Jack Enrique De La Piedra

Why I Practice Law

The longer I practice law, the more convinced I become that families come to us seeking something the law alone cannot provide.

They seek justice, certainly. But they also want to be heard. They want someone to acknowledge what happened to the person they loved, to know that their loved one’s life mattered, and to help ensure that another family is spared the same loss.

I have come to believe that litigation is, at its best, a form of loving one’s neighbor: standing beside people who are hurting, listening to them, telling their stories truthfully, and helping them find healing and closure through the pursuit of justice.

Litigation also offers those who caused harm an opportunity to acknowledge what happened, accept responsibility, apologize, seek forgiveness, and demonstrate the sincerity of those words through just compensation. When that happens, the law becomes more than an adversarial process. It becomes an instrument of justice perfected by mercy.

I never expected the practice of law to become a vocation in the deepest sense of the word. It was only through my own spiritual growth that I began to understand it as such. My Catholic faith, and especially my devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, have profoundly shaped my understanding of justice, mercy, and the purpose of advocacy.

I believe Our Lady's intercession guided me toward my first nursing home case more than a decade ago and, years later, toward the founding of Elder Justice. Today, I pray the Rosary and the Litany of Loreto daily, having consecrated my life to Our Lady on May 13, 2025, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima.

I have come to regard Elder Justice not as my law firm, but as hers, and myself as her servant. A central purpose of Elder Justice's attorney referral network is to generate resources for promoting the Rosary. I have committed to dedicating as much of the income I receive from that network as I reasonably can to this mission, so that others may come to know Our Lady and, through her, her Son.

The story of how I came to understand this vocation is one I have shared in a more personal reflection, Under Her Mantle.

Justice, Mercy, and the Vocation of Trial Advocacy

My work in theology at the University of Notre Dame is part of a larger effort to integrate Catholic Social Teaching into civil trial advocacy. The legal profession devotes enormous attention to strategy, persuasion, and results, but comparatively little to the moral foundations of advocacy. I believe Catholic Social Teaching has much to contribute to how trial lawyers understand human dignity, solidarity, justice, mercy, and their obligations to the vulnerable.

Theology has taught me not to mistake legal questions for the only questions worth asking. What does justice require when dignity has been violated? What does it mean to accompany another person through suffering? Which is greater, justice or mercy? Questions like these have shaped my vision for Elder Justice.

My vision for Elder Justice extends beyond the courtroom. We are building not only a network of attorneys committed to justice perfected by mercy, but also a community open to anyone who wishes to contribute to the dignity and well-being of older adults through acts of solidarity, service, and advocacy. I believe that protecting human dignity is a responsibility we all share.

Lessons from the Courtroom

Shortly before founding Elder Justice, I obtained a $150 million verdict in an unusual one-day, undefended wrongful death trial. The number had been on my heart for weeks leading up to trial. Yet what stayed with me afterward was not the amount, but the impossible task I entrusted to the jury: expressing in money a human loss that cannot truly be measured. A verdict does not establish what a life was worth. It is an imperfect attempt to acknowledge a loss beyond calculation.

In another trial the following year, a facility made a very small settlement offer after a family lost their mother as a result of the preventable deterioration of a pressure wound. Their message: “We do not believe this is a six-figure case.” We proceeded to trial and obtained a $6 million verdict.

But the family was seeking something that money alone could not provide. They wanted their mother’s story to be heard and what happened to her to matter. Institutions evaluate claims as financial liabilities; families experience them as profound human losses.

What I remember most vividly is not the verdict itself, but what happened afterward. Once the jury had left the courtroom, I hugged the family. In that moment, I could see in their eyes and feel in their embrace that something had changed. Their loss remained, but there was also a sense of healing and closure. It was a reminder that the deepest meaning of our work cannot be measured in dollars.

Beyond the Courtroom

My family and I, along with our six cats, live atop a hill in the Vermont woods, on the site of former sheep pastures dating to the 1800s. I enjoy hiking, skiing, blitz chess, and a Vermont maple creemee whenever the opportunity presents itself (I make sure the opportunity often presents itself).

The woods offer a place to restore the vitality and perspective I need to return to the courtroom and accompany families through some of the most difficult moments of their lives. The woods are also a natural place for prayer and reflection. I have come to embrace the Benedictine expression ora et labora—pray and work.

Background

University of Notre Dame — Graduate Studies in Theology, Current
Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers College — Graduate, September 2015
Stetson University College of Law — Juris Doctor, 2001
Drury University — Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, 1999

Admitted to practice in Florida, Georgia, and Vermont