I have degrees both from Yale Divinity School (M.Div. 1982) and Yale Law School (J.D. 1990). I also have a degree from Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, in theology and social ethics (M.Th. 1983). After seminary, I was an ordained Lutheran (then ALC now ELCA) pastor and served a church in Detroit, while I was also Acting Director of Studies for the Office of Church in Society of the ALC (meaning I wrote social statements and social issue study guides). I have been practicing law since 1990, not serving the church as a pastor (although I've been on various committees and boards).

I helped the ELCA (and its predecessor body, The ALC) develop its social statement against the death penalty in the 1980s to early 1990s. As an attorney, I have been lead lawyer in the habeas corpus proceedings for a prisoner on death row in California. After eleven years of work, we obtained a reversal of the death sentence in the Ninth Circuit in July 2004.