job just because they want the job.
In smaller circuits you just don’t see that. If somebody has a good reputation, nobody’s going to run against them generally. But in those larger urban areas, and people just don’t know much about the judges that they’re voting on and so you can get some folks that really don’t do as good a job as with that practice.
Case Thorp
Well, I have to admit, I, in this most recent voting cycle, I looked up all of my amendments and referendums and candidates and feel like I made informed decisions. When it came to the judges, I couldn’t find anything online. I didn’t know how to say, yes, keep them, or not. So I just kept them all figuring well, all right.
Alan Lawson
Yeah. Yeah. And I would say that that’s the right approach is to vote yes because for appellate judges, they only get there by appointment, so they get screened and they’re well qualified and are going to do a good job. So, the system is designed for the public to be able to get rid of a bad judge.There are redundancies in the system because we have judicial discipline by the Supreme Court through judicial qualifications commissions. You know, judges will get removed for misconduct before they ever get to a yes or no vote for merit retention. And then it’s at the trial court level where we have open elections that we get some folks that are not as qualified as you’d like to see on the bench.
Case Thorp
Now, you came to the end of a very successful run on the state Supreme Court. Tell us about that call to close that chapter and move into private practice.
Alan Lawson
Well, I’ll say first, when I left the court and left the judicial branch, I didn’t know I was going to go back into private practice. I didn’t have a plan. There’s so many factors that went into that decision because I loved the people I worked with. I loved the court. I loved the job. There’s so many things about it I really, really loved.
I just knew it was time for something different and I didn’t know what that something different was. And so it was like a moment of deep clarity, and real insight when I just, I felt like I heard from the Lord that this is what I’m supposed to do. And I got a glimpse of a future that was dim, but it was like, you need to be done with the constraints that are on a judge. So as a judge, you can’t do anything political, essentially, in Florida. And so you can’t take a stand on any issues. You can’t give your opinion on any political issue and that kind of thing. And you’re very limited in what you could do in terms of public discourse and you can’t ask people to come alongside you and do the kind of things we’re doing in Honduras, right? And so I felt so constrained by some of those rules and things that I wanted to accomplish and do in life and I looked around and realized I was more than 60 years old and I didn’t have, I mean, I hopefully have a lot of years left, but I just wanted to be able to do and accomplish some things that I could not do as a judge. So I made that decision and I’ll tell you the spiritual growth that came from that because as soon as I made an announcement of that decision, Case, I internally freaked out because I didn’t have the clarity any longer and I realized now and I realized that then too that my identity had become that I’m this person with this important position.There’s a lot of security that comes from having a job with the state that pays well with the retirement system and with all of this and that and this and that, and that comes with the prestige of a position like that. And I really sort of unconsciously had sort of been able to sort of hide behind that for a lot of years. And that became part of my…my trust wasn’t really where it needed to be. And so when all the certainty of those things, when it was clear that those were gonna be stripped away because I was leaving that job, it really shook me to my foundation. And so it wasn’t an easy time. It has not been an easy transition, but it has been a wonderful transition. It’s getting easy. And the growth has been incredible, and I’m still growing through that.
Case Thorp
Well, and I can imagine friends, colleagues, others reacting. What? You can’t do this. Like this is the pinnacle of power and career. And so you’re then thinking, did I hear that call? Right. But yet you did. You acted on it. And I hear you in terms of how much our work becomes this sense of self and sense of identity. And it maybe slowly wraps its arms around our identity in Christ and we don’t see it at first, we don’t see it long term and then we have to face it at times.
That’s very powerful. Well, tell us more now. You’ve got more time to be in Honduras. And tell us about the work of Mi Esperanza and then the new home building work you’re doing.
Alan Lawson
Okay, so Mi Esperanza is an organization that started over decade ago and it provides free education and training for women in poverty and you’ve heard the saying that you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, that kind of thing. Well, their saying is you give a man of fish, you feed him for a day, you teach a man of fish, you feed him for a lifetime, you teach a woman to fish and everybody eats. And so it’s sadly true in this culture that the poverty rate is unbelievable here. It’s one of the countries in our hemisphere that has the most poverty in terms of food insecurity and that kind of thing. So when you put money in the hands of a woman and give her a trader skill that she can use, she’s gonna use that money to house, feed, and educate her children. And that really breaks the cycle of poverty. So Mi Esperanza, Julie has been president of that board and on that board for a long time and is now. And that’s the primary purpose for this trip. They have computer skills and administrative schools, of course. They have a sewing course, because you can make a living with sewing in this culture. And they have a cosmetology school. They also have microloan programs at the end to help them with business and businesses and then they help job placement too. But Julie started a jewelry program more than a decade ago. And so every year she comes down and comes down and designs with her women and then they do the production and all of the money, all the profit that comes from selling the goods goes back into the educational program. And it’s a fair wage.
Case Thorp
I love that.
Alan Lawson
They call it a living wage. It’s above the fair wage standard what Mi Esperanza pays its women who work in the organization.
Case Thorp
Okay. Well, I don’t know if you know this, when we were at your place a few weeks back, I bought Jodi, my wife, a number of bracelets that Julie and her women had put together. And she loves them. Good stuff. Now, you’re branching out into another phase of this work. Tell us about that.
Alan Lawson
That’s fantastic. Yeah, Julie mentioned that. That’s fantastic.
So we’ve been with groups and sometimes just on our own coming down and building houses for folks and giving out school supplies and food in areas where they have food and security for a number of years and working with the couple who’s been doing that.
This is our 25th year anniversary. Our first year was 1999. And this other couple, and Lori Connell, their first year was 1999. Now we wouldn’t meet each other for almost another decade, but Lori is one of the co-founders of Mi Esperanza, the organization that Julie is so involved in. And we just decided that it would be good to formalize this with a 501c3 so that when we brought other people down it would make it easy for them to get the tax deduction and do all that and that we would have accounting that we could get audited so that there was accountability for all the funds that flowed through our hands and that kind of thing.
Case Thorp
You know? It’s good for the Supreme Court justice to get his stuff in legal order. You know, I just, that’s my advice.
Alan Lawson
Yes, exactly.
And before I left the bench, everything we did was we would tell people we were going on this trip and you could join us and you pay for your own hotel and you do this because I couldn’t really receive money, right? I mean, so now that we can, we decided to get everything in order and do it well so that it’ll be more sustainable as well. We have some younger folks that are involved, and so hopefully we’ll be able to pass this on and that work will continue. And we want to continue to bring folks from the states in terms of, you know, when we build down here, we involve Hondurans because that gives them income and it really, really helps with the economy here. For those that come from the states, what it really does to your heart, when you are able to give with no thought of return, because you’re not going to get anything back from what you’re doing down here. When you see how so much of the rest of the world lives and how so much of the world has lived throughout human history, it gives you a sense of gratitude and appreciation for what our country and its constitution have produced. I think it makes us better. And so that’s why I like to bring people down to enjoy coming alongside the folks down here and working on those projects.
Case Thorp
I would imagine you’re familiar with the book Toxic Charity. And what I hear you describe is so much the opposite of that, attempt not to fall into some of those traps. Tell us, our listeners, a little bit about the Toxic Charity convictions and then how y’all are trying to do healthy work.
Alan Lawson
Yes. So the toxic charity is when you come down and work in a way that people become dependent on you and that you’re just like, know, just sort of giving away toys and giving away this and giving away that. And with the houses that we build, you know, what we find, and there’s so much need, but it’s so incredible when somebody doesn’t have a safe, dry place to live. It affects everything. Those kids are not going to get a good education. They are not going to grow up healthy. They are not, you know, it just affects everything. And so, you know, by necessity, we find folks that are struggling, but they’re making it the best that they can. And so if, you know, they have to have their own land and there are ways that they can get land with help from their government and that kind of thing. But they already have a sustainable way to get some income in with food and that kind of thing. But they’re living in a condition where it’s just dirt and sticks and mud and whatever you can get to put over your head. Scraps of tin and plastic to go over your head. And so when you can go and raise them out of the dirt and give them a door that they can lock and give them, you know, just a comfortable place to rest at night, a comfortable place for the kids to study. You can make a generation, there’s nothing toxic about that. You can just make a generational change because you just elevated them in an incredible way. And then for those families, you know, we go alongside and we’ll go in and just buy school supplies for large groups of kids every year.
And the families that benefit from that, the neighborhoods that we’re in, some of them might can afford some of those supplies and maybe all of them, probably not. But it frees up other money to allow them to invest in the family. And it’s not like there’s excess money to do anything anyway at the level that we’re talking about. But yeah, so everything we do is done in a way that we can have that touch, share the love of Christ, and then just go on and help another family.
Case Thorp
Alan, this theme of justice is just so prevalent in your life from the top of this chain to the bottom. Reflect on our God then, He is a God of justice. What does that mean to you?
Alan Lawson
I mean, in the grand scheme, it means that all wrongs will be righted, right? And one of the things I’ve been focusing on lately is…there’s so many nuances in what it takes to be a just society. And when we bring groups of lawyers down here, there’s a wonderful American organization called the Association for a Just Society that works in Honduras. They may work in other places. It’s a Christian organization, and Case, you would love their website, you would love everything about them.
Case Thorp
Okay. I’m going to put it in our show notes.
Alan Lawson
They’ll do something like, the last time I visited with them, they had just gone in and realized that, so, they pay teachers all over the country, a lot of these teachers wouldn’t show up for class, they would just get a paycheck. There was no accountability, no accountability whatsoever. And some of the teachers would like pay somebody a pittance who didn’t even read or write just to sit in the classroom so that the teachers could, you know, do whatever they wanted to do and go have another job or whatever. So AJS went in and they did this report and the numbers were astounding. And they didn’t expose it. They didn’t do anything. What they did, they went to the president of the country and they said, this is what we found. They went to Congress and said, either you do something about it and we’ll work with you to help you do something about it or we are going to go to the press. And so very quietly the government the next year they cracked down on the next year it was like it completely changed the educational system and in terms of the gang controlled areas, there are neighborhoods here where the gangs just do whatever they want to whoever they want, whenever they want. And so AJS has figured out a way to actually get people prosecuted. And I won’t go into the details, but they’ll work in neighborhoods and work with the system in a way that will get justice for the victims of crime in a way that cleans up a neighborhood.
Case Thorp
Wow, that’s fantastic.
Alan Lawson
And so they just do some phenomenal things. So there’s justice. I think in our culture, the problem that we have is that we have gotten so tough on crime that there’s no longer any mercy in our system. And the prime directive in Micah 6:8 is to do justice.
Case Thorp
Do justice and love mercy. That’s right.
Alan Lawson
Love mercy and walk humbly with your God, right? And so a system without mercy, a mercy component is really, really bad for a culture in the long run. That was factored into my leading. Being at the top of the system where the laws were such that, I mean, like…something is not right that we incarcerate more people for longer than any other state or country in the world, in Florida. More per hundred thousand.
Case Thorp
Wow. So I knew the US was at the top of that list, but even Florida is at the top of the US list.
Alan Lawson
Florida, yes. I mean, and it’s expensive to do that. There are cheaper ways to deal with people than just warehousing them for life. And of course, we don’t, I mean.
You know, you and I love the penitent thief, our good friend Paul. He’s doing a phenomenal work in central Florida by helping people who transition out in a way that means that they don’t get incarcerated again. There’s, you know, I would like to see some changes in our laws that allow for some mercy. And then I don’t think we can do what we need to do with government programs in terms of recidivism rates. I mean it’s good to have government programs, but the church has to be the church and come in and do the kind of things that Paul is doing and the Christian community is helping him do to restore people because people don’t get restored because of government programs. People get restored because of their change in heart, along with the support that they need, right? And so, and we can’t leave that to government. I mean, because it just won’t work if you leave it to government. And we’ll just spend more and more and more money, but the kind of thing Paul’s doing and that I know First Pres does and in many of the Central Florida churches and really getting in there and meeting needs with that spiritual component that meets the true needs. I can’t remember who said it but it’s not a Christian author but we think we have many problems. We really only have one problem.
And that problem is that we’ve lost the connection in individuals between ourselves and the God who is the source of all life in the universe and love, right? And so you gotta, Christians who care about justice and mercy, you gotta come in with real resources to help people, but you’ve gotta do it in that non-toxic way that raises them up to be responsible and accountable. And you have to do it with the love that transforms hearts.
Case Thorp
Alan, can’t think of any better example, any better example of what we’re trying to do with the Collaborative in terms of, yes, meet those inmates as they come out and repair their lives in love, but also as you talk about that systemic approach, the Association for Just Society working with the government, men and women like you who are in places to help see the kingdom of God flourish without it being a theocracy or having to push Christianity down people’s throats. That’s the institutional leadership that I feel like our society needs so much.
Well, thank you. I really appreciate your time. I love the noises around you. People at work and making a living and living life.
Alan Lawson
Do you want me to turn this around? You want to get my camera view of it?
Case Thorp
Yeah, folks would love it. So we can see, you’re at a coffee shop, I think you said?
Alan Lawson
Well, this is a little restaurant.
Case Thorp
Okay. Boy, I wish I was there to enjoy some empanadas. Okay. That’s the village. Okay. Look at that. So for those of you who are listening, Alan is turning his laptop around and we see a wonderful little booth here full of toys of all sorts.
Alan Lawson
So this is is Santa Ana. This is the village. And this is a little store here.
Case Thorp
Alan, thank you so much and I really appreciate you. Friends, thank you for joining us today. If you want to learn more about Alan’s world and work you can go to his firm site, LawsonHuckGonzalez.com, the Shelter Global website, GiveShelter.co, and Mi Esperanza, thewomenofmyhope.org. We’ll have all of that and more in our show notes.
Well, remember, please like, share, comment. It helps us to get the word out. Think who in your life needs to have such a message and you could share it with them. You could visit collaborativeorlando.com for all sorts of content. You can get a 31 day faith and work prompt journal by sharing your email with us, a way to work through the concepts of faith and work as you prayerfully sit with the Lord. You can find us across the social media platforms. I want to thank our sponsor for today, Craig and Becky Rohde. I’m Case Thorp and God’s blessings on you.
