Could a Young Lawyer Today Possibly Replicate Tuckers Career?
That was then – and this is now. In his book, Tucker not only recounts his own fulfilling career, but expresses, in an understated but unmistakable way, that careers like his own are now a thing of the past. Such a life in the law, he suggests, is now nearly impossible to replicate. Why does Tucker view himself as so plainly a member of a vanishing breed? To answer that question, one need only look at what he identifies as the key ingredients of his success – and the difficulty it would take for a young lawyer now to attain any of them. First, as a young lawyer, Tucker enjoyed the time to develop and hone his skills as an advocate, averaging somewhere between 1600 and 1800 billable hours per year. Today, a young lawyer of the same age would bill, instead, at least 2200 billable hours – a sum requiring a total commitment of 60-70 hours a week, every week of the year. Such a schedule simply does not allow for the kind of side projects on which Tucker cut his teeth. Second, Tucker was abl
