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Why My Kids Don’t Want To Be Lawyers

Success in work and family comes down to choices.

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(Photo via James Goodnow)

I have two young kids, aged 5 and 7, who I love with all my heart. No matter how busy work gets, I’m usually able to get home in time to tuck them into bed. As part of our routine, I tell them that if they use their minds and work hard, they can do anything they want. I then ask them what they want to be when they grow up. On any given evening they might tell me they want to be a doctor, a paleontologist, an engineer, or an American Ninja Warrior. There’s one profession that’s never come up, though: lawyer.

Law runs in my blood. Even as a little boy, I remember wanting to be a lawyer like my dad. My father was a government lawyer for much of his career, and a good one. I was proud of him. I thought he did amazing things, and I wanted to be just like him. From as far back as I can remember, I was aiming to be an attorney. I worked as a summer file clerk at a law firm in college to get legal experience. I went straight to law school out of college. After earning my J.D., I went back to the firm I’d started at, put my nose to the grindstone, and started working my way through the ranks. Today, I find myself in my dad’s shoes, raising young children, trying to give them the world, and perhaps holding more than a flicker of hope inside myself that they, too, might want to grow up to be a lawyer like me.

But they don’t. And it leaves me wondering why.

Why Would You Want To Be A Lawyer?

There are plenty of reasons for a grown-up to not want to become a lawyer in today’s marketplace. Law school is expensive, and job opportunities are nowhere near what they were before the Great Recession. The legal market is changing, becoming more competitive and business-like. The classical notion of the revered, noble lawyer is fading away, and with it much of the romance associated with the profession. Plus, the population of lawyers tends to have an overrepresentation of people who struggle with stress, depression, and substance abuse.

But my kids don’t care about any of that. Grade schoolers aren’t considering ROI on their student loans, potential take-home salary, or the mystique of the sage attorney. They want a job that sounds fun and interesting, like finding dinosaur bones. I can tell myself that law doesn’t have that same level of fun and cool to a kindergartener’s eyes. I can try to take some comfort in the notion that they’re not old enough to see the profession for what it really is.

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But if I’m being honest, deep down, I fear they may see the profession perfectly. I worry they see it for how it impacts our family and our lives, and that’s why they want no part of it.

Screen Time Limits Aren’t Just For Kids

My family just got back from a long-planned vacation to remote parts of Idaho, and at the end of it my iPhone was kind enough to pop up my weekly screen time calculation. Over seven days of travel, family time, and relaxation, I managed to average four hours of screen time per day — and that’s not including time on the laptop or making calls.

That’s a sobering statistic, but for where my career is now it makes perfect sense. I manage a practice and an NLJ 250 law firm. Until my term as managing partner ends or I collapse, I’ve got two full-time jobs, neither of which stops just because I’m not around. This is hopefully the most demanding time my legal practice will ever see again.

That four hours of screen time felt like the bare minimum needed to keep the plates spinning in my absence. I checked emails on a lake. I typed responses on a raft. I would steal a glance at my phone any time I was somewhere it seemed like I could get a signal to make sure no crises had arisen in the 30 minutes since I checked it last. At one point, I drove our rented electric blue minivan to the top of a mountain so I could handle a conference call.

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I don’t take pride in this story, nor do I consider myself unique. Most attorneys in private practice are well aware of how demanding this job can be. The business of law is intense, and succeeding requires focus, diligence, and time. Building and managing a practice is challenging and will consume every second of your life if you let it. Knowing that your decisions can impact the livelihood of other people only adds to the pressure to remain available.

We Aren’t Who We Used To Be

There’s also the basic problem of inertia. I, like many attorneys, went to law school and began my practice without a family. When I was a young lawyer with a girlfriend, I could devote virtually as much time as I wanted to work. The balance I struck in those early days seemed to stick around over time, even as my girlfriend became my wife, and as my wife and I became parents. I’m comfortable learning new areas of law or new concepts in management and business. Learning a whole new way to be a lawyer, striking a new blend of my work and home lives, is turning out to be a tougher task.

All is not lost, however. The first step to addressing a problem is identifying that it exists. I’ve known for a long time that I need a better approach to blending my work and home lives. I suspect many people reading this article know that feeling. Making the decision to change is a start.

As much as tech is part of the problem, it can also be part of the solution. My cell phone kept work at my fingertips for my entire vacation, but without it I can’t imagine being comfortable taking that vacation in the first place. I can work remotely on weekends when needed, if only so I can sneak in a few minutes for tee ball practice or to watch part of The Incredibles with my kids. Technology is good and evil, so we need to make it work for us — not enslave us.

Choosing Better

Success in work and family life comes down to choices. I can, and will, choose to keep work from destroying my family life. I also can, and will, choose to encourage others in my firm to do the same, to care for and balance their lives so that they’re better lawyers and better people. And as a profession, I hope we can stop viewing masochistic work schedules and related blood on the ground as a badge of honor — especially when the blood comes from our families and loved ones. We’ve worked hard to get where we are. We owe it to ourselves to make this profession a sustainable one.

I don’t know if my kids will ever want to be lawyers, and I’m genuinely fine if they don’t. There are great reasons to be a lawyer, and plenty more to not be one. As long as they can support themselves and the lives they choose to live, I’m happy.

I’ve come to understand how odd of a duck my dad really was. He was a successful lawyer, but he always ate dinner with us. He made every school event I had as a kid, every bike race, every game. He made his business life adjust to the needs of his home. He worked so he could live, while so many of us do the opposite.

I set a goal a long time ago to be like my dad. At the time, I thought it meant being a lawyer. Today, I see how much more there is to it. I’ve got a lot of job left to do, but when I start a job, I aim to finish it.

Will you join me?

James Goodnow

James Goodnow is an attorney, commentator, and Above the Law columnist. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and is the managing partner of NLJ 250 firm Fennemore Craig. He is the co-author of Motivating Millennials, which hit number one on Amazon in the business management new release category. You can connect with James on Twitter (@JamesGoodnow) or by emailing him at James@JamesGoodnow.com.

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