The lure of a 'safe' job is no more - The Jewish Chronicle

I never really wanted to be a lawyer. My boyhood ambition centred on becoming a professional golfer. But my late father made it clear that I needed a 'proper qualification' as surety for earning a living. Perfecting my handicap wasn't a 'solid Jewish profession'.

And so I opted for the law. A move predicated on the then tender childhood notion that lawyers were paid handsomely to argue for a living. Ironically, careers teachers at my alma mater, Uppingham public school, were less enthusiastic, telling my parents I wasn't bright enough for the law.

I didn't take any notice - my passion for the subject and a punishing approach to my studies, meant that what I lacked in natural talent I made up for with back-breaking dedication.

Spool forward three decades and it seems to have paid off. I'm thrilled that a survey found me to be Britain's highest profile lawyer and - a little more reluctantly - to have been dubbed "Mr Loophole" by the media after securing acquittals for stellar clients such as Sir Alex Ferguson through a forensic knowledge of road-traffic law.

But if I'd been hocking my indifferent CV around law firms today - a 2:2 from Trent Poly - I'd barely get within sniffing distance of the partners' dry-cleaning run, let alone a training contract. That's why - though Jewish parents may baulk at the idea - it's time for today's young people to abandon a sense of entitlement towards the solid professions of my dad's era and take a broader view of their future careers.

We need to abandon our sense of entitlement

For even for those who are ''bright enough'' for the likes of law, banking, chartered accountancy and actuarial work, the job market is depressingly bleak.

The fall-out from the 2008 recession and the huge number of graduates flooding out of higher education institutions (who greedily suck up students to boost their coffers) means there's no longer any such thing as a ''safe Jewish profession''. It's hard for young Jewish people and their often ambitious parents to accept this. Especially since our scholastic tradition encodes bookish endeavour into our DNA.

But the time has come to square up and take a counter-intuitive approach . To accept it's not a failing to supplant the traditional "Jewish" professions with something more enterprising - and realistic. I love my work, I found a niche and I'm rewarded well for it. However, times have changed.

And some young Jewish people are making the change, too. An increasing number are now seeing politics as a career. Others are using past volunteering experience as a springboard into working in the charitable sector.

Then there's going into Daddy's business. Once the preserve of the, ahem, academically challenged, I now can't think of a single contemporary with their own business who hasn't taken a son or daughter into the family trade as a prudent counter-attack against graduate unemployment. As parents, we need to encourage our young people to be open-minded and less precious about career options.

To take a job - any job - that pays, if only to get started and for the dignity of working: serving in Poundland has to be better than idling at home with a redundant law degree.

My son the lawyer or my son the golfer? I don't know about you. But my son the wage earner has the best ring of all.