You could also work in a restaurant and be their retained lawyer. Mundane lawyerism… but you seem to feel that all lawyering is mundane. Do both. Sounds like you’ve worked long hours in the past, from your description. 14 hour days ain’t so bad.
You have two options. Follow your dreams, and risk alienating your folks. Or follow the career path they have chosen for you, and perhaps you will be able to follow up your ideal job sometime in the future as your mother suggests.
Day-to-day, which of the two options will make you happier?
Did your parents raise you to be an assertive, decisive adult who doesn’t take any crap from anyone, or did they raise you to be a doormat?
If the former, then they can’t blame you for acting that way. If the latter, then you don’t owe them shit, and it’s time for you to grow up.
I think your thread is misnamed. It should be called “Children who won’t let go”. My reply is not a joke. Think about it. Seriously.
I remember when I got my first apartment away from home. My mother pulled every argument in her book. I wasn’t going far (I actually walked it once, maybe 5 or 6 miles), but she was aghast. Most of her arguments amounted to, “X will think we don’t get along.” Well, I could care less what X thought (although to my mother it was important. But I went ahead and never looked back. I actually did come back home a couple years later, but it was completely different by then.
Your father sounds unusually controlling. I think I would have told him to take your inheritance and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
First off, I hate it when people say that people need to grow up. It’s not something you can do on command, and it doesn’t happen suddenly. And the absolute worst way to begin the process is to make a rash decision that will cut you off from all your support if you aren’t ready for that. And, honestly, the OP does not yet sound ready.
The real grown-up thing to do is to realize that you have to sometimes do things you don’t want to do, and that you are not stuck with a dichotomy. It’s not do what you want, or kick your parents out of your life. You can, for example, work as a lawyer while learning cooking in your off time, while getting more supportive people in your life besides your parents. Heck, maybe you can compromise with your parents themselves–your post makes it sound like you are merely assuming they will disown you. Heck, there’s even the option of lying to your parents, pretending to be a lawyer while getting a cooking certificate or something Not that I would recommend that option.
It isn’t, but you can fake it. I’m thirty-six years old myself, and I don’t think of myself as an adult - I just try to act the way I think an adult should act, and hope nobody notices the difference.
And this is the part where I have to ask, are you Asian? I have heard this from second generation Koreans and Japanese that their immigrant parents want their kids to be doctors, lawyers, or they are nothing. NOTHING!! That or they HAVE to go to Harvard, Columbia, Yale or MIT or they have FAILED AS PARENTS and you’re bringing shame to the family! I don’t know why, it’s just what I’ve heard. If that’s true, there’s no way you’re going to be happy in this situation. Either you be a lawyer, make them happy but you be miserable, or you do what you want in life, then THEY be miserable all because they think they failed as parents. You doing what you want in life is not going to kill them.
So man up and stop being afraid of mommy and daddy. If they disown you for you living your own life and doing what you actually want, fuck 'em. My ex-wife was disowned for marrying someone outside her race :eyeroll: and daring to not fall in line with daddy’s orders. She was totally happy with it. Well, eventually she was. It was hard at first, but she had friends, my family and other support. Now she couldn’t be happier, and even talks to them now and then.
It is also possible I don’t know what I’m talking about, so if this doesn’t ring true at all, well, there’s the next post. 
You can’t control what your parents do but you can control what you do. Follow your passion, go cook.
Good luck!
Girl From Mars, I’m afraid that if I go along with the lawyering, I’ll get stuck. At the moment, I’ve got a food resume that’s fairly up-to-date, and I can find work and look into a part-time program at culinary school. If I work in law for a year or two, my resume’s out of date, and I have to start with culinary school.
Alessan, my parents raised me to be competent and responsible. They also raised me to be obedient to their wishes.
EvilTOJ, got it in one. My father is still sore that I didn’t apply to Harvard.
Then some things you should keep, and other you should ignore. You owe your parents respect (just as they owe you), but not obedience.
Here’s a paradox for you (and for them) - how can they expect you to be a good lawyer if you can’t stand up for yourself? Standing up for themselves is what lawyers do for a living. If you’re so easily cowed by your parents, think what will happen to you in court or at the negotiating table.
Thanks to everyone who’s responded so far. I appreciate hearing what you have to say - it’s good to hear perspectives from people who are outside the situation.
Two points of clarification:
By “disownment,” I don’t mean “you’re not getting your inheritance.” I mean “you are no longer my child.”
My ideal outcome at this point is my parents saying “We don’t approve of your decisions, but we’re not going to stop you. Call us and let us know you’re safe, okay?”
That’s funny. I assumed he was Jewish.
According to my Hungarian Handbook of Stereotypes, Jewish parents want you to be a … ruffling pages … pharmacist or a dentist. Or a CPA of some kind. There was also the fact he said his parents were in another country. Sleep Deprivation, I assumed by disown you meant it as your parents would say “I have no son!” and proceed with The Shunning. I know it’ll be really hard, but you do have to do what is best for YOU. **Alessan **has a good point; if you can’t stand up to your parents, how are you supposed to plead your case in court? Actually, that would even be a good arguing point. “Mom, if I can’t convince you I don’t want to be a lawyer, what kind of a lawyer would I be? A bad one.”
EvilTOJ, They’d actually be saying “I have no daughter!”, but you’re spot-on about The Shunning.
And while Alessan’s point is a good one, as a would-be transactional lawyer (not a litigator) it’s unlikely that I’d be pleading anything in court.
Actually, I disagree with you. I think it is a matter of deciding that you’ve got one life, it’s no one’s responsibility but yours, and you can’t just sit back and let it happen to you.
These are conscious decisions that lead to the phenomenon we call “growing up.” You make these decisions and you live by them and you’re a grown up.
Sleep Deprivation, you’re far from alone in struggling with cultural issues like these. You might find this thread that HazelNutCoffee started on telling her parents she’s “living in sin” enlightening (different issue, but coming from the same kind of idea, I think, that the kids should do what the parents want or risk a real breach in the relationship).
For another perspective, I’m jealous of you that you actually know what you would like to do, even if you’re not currently doing it. I’m almost 44 and still trying to figure that out. 
It does come down to facing your fear, you know!
Have some faith. Faith that they’ll still love you. They may be angry for a time, but time will pass, that anger will dim. They’ll hear of you doing well, reaching your dreams, achieving your goals, doing something that makes them proud, and it will completely evaporate.
Do you seriously imagine they would shun you if you found a partner and produced off spring? I’m thinking, not bloody likely.
Your Mom has put in her time, sounds like, having her progeny away from her country out in the world at large. She’s not going down without a fight.
Find a kind sentence that summarizes your feelings and stick to it, don’t engage in debate, just keep laying it down. I’m thinking, “I find I cannot, for all my desire to please you, live the life you want for me. I find I can only live the life that calls to me. I’m sorry if that disappoints you. I’m sorry for us all, if your respect and love for me hinge on my obeying the life plan you’ve chosen.”
If it helps, I know a couple of people who everyone told they were ‘nuts’ for, not going to college, pursuing such a ‘silly thing’ as a career, that they’d never make it, make a living, etc. They are now the envy of everyone, have exciting careers and, of course, are proudly embraced by the very families that had shunned and dismissed them.
I’m curious, because I didn’t get a Jewish vibe at all. Guilt, yes, disowning, not generally.
ETA: Read further. Got it.
Cat Whisperer, thanks for the link. Definitely interesting reading.
elbows, I’m not having children. (My mother can take the battle for grandchildren up with my sister.) And there’s a fair chance that any long-term partners I might have won’t be of the opposite sex, which is a whole other can of worms…