The Astronaut and The Gamer

When high school students create the facts of a fictional relationship headed for a custody battle, the story is practically the same—no matter where I am in Texas. A professional woman with a salary around $200,000 is married to a man allegedly on the cusp of making millions. The woman is either a lawyer, astronaut, or Fortune 500 CEO, while the man’s ambitions focus on gaming or surfing. And while we wind up with strikingly similar scenarios, the 15 minutes of yelling out ages, strengths, flaws, and parent-teacher conference attendance records are worth every second. Student voices are activated, and the mock family law hearing that follows is now based on facts that the students are invested in.

This year, the Texas Young Lawyers Association will travel across Texas to host pre-law summits serving high school students and college students. Regardless of the age we are serving, we have a set of standards that reflect the success of the child custody activity: 1) students should speak more than attorney or judge volunteers, 2) five minutes should not pass without the inclusion of student voices,
3) every lesson is interactive, and 4) students’ input should be celebrated.

These benchmarks are the result of input from my current and former pre-law students, as well as years of working with bar associations on education programming. When we implement activities that uplift student voices, my peers consistently commend the students’ intelligence, curiosity, and participation. When the agenda features panels and lectures with limited student speaking, the attorneys frequently complain about the overindulgence in cellphones.

I think back to a Law Day program from earlier this year at Abilene Christian University. Local attorneys Derek Hampton and Austin Green served as the lawyers (with students sitting second chair) for our mock voir dire on a CPS case. Our room of potential jurors consisting of high school students raised their numbered placards and shared experiences to the extent that the agenda was adjusted to avoid cutting off the meaningful discussion. The insights were remarkable, and many students said they even learned important information about their closest friends.

If that session was replaced with slides or lectures, we would lose those connections, the development of the students’ communication skills, and perhaps those attorney volunteers for future events. Most importantly, the students would lose out on the opportunity to see how the law works in action.

So, if you find yourself in a room of teenagers speaking over one another about whether the children’s teachers will testify on behalf of one parent or the other, what the oldest child’s wishes are, or why the guardian ad litem and attorney ad litem are advocating for different outcomes, I hope you will take the opportunity to recognize that you are hearing the sound of learning and joy. Maybe that moment will come at one of our TYLA pre-law summits!

ARMIN SALEK
2025-2026 President, Texas Young Lawyers Association