Recent law school grad & climber seeking advice

Good points, Fat Dad. Perhaps instead of "ethics" I should have said "Rules of Professional Conduct" which are indeed informed by principles of ethics, but are not all related to say, honest character. For example, I see a lot of attorneys in my state get dinged for neglect of cases (which is covered by the Rules) and I was worried our OP might find it challenging to get down to cases if his heart was in climbing instead. Another Rule that might be easy to break without really intending to do so is conflict of interest.

Even if a malpractice claim is covered by insurance I wouldn't want to go there!

Full-time climbing definitely isn't compatible with firm work!

The biggest problem with being a lawyer, is unless you really truly believe in and are driven by what you are doing for your clients, the work alternates between highly stressful and tedious and unbelievably boring. And if you can't enjoy the work, it makes life much more difficult