From DOJ Lawyer to Dominican Friar: 13 Hot Takes on Faith and Dating With Father Legge

From shaping future priests and scholars at the Dominican House of Studies to leading the Thomistic Institute, Father Dominic Legge has dedicated his priesthood to bringing intellectual depth and clarity to the Catholic faith.

Having experienced his own adult conversion in law school after realizing his mind was growing while his faith lagged behind, he now spearheads an apostolate that reaches university students on 110 campuses nationwide.

Through high-level campus lectures, popular podcasts and the Aquinas 101 digital series, he helps thousands of young people bridge the gap between faith and reason — demonstrating that loving God with all your heart also means loving Him with all your mind.

Currently serving as the president of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., the Washington state native shared details about his own vocation story on a recent episode of Napa Institute’s Shepherd Circle Priest Podcast.

From detailing the fruits of a long night spent on his knees in adoration to his dreams of being a lawyer watching Perry Mason, Father Dominic offers a wealth of wisdom, including dating advice and how God never writes a check he can’t cash (or Venmo, to Gen Z).

Here are 13 hot takes from the Dominican for National Vocations Awareness Week:

1. A Long Night of Adoration Changed His Life.

Before he was a Dominican friar, Father Dominic was a successful Department of Justice trial attorney in D.C., single-mindedly pursuing a legal career and dating a woman with plans for marriage. Feeling an unexpected pull to pray about his life’s trajectory, he took a solo weekend retreat at a Benedictine monastery. While kneeling alone in the dark chapel, he realized he had spent his whole life asking God for what he wanted — and had never once asked God what He wanted.

“And that was a very frightening realization, because the first thing that entered my mind was, ‘Oh no, what if He says, ‘I want you to be a priest,’ or, even worse, ‘I want you to be a monk?’”

After about 30 minutes on his knees, he finally asked: 

“All right Lord, I give up. If you want me to be a priest, that’s what I’ll do. Just show me what you want.”

The moment he surrendered, all anxiety melted away, replaced by an overwhelming sense of peace and joy.

2. He Walked Out of the Chapel and Immediately Declared His Vocation.

Right after a total surrender to the will of God, Father Dominic had what he calls a “surreal experience”: 

“I walked out of the chapel and bumped into a priest in the corridor who invited me to chat, and I started saying, ‘Well, Father, I think maybe God is calling me to the priesthood’ — which was a surreal experience because an hour before I never would have said that.”

3. Abraham Lincoln Prompts Him to Buy a Catechism.

Father Dominic grew up in a practicing Catholic home outside Seattle with memories of falling asleep on his grandma’s shoulder praying the Rosary, but his adult conversion was sparked while in law school. While spending weeks reading Abraham Lincoln’s collected works for a research project, he had a sudden realization: He knew more about Lincoln, and cared more about Lincoln, than he did about Jesus Christ. Recognizing that “cannot be good,” he went out the next day, bought a Bible and a Catechism, and headed to confession at a local Dominican parish.

4. A Latin Chant Mass Moved Him To Tears. 

During that return to the sacraments in law school, he attended a high Mass at the Dominican parish featuring a Gregorian chant schola. Hearing the Creed chanted in Latin for the first time, he was moved to tears — realizing the vast intellectual, sacramental and aesthetic beauty of the Catholic faith was an inheritance that had been waiting for him all along.

5. His Legal Pursuits Began With Second-Grade Dreams of Being Perry Mason.

Father Dominic’s legal ambitions started early. In second grade, while home sick from school, he watched reruns of the classic TV show Perry Mason. Inspired by the crusading defense attorney, he decided right then and there to become a trial lawyer — even though he couldn’t spell the word “lawyer” yet! He held single-mindedly to that goal all the way through law school and into his work as a federal prosecutor.

6. He Was Jealous of His Parents Being Altar Servers.

When Father Dominic was a kid, his parish abolished boy altar servers right when he reached the age to serve, transitioning to adult-only servers. His parents signed up, leaving young Dominic sitting in the pews, envious that they got to serve at the altar while he had to watch.

7. He Left the Department of Justice to Join the Order of Preachers.

After clerking and working as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, Father Dominic gave up his career to enter the Order of Preachers, established by St. Dominic. What drew him wasn’t just scholarship, but the Dominican charism: to contemplate and to hand on to others the fruits of contemplation through preaching and a shared fraternal life.

8. Priesthood Is ‘God Writing Checks He’ll Always Cash.’

Reflecting on his 19 years in the priesthood, Father Dominic describes ministry as a constant lesson in grace — and succumbing to the truth:

“Jesus really is real. He is alive, he’s powerful, and he’s more powerful than our weakness and all of our problems.”

He notes that God calls weak, fallible men so that Christ can do the actual work. His favorite metaphor for the priesthood:

“He wants us as priests to go out and make promises to people on His behalf. … If you write a check, He’s going to pay it. It’s coming out of His bank account.”

9. Dating Rule No. 1: ‘If You Like Her, Ask Her Out.’

Father Dominic’s practical advice on dating starts with a golden rule for men: Step up and make your intentions clear. In a culture of endless text threads and ambiguous “situationships,” he insists that “nothing else gets off the ground if you don’t do that.”

10. Dating Rule No. 2: Don’t Treat Date One Like a Marriage Interview.

His second dating takeaway is to drop the high-stakes pressure on a first date, understanding that friendship first is key. And how do we build these friendships in a post-pandemic era? 

“You do things together. You look for common interests, and you develop a kind of affinity and affection over time. So it’s not going to be perfect on Day One. In fact, a friendship gets better over time the more you share with the person.”

11. Dating Rule No. 3: Know the Intention Behind Dating.

Father Dominic explained that dating has a purpose, and that end is marriage, “which is a procreative friendship — a deep and lifelong friendship that is also oriented towards children and family life.”

12. Dating Rule No. 4: Keep Physical Boundaries Intact to Protect Your Heart.

His most emphatic dating advice is to keep physical boundaries strictly in check: 

“I see that with a lot of young people today, because they get attached and then their heart gets ripped out of their chest, and they suffer enormously because those relationships were not going to last — because the human foundation for a friendship that could be procreative and a life together wasn’t there.”

13. His Secret to Discernment: Start Small and Be Vulnerable.

For anyone trying to discern vocationally — whether to the priesthood, religious life or marriage — Father Dominic emphasizes that fear comes from the prospect of letting go of control. His prescription: honest, unpretentious daily prayer where you drop the act, get vulnerable before God, and ask Him to strengthen your moral life step-by-step. As he puts it reflecting on Jesus’ words in the Gospel:

“He who would save his life will lose it and he who loses his life for my sake will find it. And I found that to be profoundly true. You don’t only find your life, you get a hundredfold.”