Lawyer Doctorson

I have been working with a lawyer in Texas who casually mentioned that his father was a physician.  That surprised me at first as it just struck me as surprising that the son of  a doctor would opt to become a lawyer. That probably says something about how I view doctors, as they are a profession I respect and admire and whom I figure are pretty smart.  Lots of people, of course, figure lawyers are pretty smart but as I am a lawyer I figure we're just average in the smartness department.

Anyhow, after that, I realized that I was working with a lawyer here in town whose father was also a physician.  That still sort of surprised me.  And then just the other day I was at a legal proceeding with a lawyer who was about my age who mentioned that his father was a general practitioner.  And I can think of at least two other lawyers I've worked against whose father was a MD.

After that, it dawned on me that maybe I was looking at this the wrong way as, well, my father was a dentist.  And dentists are, after all, a medical profession.  At first I started to think that was different, but it probably really isn't very different. And then I was thinking that I don't really know any other kids of dentists who became lawyers, although it then occurred to me that, other than a set of cousins whose father was a dentist, I don't really know any people whose parents were dentists.  None of my cousins form that family, I'd note, are lawyers.

Upon further pondering, however, it occurred to me that I do know a Chilean lawyer whose father was a dentist. And then it further dawned on me that a lawyer I work against frequently, who  has two brothers who are lawyers, also had a father who was a dentist. And, indeed, one of the retired district court judges, who has a sister who is a Wyoming Supreme Court justice, also had a father who was a lawyer. 

So, obviously, this isn't that uncommon.

Is there some natural attraction to the profession of law in the children of medical professionals?  If there is, I can't think of what it would be.  I think there's one that runs to some extent the other way around, as a fair number of lawyers kids go into medicine, and I think that may be because they they see how hard the profession of law is, which is not to say that medicine isn't hard.  Indeed, while I do see the children of doctors and dentists enter those professions, a lot do not, and I think that may be because those kids have a close up view of what those professions are like, and they aren't easy.

I can't say, however, that this leads to a profession in the law.  It didn't in my case anyhow.  I started off to be a geologist and then an oilfield crash changed that. Still, it's an odd coincidence and maybe it isn't one.