Sounds like your son is getting incomplete career advice from someone, perhaps a high school guidance counselor. Also, was your son unaware of how a segment of society views lawyers?
Perhaps you could step in, not necessarily with advice, but at least with information. In particular, law and engineering are not mutually exclusive at the college level. Law school comes later, and is open to anybody with good LSAT scores, regardess of what college major they chose. One of my close relatives majored in biology, then got accepted to a fairly prestigious law school, and is now a successful lawyer.
If you son enters a pre-law program, what is it? Basically a bunch of relatively easy courses in subjects such as Government, History, and various departments of "studies." If your son doesn't get into law school, he is basically left with nothing.
If your son majors in engineering, he can still go to law school, but even if not, then at least he gets an education with some meat on the bones. Or, here's the hot setup. He should declare himself as a "pre-med," but major in a real subject like chemistry. Then he can have his choice of med school, law school, business school, or even a science career.
