Christian Lawyer Daniel Buttafuoco on Giving Back vs Giving Haircuts

July 12th, 2011. By BrendaC

Lawyers Giving Back looks at a side of lawyers you don’t hear too much about—the side that gives back…pays it forward..and shares the love. We’ve found quite a number of attorneys who log non-billable hours helping others—simply because they believe it’s the right thing to do. Their stories are inspiring, and hey, who knew lawyers were so…good? If you’ve got a story to share about an attorney who’s doing the right thing, let us know—we’d love to let others know, too. Today, we’re talking with New York attorney Daniel Buttafuoco…

Attorney Daniel Buttafuoco: “I didn’t hear a voice from God or anything, I just thought I should be a lawyer, a Christian lawyer and it ended up being a good choice.”

Dan Buttafuoco grew up, as he says, “street smart” in a Bronx housing project, raised in family of Italian evangelicals. As a child he remembers his dad telling him he was “a smart kid that should go to school” and he’d “break my legs if I became a barber” as the previous three generations of Buttafuocos had done.

At age 17, not withstanding a few adolescent meanderings about his faith, he became a committed Christian. “All my friends were joining ministries, but I felt that wasn’t for me,” says Buttafuoco who has an easy-going style and a New York City sense of humor. “I didn’t hear a voice from God or anything, I just thought I should be a lawyer, a Christian lawyer and it ended up being a good choice.”

Today, Dan Buttafuoco combines the practice of law and his faith in a way he finds consistent. “I am a sneak attack, nobody expects to hear anything religious or Christian from a lawyer,” says Buttafuoco.

“I purposefully selected a career as a personal injury lawyer where I believe my clients are telling the truth, and where I believe they deserve to win and I purposefully don’t take cases where we don’t believe that,” says Buttafuoco. “The firm is organized around this central principle that we take cases that have merit and that we believe in.”

Buttafuoco’s firm has some impressive wins for clients. It obtained the third largest ever personal injury settlement in New York state history and the largest ever settlement against the state of New York on behalf of an injured police officer who was paralyzed.

Buttafuoco says he would never represent a child molester or a murderer—unless he thought they were innocent, but of course, as a personal injury attorney he doesn’t have to.

And he doesn’t restrict his client list to Christians. “I have Muslim clients, Jewish clients, atheist clients,” says Buttafuoco. “I believe you can be tolerant—which means actually means putting up with what you don’t agree with,” says Buttafuoco. “When we disagree, we try to persuade and never by force, to change things.”

He also holds a master’s degree in theology, is an elder in his church and a follower of Christian Apologetics, a theological defense of Christian faith through rational argument and reason—an approach to Christian faith which would naturally, perhaps, appeal to a lawyer like Buttafuoco. He explains it as “the intellectual side of the Christian church that explores why people believe in God”.

Underlying everything Buttafuoco does and believes in an impressive commitment to giving back. “Essentially there are three things, time talent and treasure that you are supposed to give back,” he says referring to his fundamentalist belief in tithing. “So even when I am involved in making money, I might be getting someone due compensation that he is going to need to live for the rest of their life and that is a good deed.”

Of course, Buttafuoco gets a fee (he earned $5 million from the New York case)—and 10 to 20 percent of everything he earns he returns to charitable organizations. “I am not giving to stupid stuff like these fake preachers that drive around in jet planes like moguls,” says Buttafuoco.

He has, as he describes it, a Rolodex of worthy, credible organizations that do serious work and that align with his Christian beliefs. Among them, is the Love 146 foundation that helps young girls escape from the horrors of being sold into sexual slavery in Asia. This year he will give $500,000 to fund scholarships for Young Christian Leaders foundation. “These are deserving kids who are not going into full-time ministry,” says Buttafuoco, “they want to become professionals”. Kids who are, in a way, a lot like Buttafuoco was as a young teenager.

And this former young kid from the Bronx, is also the money and effort behind a near priceless collection of Bibles—one from the 10th century, an illuminated manuscript, an original page from a Gutenberg Bible and more. Ten times a year, he takes the collection to schools and churches and talks about messages from the Bible. “The Bible is still the bestseller,” says Buttafuoco. “People think it is passé, but it isn’t.”

Dan Buttafuoco is the founder and senior partner of Buttafuoco & Associates, a national personal injury law firm based in New York. The firm’s Christian lawyers represent clients in variety of cases, including complex litigation, major personal injury and wrongful death cases.

Tags: Attorney Daniel Buttafuoco, charitable giving, Christian Lawyer, Faith-based Attorney, Lawyers Giving Back, Love 146, Young Christian Leaders

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