Lowering

 
        
Anonymous Fund for the Humanities
of the
                     –       .
 Lowering
 


Lawyer Jokes and
Legal Culture

 

    

 The University of Wisconsin Press
 Monroe Street
Madison, Wisconsin 

www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/

 Henrietta Street
London WCE LU, England

Copyright © 
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
All rights reserved

    

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Galanter, Marc, –
Lowering the bar : lawyer jokes and legal culture / Marc Galanter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN --- (cloth : alk. paper)
. Lawyers—United States—Humor. . Lawyers—United States—Public opinion.
. Lawyers–Complaints against–United States. I. Title.
K.G 
´.´—dc 
 f or
          (–)
friend and teacher
Ben Zoma said: Who is wise?
He who learns from all men.
—           : 
 

Illustrations xiii
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 
The Enlargement and Withdrawal of the Legal World 
Learning from Lawyer Jokes 
       : The Enduring Core and Its Recent Accretions
. Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 
Lying and Dishonesty 
Workers in the Mills of Deceit 
Eloquence, Persuasiveness, Resourcefulness 
Hot Air: Lawyer Talk as Fakery and Bombast 
Masters of Stratagem 
The Lawyer Outsmarted 
The Ascendency of Lawyer Talk 
. The Lawyer as Economic Predator 
Only the Lawyer Wins 
Taking It All 
A Prodigious Predator 
Fee Simple 
Throwing the Meter 
Sexploitation: Predation as Sex / Sex as Predation 
The Justice Tariff 
. Playmates of the Devil 
The Devil’s Own 
Headed for Hell 
x Contents

Absent in Heaven 

A Kingdom of This World 
. Conflict: Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife 
Excess and Insufficient Combativeness 
Promoters of Conflict 
The Conniving Claimant 
Litigation Fever 
The Lawyer as Heroic Champion 
. The Demography of the World of Lawyer Jokes 
The Hemispheric Prism 
Women in Combat 
Jews and Other Outsiders 
Seniors and Juniors 

       : The New Territories

. Betrayers of Trust 
Lawyers in a World of Declining Trust 
The Betrayal Joke Cluster 
Betrayal as Virtue 
What Do the Jokes Tell Us? 
An Excess of Loyalty? 
. The Lawyer as Morally Deficient 
A Suspect Profession 
Looking Out for Number One 
No Redeeming Social Value 
“He Just Doesn’t Get It” 
In the Laboratory 
. Lawyers as Objects of Scorn 
Closing the Circle of Scorn 
Sounding the Depths 
Into the Slime 
The Anal Connection 
The Uses of Scorn 
. “A Good Start!” Death Wish Jokes 
Prehistory 
The Contemporary Onslaught 
Let’s Kill All the Lawyers 
A Pestilential Affliction 
The  Percent Legend 
Why Death Wish Jokes Flourish 
 Contents xi

         : The Justice Implosion

. Enemies of Justice 
Doing Justice 
The Lawyer as Enemy of Justice 
What Does Law Deliver? 

. Only in America? 

Appendix: Register of Jokes 

Notes 
References 
Index 
 

. Blessings of Brittain—or A Flight of Lawyers 

. Interesting. Have your lawyer call my lawyer. 
. There’s one thing about the law I always wanted know but was afraid to ask:
Where in the hell do all the lawyer jokes come from? 
. The judicial rulings are over here. That section is all lawyer jokes. 
. A Counciller 
. I urge this jury not to let the evidence prejudice you against my client. 
. The Old Bailey Advocate Bringing Off a Thief 
. Sharpening the flats 
. Opting for Chinese food for lunch, the law partners decide in principle to
share their dishes and, accordingly, before ordering, negotiate a comprehensive
pre-victual agreement. 
. I’m certain I speak for the entire legal profession when I say that the fee is
reasonable and just. 
. The shark image is domesticated by lawyers and turned into an ironic icon of
the trade. 
. Impressed? Well, wait until I tell you about this next case. 
. If we were lawyers this would be billable time. 
. Tombstone: Jack Roe, esq. . . . , billable hours. 
. The Lawyer Winding Up His Accounts 
. Symptoms of Crim Con!! 
. Why is everybody always picking on us? 
. A Lawyer and His Agent 
. The Lawyer’s last Circuit 
. Can I see that National Law Journal when you’re through with it? 
. Just a minute! I happen to be a lawyer . . . 
. A Cheap Beating 

xiii
xiv Illustrations

. The Learned A___s or a legal Construction of Rogues and Vagrants 
. Our case is up next. By the way, you look great! 
. Litigation 
. A Flat between Two Sharps 
. When will I be old enough to start suing people? 
. Nervous, Doctor? Never treated a personal injury lawyer before? 
. I don’t feel quite as fulfilled when I’ve saved a lawyer. 
. My lawyer finally got me on the endangered-species list! 
. So you went to law school, and now you want to practice law. I think that’s
cute. 
. For God’s sake, Mildred, you’re a lawyer, not a lawyerette! 
. Do you know Kimberley, my attorney? 
. Lawyer and Client 
. Councellor Double-Fee 
. The Triple Plea 
. The Triple Plea 
. St Dunstan Triumphant or the Big Wigs Defeated 
. Stop making such a case out of it! A lot of young lawyers kick their fathers out
of their law firms! 
. Laboratory Rats 
. Solicitor Waiting for a Client 
. Villagers Shooting out their Rubbish!!! 
. Boss’s Lawyers 
. I am a member of the legal profession, but I’m not a lawyer in the pejorative
sense. 
. There was ‘reasonable doubt,’ Ma’am, so we’re hanging a few lawyers. 
. The men are excited about getting to shoot a lawyer. 
. Where the Carcase is, there will the Birds of Prey be gatherd together. 
. Law (as accordion) 
. What are you—some kind of a justice freak? 
. From “Pigmy Revels” 
. You have a pretty good case, Mr. Pitkin. How much justice can you
afford? 
a. Blind Justice 
b. Scales of Justice 
. Food Gas Lawyers—Next Exit 
. Would everyone check to see they have an attorney? I seem to have ended up
with two. 
. The Policy of the Law! 
. Dum Vivo Thrivo (“Where I live, I thrive”) 
. Tout Pour Soi, Rien Pour Les Autres (“All for me, nothing for the others”) 
 

Jokes are an ambient medium filled with variation and surprise. Even to feign mas-
tery over one province of the joke domain requires the support and guidance of a
great network of informants. I am indebted to many people who shared jokes with
me, led me to sources, helped me to decode them, and provided helpful feedback.
Those I can identify are named below. Along with their anonymous counterparts,
they merit total absolution from responsibility for any errors of fact or taste: Al
Alshuler, Ann Althouse, Gordon Baldwin, Susan Bandes, Richard Bauman, Joel
Berman, Bill Breslin, Bill Broder, Mia Cahill, Paul Campos, Jerome Carlin, Eliza-
beth Chambliss, Simon Chapman, Ross Cheit, James Clapp, Carol Clover, Christie
Davies, Robert Diamond, Alan Dundes (and his band of students), Julia Eckert,
Lauren Edelman, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Howard Erlanger, Edgar Feige, Marvin
Frankel, Clark Freshman, Lawrence M. Friedman, Eve Galanter, Rachel Galanter,
Sarah Galanter, Seth Galanter, Ken S. Gallant, Nancy Glasberg, Jona Goldschmidt,
Richard Gordon, Robert Gordon, Marigay Graña, Gillian Hadfield, Lisa Harina-
nan, John P. Heinz, Jack Heller, Lynne Henderson, Jan Hoem, Beth Hoffman,
J. Gordon Hylton, Herbert Jacob, Richard Jacobson, Richard M. Jaeger, John
Kidwell, Julian Killingley, J. T. Knight, Giselinde Kuipers, Jack Ladinsky, Paul
Lermack, Lisa Lerman, Alan Lerner, John Leubsdorf, Jethro Lieberman, Laura
Macaulay, Stewart Macaulay, Jane Mansbridge, Stephen M. Masterson, Brian
McConnell, Roy M. Mersky, David Nelkin, Mark Osiel, Steve Piotrowski, Nancy
Reichman, Ed Reisner, Alison Dundes Renteln, Paul Rheingold, Deborah Rhode,
Len Riskin, Marlyn Robinson, Tom Russell, Michael Saks, Ted Schneyer, Philip
G. Schrag, Marge Schultz, Ronen Shamir, Fred Shapiro, Amy Singer, Joan
Sklaroff, Morton Sklaroff, Neil Smelser, Dan Stewart, Mark Suchman, Carol Tan,
Joseph Thome, Elizabeth Thornberg, Edward Tiryakian, Gretchen Viney, Maria
Volpe, Clifford Westfall, David B. Wilkins, George Wright, Deborah Wu.
Transforming this abundant harvest into a book was made possible by many

xv
xvi Acknowledgments

kinds of support. The library staff at the University of Wisconsin Law School—and
especially Michael Morgalla—have been unfailingly helpful. The scope of my
research was broadened by the opportunity to consult materials at the New York
Public Library, the Schmulowitz Collection at the San Francisco Public Library,
and the British Library. The Print Department of the British Museum was extraor-
dinarily gracious in facilitating my search for visual counterparts to the textual
material. In the captions to the illustrations in the text, the BM reference number
identifies the location of that illustration in the Catalog of Political and Personal
Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum.

Much of the text was composed while I was a fellow at the Center for Advanced
Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California, a most congenial setting for
research and reflection. I am grateful for the hospitality of the center and for the
National Science Foundation’s Grant #SBR- that supported my stay there.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison has provided generous support through
the Evjue-Bascom Professorship and, most recently, the John and Rylla Bosshard
Professorship at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Over the years, Lisa Harinanan, Allison Lynn, Aaron Stites, Angela Frozena,
and Jennifer Grissom capably supplied indispensable research assistance. Brenda
Balch, Collette Isachsen, and Theresa Dougherty grappled patiently and skillfully
with numberless iterations of the manuscript.
Earlier versions of several parts of the manuscript were delivered as the Robert
S. Marx Lecture at the University of Cincinnati (“The Faces of Mistrust: The
Image of Lawyers in Public Opinion, Jokes, and Political Discourse,” University of
Cincinnati Law Review :– []), the  Clifford Symposium on Tort
Law and Social Policy at DePaul University College of Law (“The Conniving
Claimant: Changing Images of Misuse of Legal Remedies,” DePaul Law Review
:– []), the Lansdowne Lecture at the University of Victoria (),
and the Uri and Catherine Bauer Lecture at Cardozo Law School (“Changing
Legal Consciousness in America: The View from the Joke Corpus,” Cardozo Law
Review : – []). Another bit appeared as “Lawyers in the Laboratory:
or, Can They Run through Those Little Mazes? Green Bag d : – ().
At various stages of its development I enjoyed the opportunity to present parts
of this material to student, faculty, and professional groups at Auburn Theological
Seminary; Brown University; the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral
Sciences; the Center for the Study of Law and Society, University of California,
Berkeley; the University of Chicago; DePaul University; the University of Exeter;
Georgetown University; the  W. G. Hart Conference at the Institute of
Advanced Legal Studies, London; Harvard University; the  International
Humor Conference in Oakland, California; the University of Iowa; the Law
Librarians Association of Wisconsin; the  meeting of the Law and Society
Association; the London School of Economics and Political Science; the Univer-
sity of Southern California; Southern Methodist University; Stanford University;
 Acknowledgments xvii

the State Bar of Wisconsin; the University of Texas; the University of Toronto;
and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Finally, I want to express my appreciation for the remarkable scholarly gen-
erosity of Alan Dundes, who patiently guided me though my clumsy first steps in
working with folklore material, liberally shared his immense knowledge of jokes
and related matters, and by his example emboldened me to develop a sense of
independent judgment in these matters. I am grateful, too, for the unfailing sup-
port and encouragement of Bill Broder, who helped me over the many obstacles,
external and internal, between writing and publication.
Lowering
 
 Introduction

K1 Question: How many lawyer jokes are there?

Answer: Only three. The balance are documented case histories.1

Few who are exposed to American media and popular culture of recent decades
will have missed the eruption of a great frenzy of joking about lawyers. The pro-
fusion of lawyer jokes has even inspired “meta-jokes” that play with the question
of their descriptiveness and provocativeness. In late , Chief Justice William
Rehnquist, speaking at the dedication of a new building at the University of Vir-
ginia Law School, began by noting the presence of both lawyers and nonlawyers:
K2 In the past, when I’ve talked to audiences like this, I’ve often started off with a lawyer
joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who’s been nasty, greedy and unethical. But I’ve
stopped that practice.
I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn’t think the jokes were funny
and the non-lawyers didn’t know they were jokes.2

From ancient Greece and the New Testament to our own day, lawyers have
long been objects of derision.3 From time to time, attacks on lawyers have in-
tensified and entered the political arena. In early modern England, lawyers were
condemned for avarice and greed, for stimulating unneeded litigation and then
prolonging it. Historian E. W. Ives reports lawyers were despised for their willing-
ness to wrench the law to serve their causes, but “the most frequently heard of all
the charges against the lawyers” was their partiality to the rich. He quotes an attack
made in : “The lawyers . . . handle poor men’s matters coldly, they execute
justice partially, & they receive bribes greedily, so that justice is perverted, the poor
beggared, and many a good man in[j]ured thereby. They respect the persons and
not the causes; money, not the poor; rewards and not conscience.”4 As lawyers
outstripped the clergy in influence, they became the subject of “ferocious satirical

3
 Introduction

abuse,”5 eventually occupying the “role which in earlier literature had been filled
by monks, friars, usurers and the diabolical Jesuits.”6
From the late sixteenth century “the numbers, influence, and wealth of com-
mon lawyers and the volume of litigation were all growing very rapidly” and “both
the vehemence and volume of recorded anti-lawyer comment” increased steadily.7
By the mid-seventeenth century, litigation was widely viewed as a social evil,
attributable to the presence of “multitudes of . . . irresponsible lawyers.”8
Lawyers were viewed as parasites who consumed rather than promoted the
nation’s wealth.9 The presence of lawyers in large numbers evidenced the severity
of the nation’s sickness. Schemes for regulation of the profession competed with
cries for outright abolition.10
In postrevolutionary America, lawyers were again the targets of fierce contempt.
“There existed a violent universal prejudice against the legal profession as a class”
and its members “‘were denounced as banditti, as blood-suckers, as pick-pockets,
as wind-bags, as smooth-tongued rogues. . . . The mere sight of a lawyer . . .
was enough to call forth an oath.’”11 In March , two months before the Con-
stitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia, future president John Quincy

. Blessings of Brittain—or A Flight of Lawyers (BM . Williams, ). A swarm of legal
dignitaries, judges, barristers and clerks descends on Westminster Hall, the seat of the higher
courts, on the First Day of Term.
 Introduction 

Adams, then a Harvard senior, addressed a college “conference”: “The profession

of the Law labours under the heavy weight of popular indignation; . . . it is
upbraided as the original cause of all the evils with which the Commonwealth is
distressed.” Later that year he wrote to his mother, Abigail: “The popular odium
which has been excited against the practitioners in this Commonwealth prevails
to so great a degree that the most innocent and irreproachable life cannot guard a
lawyer against the hatred of his fellow citizens.”12
We live in another epoch of heightened antilawyerism. In terms of violence and
vituperation, contemporary attacks on lawyers are mild in comparison to earlier
sieges. But the recurrence of many of the same grievances and complaints suggests
that the current eruption is neither random nor unique. Episodes of elevated anti-
lawyerism are never entirely new; they draw on old themes and employ old images
and tropes. But they are never just reruns, for such episodes are not just about
lawyers: they are about people’s responses to the distinct features of a particular
legal system and the wider society that surrounds it.
A future historian looking back at our time may find one of the distinctive and
peculiar features of late twentieth-century America to be the consternation about
law that gripped much of American society in the s and persisted through
the turn of the century. America, it was endlessly repeated, has too much law, too
many lawyers, too much litigation, and an obsessively contentious population that
sues at the drop of a hat. “Everyone knows” that the United States is the most liti-
gious nation on earth, indeed in human history, and many believe that excessive
resort to law marks America’s moral decline and entails enormous costs that por-
tend economic disaster in an increasingly competitive world.
These images of law’s maladies and afflictions coexist with a deep-seated belief
that law is a wonderful thing. In the abstract, law is celebrated: the rule of law is
regarded as a defining, essential, and valuable feature of our society. As an every-
day presence, law generally meets a commonsensical acceptance, qualified by a
sanguine recognition of its shortcomings. Our legal culture manages to contain
multiple and conflicting visions of law. It is the cornerstone of our commonwealth;
it is a costly, erratic, but indispensable resource for dealing with many workaday
problems; it is a malign and dangerous presence.13 By legal culture I refer to the
shared, overlapping, and sometimes conflicting beliefs, expectations, and aspira-
tions that Americans hold about law, lawyers, and litigation. The legal culture is
not a fixed set of beliefs but, like literary or culinary culture, a shared repertoire
from which we fashion responses to our lives and our society.
In this book I explore American legal culture by probing some of its less
examined manifestations, especially the great stream of jokes about lawyers that
has overflowed in recent years. The jokes are juxtaposed with other outcroppings
of legal culture—public opinion as expressed in surveys; the discourse about law
among political, media, and business elites; and the portrayal of law and lawyers
in the media. These are different soundings of the same submerged complex of
legal culture that undergirds American institutions.
 Introduction

To understand public images and perceptions of lawyers, we have to consider

not only the flesh and blood lawyers that populate the world but the virtual
lawyers that appear in television dramas, in news reports and punditry, in novels,
in movies, in advertisements, and as the butt of jokes. Real and imaginary lawyers
interact—like the people and the toons in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? ()—and
sometimes it is hard to tell them apart.14 The fusion of real and imaginary lawyers
is not new, but we have had a great increase in exposure to both.
A convenient overall measure of feelings about lawyers is provided by chang-
ing public response to a Gallup poll inquiry asking people to rate the honesty and
ethical standards of lawyers. In ,  percent rated lawyers low or very low. By
, this had risen to  percent.15 In  public opinion about lawyers’ ethics
was bell-shaped, with about as many rating them above average as below average.
But by , the  percent who rated them poorly were balanced by only  per-
cent who thought their ethics better than average. Most of the change occurred
after .
In reading the polls’ story of declining regard for lawyers, we should be wary of
assuming that opinion about the legal profession has fallen from its normal plane
of respect to a historic low. The “historic low” reading comports with the scenario
favored by many lawyers, including eminent judges, in which the profession has
fallen from an earlier state of grace into an abject and debased condition.16 In this
view, the proliferation of hostile lawyer jokes is a mark of the decline in lawyers’
professionalism. I shall argue that this view is mistaken. For now, just recall that
public estimation of lawyers was far less favorable at earlier points in American
history. In the years following the Revolution, during the Jacksonian era, and in
the years after the rise of industrialism, there were strong currents of hostility to
lawyers that have not been outdone by contemporary lawyer bashing.
What is singular about the current sense of decline is the high elevation from
which descent is measured. The period around  may well have been the his-
toric high point of public regard for law and lawyers. It was certainly an era of
favorable portrayal by the media. In movies such as Witness for the Prosecution
(), Anatomy of a Murder (), Compulsion (), Inherit the Wind (),
Judgment at Nuremberg (), and To Kill a Mockingbird (), and on television
with The Defenders (–) and Perry Mason (–), lawyers ranged from the
benign to the heroic.17 Steven Stark regards the lawyers portrayed in shows like The
Defenders and Owen Marshall (–) as “television’s great benevolent authority
figures.”18 To Anthony Chase, the portrayals in films like To Kill a Mockingbird
represent “a complete integration of the virtuous-lawyer archetype in popular cul-
ture—an elaborated image unprecedented . . . [in] American mass cultural iconog-
raphy.”19 In that film, and in the massively influential novel on which it was based,
Atticus Finch, a lawyer in a small Alabama town during the s, appointed to
defend a poor black man accused of raping a white woman, courageously exposes
himself to personal and professional risk to foil a lynching and to resist intimida-
tion. Marshaling all his professional skill for this uphill battle, Finch demolishes
 Introduction 

the prosecution’s case, but succeeds only in prolonging the jury’s deliberation
beyond the perfunctory. The jury convicts his client, who is killed trying to flee.
The tale of Atticus Finch’s struggle has been a massive presence in American
popular culture. For two generations, it has been one of the most frequently
required books in American secondary schools. A  survey of lifetime reading
habits found that among the books mentioned as having “made a difference” in
respondents’ lives, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird ranked second only to the
Bible.20 The figure of its lawyer protagonist, Atticus Finch, resonates at many
locations on the cultural spectrum. When, in , the American Film Institute
generated a list of the “top  movie heroes,” Atticus was number one, outrank-
ing Indiana Jones, James Bond, Rick Blaine (the Humphrey Bogart character in
Casablanca), and Rocky Balboa among others.
No figure in contemporary popular culture, with the possible exception of
Abraham Lincoln, rivals Atticus Finch as an icon of the good lawyer. Within the
profession, too, his story carries a powerful symbolic charge. For law and film
scholar Michael Asimow, Atticus Finch is the “patron saint” of all lawyers who
rise above exclusive concern with the bottom line. “He is a mythic character. He
is everything we lawyers wish we were and hope we will become.”21 For decades,
To Kill a Mockingbird has been the site of pitched battles among contending views
of lawyerly virtue.22
In the real world of the s, the civil rights struggle and its many progeny
inspired many young lawyers to view the law as a shining sword with which to van-
quish the long-festering problems of exclusion, poverty, and oppression. Benign
and inventive courts could thread their way to a solution of society’s most in-
tractable problems with the help of energetic, public-spirited lawyers representing
the silent and powerless. Legal services for the poor burgeoned, and the ideal of
lawyers as valiant and dedicated warriors for justice ramified into environmental
law, consumer law, and other “public interest” salients.
Lawyers were riding a wave of favorable regard of the whole panoply of social
institutions.23 As that wave broke up in the course of Vietnam War protests and
the challenge to established authority in the early s, scathing denunciations
of the legitimacy and effectiveness of law gained prominence. In  the editor of
The Rule of Law discerned “a full scale assault on legal and political authority” and
described as commonplace the view that “law in the United States is in bad shape
both in theory and in practice.”24 The same year the editor of another collection
reported with evident satisfaction wide agreement that “the legal system . . . is
collapsing and can no longer be saved in its present form,” and an establishment
bar group sponsored an anguished examination of “Is Law Dead?”25
The “death of law” was short lived. The Watergate crisis (–) accelerated
the decline of public confidence in elites and, in particular, discredited lawyers
who figured so prominently among the Watergate villains, but at the same time it
revived allegiance to the rule of law.26 The resolution of the crisis inspired appre-
ciation that “the system worked.” Criticism of legal institutions for failure to serve
 Introduction

the public interest was taken up by a section of the legal establishment. The “pub-
lic interest law” and “access to justice” movements that flourished during the s
sought to give voice to unrepresented groups, to enlarge the modalities for secur-
ing justice, and to inspire lawyers to embrace these neglected responsibilities.27
A decade of attacks on lawyers for abuse of ordinary clients, self-serving alli-
ances with the powerful, and failure to implement equal justice culminated in a
remarkable  address by President Jimmy Carter, who took the occasion of the
one hundredth anniversary dinner of the Los Angeles County Bar Association to
deliver a critique of the legal system.28 Beginning with an excerpt from Bleak
House, President Carter excoriated “excessive litigation and legal featherbedding”
and chastised lawyers for aggravating rather than resolving conflict. These familiar
complaints were interwoven with another set of themes that have been notably
absent from recent political rhetoric about the legal system. President Carter
declared that legal services were, more than any resource in our society, “wastefully
[and] unfairly distributed.” Lawyers were particularly to blame for failing to make
justice “blind to rank, power, and position.” He deplored that “lawyers of great
influence and prestige led the fight against civil rights and economic justice.”
Devoted to the service of dominant groups, lawyers had failed to discharge their
“heavy obligation to serve the true ends of justice.” In short, lawyers had fallen
woefully short of their calling to be votaries of justice in an imperfect world. Carter
called on them to embrace the theme of “Access to Justice,” which was the official
theme of the American Bar Association for . Although the tones were critical,
the song was one of optimism and hope: lawyers’ rededication to their high call-
ing combined with institutional redesign could vindicate the promise of connect-
ing law to the pursuit of a just society.29 Although the president’s observations did
not elicit a warm reception from the bar or the media, his criticism of the bar met
with general public approval.30
A similar “public justice” critique infused the work of the Kutak Commission,
set up by the American Bar Association in , in the wake of Watergate, to revise
the rules of ethical conduct for lawyers.31 The major theme of the new Model
Rules proposed by the commission was enlargement of the public duties of lawyers
and limitation of their license for adversary combat.32 The commission sought to
accentuate the duties of lawyers that transcended their responsibilities to clients—
for example, by limiting confidentiality to enable lawyers to blow the whistle on
client wrongdoing, by imposing a duty of fairness in negotiations by requiring dis-
closure of material facts, and by mandating that lawyers devote a portion of their
time to pro bono publico work.33 The commission’s proposals aroused fierce oppo-
sition from various sectors of the bar and were vitiated at a series of ABA meetings
in  and .34
In the late s, at the time that Carter and the Kutak Commission were
calling the profession to account for its failure to pursue justice for the public, the
first murmurs were heard of what was to become a great roar of denunciation of
the legal system.35 Eminent judges, lawyers, and academics opined that American
 Introduction 

society was suffering from an excess of law in the form of “legal pollution” or a
“litigation explosion.” The popular press echoed this concern, reporting that
“Americans in all walks of life are being buried under an avalanche of lawsuits.”36
Led by the chief justice of the United States, important sections of the legal elite
began to express their unhappiness with the enlargement of the legal system and
the multiplication of rights. Chief Justice Warren Burger criticized lawyers for
commercialism, for incompetence, and for excessive adversariness that produced
court congestion and runaway litigation.37 He mounted a broad attack aimed at
curtailing litigation and replacing adversarial confrontation with a “better way.”38
By the mid-s, the discourse about lawyers and civil justice in America was
dominated by what I call the “jaundiced view.” Our civil justice system was widely
condemned as pathological and destructive, producing untold harm. A series of
factoids or macro-anecdotes about litigation became the received wisdom: Amer-
ica is the most litigious society in the course of all human history; Americans sue
at the drop of a hat; the courts are brimming over with frivolous lawsuits; resort
to courts is a first rather than a last resort; runaway juries make capricious awards
to undeserving claimants; immense punitive damage awards are routine; litigation
is undermining our ability to compete economically.39 Although a litigious popu-
lace and activist judges were also blamed, lawyers, as the promoters, beneficiaries,
and protectors of this pathological system, held pride of place among the culprits
responsible.

T   E              W               L    W   
Both the proliferation and prominence of lawyer jokes and the emergence of the
jaundiced view were responses to a massive transformation of the legal system. In
the course of a generation, there was a dramatic change in scale of many aspects
of the legal world: the amount and complexity of legal regulation; the frequency
of litigation; the amount and tenor of authoritative legal material; the number,
coordination, and productivity of lawyers; the number of legal actors and the re-
sources they devoted to legal activity; the amount of information about law and
the velocity with which it circulated.
These changes in the legal world in turn reflected changes in the surrounding
economy and society. Compared to , the American population in the s
was larger, older, more affluent, more educated, and more diverse.40 It enjoyed a
higher level of social services, higher life expectancy, and higher expectations of
institutional performance.41 At the same time, it had much less confidence in
government, business, and other major institutions.42 The economy expanded.43
More Americans worked. There was a pronounced shift away from the making of
goods to the providing of services.44 In particular, there was an immense multipli-
cation of financial transactions.45 The economy was internationalized.46
The number of lawyers grew rapidly. Throughout the middle of the twenti-
eth century, the number of lawyers per capita had remained roughly the same—
and roughly the same as the number of physicians. But starting in the s the
 Introduction

proportion of lawyers in the population increased steeply, tripling from  to the
end of the century and greatly outstripping the number of physicians.47 Society’s
spending on law increased markedly. The portion of the national income and
product derived from legal services roughly doubled from  to .48
Not only were there more lawyers, there was more law. The amount of law in-
creased exponentially. There were more federal regulatory statutes, more agencies,
more staff, more enforcement expenditures, and more rules.49 The body of author-
itative legal material grew immensely as did the amount of commentary that glosses
it.50 After a long period of stability in the legal workplace, a rapid succession of new
technologies—photoreproduction, computerization, on-line data services, over-
night delivery services, electronic mail, and fax machines—multiplied the amount
of information that could be assembled and manipulated by legal actors.51
Starting around , after a thirty-year period in which the rate of civil litiga-
tion in the United States was low by historic standards, the amount of litigation
began to rise.52 Total civil filings in the federal courts grew from , in 
to , in .53 Comparable figures for the state courts are not available,
but a sense of the growth of state judicial activity can be gathered from the num-
ber of lawyers employed by state courts, from , in  to , in .54
Courts, federal and state, acquired more staff, clerks, and professional administra-
tors.55 These larger staffs were equipped with new information technologies, which
increased the “production” of these institutions even faster.
Even more significant than the quantitative growth of the law was a gradual but
pronounced change in its tenor. Before World War II, American law in practice pro-
vided little remedy for have-nots against dominant groups. Lawrence Friedman de-
scribed the late nineteenth-century tort system as a “system of non-compensation”
in which few claims were brought and plaintiffs faced an array of doctrinal, prac-
tical, and cultural barriers to recovery.56 Studying personal injury cases in New
York City over a forty-year period, Randolph Bergstrom concluded that “the
injured had few reasons to think that lawsuits would offer a ready source of suste-
nance in , less still in .”57 My own review of pre-World War II disasters
showed that compensation was uncertain and meager.58 Successful claims by those
in subordinate positions against bosses and authorities were few and far between.
But after World War II, courts and legislatures extended legal protections and
remedies for more of life’s troubles and problems to more and more people, in-
cluding those who earlier were largely excluded from it—injured workers and
consumers, blacks, women, the disabled, prisoners, and so on. Compensation for
many of life’s troubles became routine, through social insurance (ranging from
social security disability payments to federal insurance of bank deposits) and
through use of the litigation system.59 Expectations of remedy and compensation
rose.60 Legal representation of claimants was more available and more proficient.61
There was more “litigation up” by outsiders and clients and dependents against
authorities and managers of established institutions and a corresponding shrinkage
of the leeways and immunities from legal accountability of the powerful.
 Introduction 

This enlargement of remedy was accompanied by (or some might say accom-
plished by) a cultural shift: the expansion and elaboration of the notion of rights.
Broad sections of the public came to believe that the law would secure them rem-
edy and vindication.62 Although any particular bit is contested, the general direc-
tion remains clear—rights, and remedies for their violation, continue to grow. Law
has become the master wall-to-wall orderer of our social life, and lawyers, as its
custodians, have become “the dominant profession in American society.”63
But the other side of rights is control and accountability. Whole areas of gov-
ernmental activity that were not previously thought needful of close articulation
with legal principles are now subjected to judicial oversight.64 These include large
sections of the criminal justice system, including police, prisons, and juvenile
justice; and other institutions dealing with dependent clients such as schools,65
mental hospitals, and welfare agencies.66 Government entered into areas of life pre-
viously unregulated by the state (for example, in the great proliferation of environ-
mental, health, and safety regulation) or in which regulation had not been closely
linked to the application of legal principles. In the area of health care, for exam-
ple, regulation of entitlement to treatment and provider compensation has pro-
liferated. Similarly, the employment relationship has been legalized, through the
welfare state’s job and income security programs and through civil rights acts and
wrongful discharge litigation.67 Nor are our amusements exempt: much of the
sports pages is devoted to reports of legal rulings and maneuvers. In each of these
areas—health care, employment, sports—regulation by legal institutions inspires
answering legalization by bodies within these social fields, who promulgate rules,
hold hearings, and give decisions in a legal manner.68 As public standards penetrate
into every corner of social life, the amount of private regulatory activity is multi-
plied rather than reduced.69
The increased pervasiveness of law is reflected in popular perception of the
ubiquity of law and its intrusion into areas previously immune from its impinge-
ment—for example, in stories about suits by children against their parents. A car-
toon portrays an incredulous father who asks his son across the table, “You say if
I make you drink your milk, you’ll sue me?”70 This theme presents itself seriously
in the continuing controversy about the legal limitation of parental authority.
Similarly, figure  epitomizes an uncomfortable sense that the world has been
legalized—that our world of primal experience has been penetrated, permeated,
colonized, and somehow diminished by a derivative and unprofitable layer of the
legal. This unease—and recoil—manifests itself in many ways, from the wry re-
flection of these cartoons to widespread popular concern about the legal explo-
sion,71 excessive litigation, and too many lawyers to recondite anxieties about the
“bureaucratization of the world,”72 the “juridification of the social spheres,”73 and
the “colonization of the life-world.”74
Life becomes more legalized. Legal norms and institutions are invoked to reg-
ulate dealings with intimates as well as to exert leverage on remote entities.75 Mod-
ern society throws up more predicaments in which we find ourselves affected by
 Introduction

actors that we have no leverage to control and hold accountable. Modern tech-
nology increases the power of faraway actions to impinge on us. Increasingly, our
transactions and disputes are not with other persons, but with corporate organiza-
tions.76 A greater portion of our dealings and our disputes are with remote actors.
The growth of knowledge enables us to trace out these connections and establish
responsibility for ramifying consequences. Education and wealth make more of us
more competent in using institutions. We use law more, both in its overt forms
of legislation, regulation, and litigation and in our internalized standards and our
anticipation of others’ expectations.
But law is not free. The law’s enlarged responsiveness to the concerns of ordi-
nary people is countered and rationed by the mounting cost of resort to an in-
creasingly complex system. The system is more inclusive, but all parts of it have
grown. During the era of expanding responsiveness to victims and outsiders, there
was even greater growth in legal activity on behalf of dominant groups: litigation
by businesses increased more rapidly than litigation by individuals; legal expendi-
tures by businesses and government increased more rapidly than expenditures by

. Cartoon by Robert Mankoff (© The New Yorker Collection , from cartoonbank.com.
All rights reserved.)
 Introduction 

individuals; the large firm sector of the legal profession that provides services for
corporations and large organizations grew and prospered more than the small firm
sector that services individuals.77
Increasingly, law is shaped by and for large organizational actors, for artificial
persons rather than natural ones.78 In the past century purposive corporate orga-
nizations (political/business/associational) displaced spontaneous “communal” or
“primordial” institutions (such as families, religious fellowships, networks of trans-
actors, neighbors, and friends) as the predominant forms of organizing human
activity.79 More of our lives consist of dealings with these corporate actors. They
are, by virtue of their scale and rationality, effective players of the legal game and
enjoy enduring and cumulative advantages over individuals.80 More and more of
the legal world is devoted to servicing them—whether we measure this by expen-
ditures on legal services81 or by the total effort expended by lawyers.82 Increasingly
the law has become an arena for routine and continuous play by organizations, an
arena that individuals enter briefly in life emergencies. At the same time ordinary
people as well as elites consume ever more and increasingly vivid images of the legal.
These trends entwine in curious ways. The legal system has grown prodi-
giously; law has become more elaborate and more visible; it occupies a larger part
of the symbolic universe. The law proliferates new symbols of rights and entitle-
ments—enlivening consciousness and heightening our expectations of vindication.
At the same time it becomes more menacing and more forbiddingly difficult and
costly to invoke.
The higher expectations that individuals bring to the law provoked a mas-
sive recoil. Unease among elites about the expansion of law joined with corporate
interest in curtailing liability to fuel campaigns deriding law and lawyers. These in-
tensified in the mid-s. Corporate spokesmen and their political allies mourn-
fully recite the woes of a legal system in which Americans, egged on by avaricious
lawyers, sue too readily, and irresponsible juries and activist judges waylay blame-
less businesses at enormous cost in social and economic well-being. The legal sys-
tem, we are told, is “crazy” and “demented”; it has “spun out of control.”
At the same time law and lawyers suddenly became much more visible. As late
as the s, information about the working of legal institutions was limited in
content and restricted in circulation. The operations of law firms were shrouded
in confidentiality. When Erwin Smigel studied Wall Street lawyers in the late s
he encountered massive institutionalized reticence. Older and conservative lawyers,
he reported, “thought of their organizations in much the same manner as clergy-
men think of the church—as an institution that should not be studied.”83 The
world of law practice was preferredly opaque. “Talking about clients and fees just
isn’t done, not even when lawyers gather among themselves.”84 The taboo on infor-
mation about partnership agreements, finances, relations with clients, even their
identity, was mirrored in bans on advertising, solicitation, and promotion.85 The
turnabout came quite abruptly in the late s as a curious by-product of the
Supreme Court’s  Bates decision, ruling that sweeping restrictions on lawyer
 Introduction

advertising violated the First Amendment.86 Bates liberated lawyers to talk to the
press about their practices, for they no longer feared being accused of advertis-
ing. This new access to lawyers combined with enlarged curiosity about law and
lawyers to revolutionize legal journalism.87 Reporting about lawyers in general
publications like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the news week-
lies became more frequent, detailed, and intrusive.88 A new kind of legal trade
press provided a steady diet of detailed backstage information about law firm
structure, hiring policies, marketing strategies, clients, fees, and compensation.89
Contemporary observers noted that “law and lawyers are becoming demystified.
The rites of secrecy have passed.”90 Not only were law firms more open, but the
operations of the courts were less shrouded, and many core legal activities became
more accessible. This openness is dramatized by the Freedom of Information Act,
by open meeting laws, by courtroom television, and by interviewing of jurors.91
Scholarship, journalism, and commerce all used the new accessibility of lawyers
to penetrate into previously off-limits, backstage areas of legal life. Information
that just a few years earlier would have been available only to a few insiders now
circulated freely.
As the old system of professional reticence collapsed many eager hands moved
to feed an enlarged public appetite for material about the legal arena. Movies and
television were increasingly free of the censorship that had barred unfavorable
portrayals of the legal system.92 The wildly popular L.A. Law arrived on prime
time television screens in  and quickly became a barometer of public appetite
for lawyer stories. A great surge of lawyer shows on TV93 was accompanied by the
emergence of best-selling legal thrillers, beginning with Scott Turow’s Presumed
Innocent in  and continuing with the meteoric ascent of John Grisham after
the publication of The Firm in .94
Unlike earlier contingents of imaginary lawyers, many of those who have arrived
since  are both more deeply flawed and more three-dimensional. They are seen
in not only the courtroom/counseling “frontstage” of lawyering, but the backstage
areas as well; and their advocacy for clients is enmeshed in a setting of tactical
maneuver, political constraints, and career strategy—not to mention a personal
quest for fulfillment or redemption. These fictive lawyers encounter complex ques-
tions with few clear blacks and whites but many shades of gray, ethical dilemmas
that often have no satisfying resolution. The lawyer is portrayed not as an unalloyed
hero, but as the occupant of a crucial but morally ambiguous and precarious role.95
The imaginary lawyers on television are not a likely source of the public’s neg-
ative picture of lawyers. The portrayal of lawyers on television series is more favor-
able than the public’s perceptions of actual lawyers—or even than the perceptions
of lawyers themselves.96 Indeed, researchers suggested that the favorable TV image
of attorneys, “especially their prowess in arguing cases in court,” may result in in-
flated and unrealizable public expectations of attorneys.97
In the old regime of restricted information about the law in action, the legal
order could be perceived in terms of its esteemed frontstage qualities—as formal,
 Introduction 

autonomous, rule-determined, certain, professional, learned, apolitical, and so forth.

Everyone knew it was not exactly that way in his or her own corner, but private
and fragmented knowledge of local deviations did not challenge the received pic-
ture of the system as a whole. Professionals and outsiders could maintain cherished
images of the legal world even while aware of much that the dominant paradigm
labeled atypical and deviant. But the profusion of information about the workings
of law challenged these relatively stable and comfortable views and made it more
difficult to dismiss discretion, bargaining, improvisation, and politics as extrane-
ous to the law.98

L            L     J    
Where many groups feel threatened by social and legal changes, and others are dis-
appointed in the law’s unfilled promises, the underlying and ineradicable themes
of hostility toward lawyers are available to decipher and explain these troubling
developments.
Jokes about lawyers have been around for a long time, and in the s they
acquired a prominence and currency they had not enjoyed earlier.99 By the mid-
s, observers noted an increase in the frequency and intensity of joking about
lawyers. In , a Los Angeles lawyer identified lawyer jokes as contributing
significantly to the pervasive negative image of the profession and admonished
lawyers to “recognize the inherent destructiveness of lawyer jokes and [to] resolve
not to tolerate them.”100 A year later, Alan Dundes, the leading student of joke
cycles, noted the onset of a wave of lawyer jokes.101 The following year the annual
meeting of the California bar included a workshop on the spread of lawyer jokes
entitled “Why Are They Laughing?”102 Observers noted the “spate of lawyer joke-
books,” “radio talk shows across the country . . . feeding the frenzy, vying with each
other in barrister-bashing,” and “the emergence of a virtual mini-industry in legal
humor.”103
Lawyer jokes had their moment in the media sun in , when a disgruntled
client’s shooting of eight people in a San Francisco law office led the president
of the California Bar Association to call for a moratorium on lawyer bashing:
“There’s a point at which jokes and humor are acceptable and a point at which
they become nothing more than hate speech.”104 His plea provoked an outpouring
of media comment, almost all of it hostile. Animosity toward lawyers is perennial.
Its expressions and intensity change, drawing upon a great cultural repertoire of
antilawyer observations and sentiments.105 At the turn of the twenty-first century,
between five hundred and one thousand jokes about lawyers were circulating in
the United States. Any such number is arbitrary, for just how many there are
depends on how one distinguishes lawyer jokes from other jokes and similar items
from one another. The point is that we are not dealing in dozens or in thousands.
There are many ways to impose some order on this mass of material. One could
organize it by form, sorting out narratives from riddles, or by source, or by time of
their appearance. Because I want to relate the jokes to other expressions about
 Introduction

lawyers and law, I have tried to organize them thematically rather than formally or
historically.
As one listens to the jokes, it becomes apparent that a number of themes and
figures recur repeatedly. I have organized some of the common themes into nine
clusters. Five of these focus on substantive complaints about the things lawyers
do, namely, that they are () corrupters of discourse, () economic predators, ()
fomenters of strife, () betrayers of trust, and () enemies of justice. The other
four clusters focus not on the deeds of lawyers but on their character and standing
and on our response to them. They characterize lawyers as () allies of the devil,
() morally deficient, () objects of scorn, and () candidates for elimination.

. Cartoon by Eldon Dedini in S. Gross, ed., Lawyers! Lawyers! Lawyers! (© Eldon Dedini )
 Introduction 

These categories in turn can be organized into two waves, an enduring core
of topics and themes that have been well established for several centuries and a set
of new thematic areas that have flourished since . A few precursors of these
new themes were present earlier, but their development as major parts of the
lawyer joke corpus is quite recent. The two waves correlate in an inexact way with
a division between what lawyers do and what they are. The clusters in the endur-
ing core focus on substantive gripes about lawyer behavior. The exception is the
allies of the devil cluster, which summarizes evaluations of lawyers by invocation
of the symbols of hell, sin, and the devil. The clusters in the new territories focus
not on lawyers’ deeds but on their character, standing, and abundance. Again,
there is an exception, in the betrayal cluster. Mainly, the old clusters are about
things that lawyers do, while the new clusters are about what they are. In addition
to the nine categories, my archive (described below) contains a cluster of jokes
about particular demographic subsets of lawyers (such as women and Jews) and a
small set of meta-jokes (i.e., jokes about lawyer jokes). I have designated each cat-
egory with a letter which is used to identify the jokes in that category in text and
in the Register of Jokes (appendix).

The Enduring Core

A. Discourse: Lawyers lie incorrigibly. They corrupt discourse by promoting
needless complexity, mystifying matters by jargon and formalities, robbing
life’s dealings of their moral sense by recasting them in legal abstractions, and
offending common sense by casuistry that makes black appear white and vice
versa.
B. Economic Predators: Lawyers are economic predators; they are greedy, money-
driven monopolists. They charge outrageously high fees, misread social ex-
changes as professional consultations, shamelessly pad their bills. They are
parasitic rent-seekers who don’t really produce anything, but merely batten on
the productive members of society, often in alliance with the undeserving—
opportunistic malingerers in one version, the privileged and powerful in another.
C. Allies of the Devil: Lawyers are associated with the devil, hell, sin, and irreligion.
D. Conflict: Lawyers are aggressive, competitive hired guns, incurably contenti-
ous, unprincipled mercenaries who foment strife and conflict by encourag-
ing individual self-serving and self-assertion rather than cooperative problem
solving.
J. Enemies of Justice: Lawyers are indifferent to justice and willingly lend their tal-
ents to frustrate it.

The New Territories

F. Betrayers of Trust: Lawyers are opportunistic, manipulative, self-serving deceiv-
ers who, under color of pursuing large public responsibilities, take advantage
not only of hapless opponents but of clients who entrust their fortunes to
them, and even partners, friends, and family.
 Introduction

G. Moral Deficiency: Lawyers are morally obtuse, callous, insensitive, deficient in

ordinary human sentiments and lacking in common decencies.
H. Objects of Scorn: These stories address neither the deeds of lawyers nor their
deficiencies of character, but their low reputation. Once identified as objects of
universal scorn, lawyers can be despised precisely because of the shared con-
tempt for them.
I. Death Wish: These jokes envision and celebrate the death, removal, or absence of
lawyers. One set dramatizes lawyers in the aggregate as a pestilential affliction.

Other Clusters
E. Demography: These jokes focus on the personal identity of lawyers (women,
Jews, etc.).
K. Meta-jokes: Jokes about lawyer jokes.

Some jokes fall neatly into one of these clusters, while others touch on several
themes. For convenience, I have assigned each joke a home in one cluster. Each
cluster is a composite, consisting of a number of specific and partially overlapping

. Cartoon by Sidney Harris (© The New Yorker Collection , from cartoonbank.com.
All rights reserved.)
 Introduction 

complaints. In each cluster, there is a spectrum, from complaints about mistreat-

ment of specific individuals (clients, opponents) to wrongdoing that has large
public consequences. The jokes, as we shall see, tend to focus on the individual
grievance side; the public effects of lawyers’ shortcomings are dealt with indirectly.
Each of these clusters points to the dark side of things that may otherwise
appear as virtues or at least useful qualities for lawyering. In the sins of discourse
we can recognize the inventiveness of lawyers, their obsession with precision and
relevance. In economic predation, we can appreciate the lawyer’s prowess as an
agent of redistribution. Fomenting conflict mirrors the lawyer’s zealous advocacy
and insistence on vindicating rights. The betrayal complaint proclaims regard for
the lawyer as a potent ally, coupled with anxiety and resentment that he is an un-
dependable ally. The jokes, as we shall see, reveal that the qualities and actions
for which lawyers are despised are closely related to the things for which they are
esteemed.106 Beneath their surface of ridicule and condemnation, the jokes exhibit
equivocal feelings about lawyers and the legal world.
Can we learn anything from the jokes about the enlarged legal world and our
response to it? An op-ed piece in the legal press mocks the idea that lawyer jokes
have any wider significance and attributes their popularity simply to their being
funny.107 But of course that begs the question of why this is funny now to a lot of
people rather than bizarre or disgusting or pointless. Even if we grant a significant
role in life to sheer accident and randomness, to regard an enduring social prod-
uct like jokes as undeserving of inquiry seems a gratuitous denial of the sociologi-
cal imagination. This book proceeds on the opposite premise, that the persistence
of the social practice of telling, appreciating, and publishing jokes may reveal
something about our society and ourselves that may otherwise elude us. As Alan
Dundes puts it: “No piece of folklore continues to be transmitted unless it means
something—even if neither the speaker nor the audience can articulate what that
meaning might be. In fact, it usually is essential that the joke’s meaning not be
crystal clear. If people knew what they were communicating when they told jokes,
the jokes would cease to be effective as socially sanctioned outlets for expressing
taboo ideas and subjects. Where there is anxiety, there will be jokes to express that
anxiety. . . . Remember, people joke about only what is most serious.”108
In An American Dilemma, his classic study of American race relations, pub-
lished in , Gunnar Myrdal took patterns of jokes as revealing the hidden fault
lines of social life. Noting the prominence of joking by whites and blacks about
each other, he observed:

It is no accident that . . . jokes play a particularly important role in the lives of the
Southerners, white and black, and specifically in race relations. It should not surprise us
that sex relations are another field of human life with a great proliferation of jokes. . . .
When people are up against great inconsistencies in their creed and behavior, which
they cannot, or do not want to, account for rationally, humor is a way out. It gives
a symbolic excuse for imperfections. . . . The main “function” of the jokes is thus to
 Introduction

create a collective surreptitious approbation for something which cannot be approved

explicitly because of moral inhibitions.109

Half a century after Myrdal found jokes expressive of the “deep seated ambiva-
lence” of American race relations, law and lawyers joined race and sex as one of the
great staples of joking in the United States.110 Analysis of these jokes can, I believe,
enable us to chart our legal imagination.
Because the enterprise of extracting intellectual treasure from such ignoble
low grade ore may encounter more than a little skepticism, it may be helpful to
review some of the methodological choices and problems that are involved in this
undertaking.
Although I have always had a fondness for jokes, my interest in lawyer jokes
started with an interest in lawyers rather than in jokes per se. For thirty years I have
been studying patterns of litigation in the United States and have been interested
in lawyers as players in the litigation game. I have been particularly concerned with
the widespread perception that the United States is in the throes of a “litigation
explosion” and the notion that lawyers are to blame for many of society’s ills.
Lawyer jokes attracted my attention as an increasingly prominent part of the
rhetorical assault on lawyers and the legal system.
I started out by collecting lawyer jokes that struck me as telling or clever or out-
rageous. When the thought of writing about them came over me, I enlarged my
collecting to include jokes that seemed to be ubiquitous even though I found some
of them less engaging. As I began to see some patterns in the jokes, I added still
others that seemed to fit those patterns. I soon realized that many of the jokes were
quite old, while others were young, and that some had done long service as law-
yer jokes while others were recent (and in some cases marginal) conscripts to the
lawyer joke corpus. It finally dawned on me that lawyer jokes were not a distinct
realm but an inseparable part of a much larger complex of jokes.
My literary searches began with the dozen or so collections of lawyer jokes
published since . Then I started looking at general joke collections and books
of anecdotes for speakers, particularly older books. Although there are few biblio-
graphic aids in this area, there are lots of books. I have now found and reviewed
almost one thousand printed collections. In addition to books, my sources in-
cluded several disk and CD-ROM collections, compilations on the Internet, and
pickings from several e-mail joke lists. I searched for stories on “lawyer jokes” in
the Nexis News Library, and in a few cases where I was particularly interested I
did searches to find instances of particular jokes. As my obsession became known
to friends, colleagues, and students, I was the grateful recipient of many texts
and leads.
I have ended up with “jokographies” of about three hundred jokes, listing all
the instances of the joke that I have been able to find, together with their (mostly
printed) sources.111 These three hundred include a significant chunk of the stories
that circulate as lawyer jokes today.112 The discussion here focuses on the United
 Introduction 

States in the past thirty years, but the database is broadly representative of the
lawyer joke corpus throughout the English-speaking world over the past two cen-
turies. The joke population is not neatly separated into national compartments.
Jokes move around the English-speaking world with surprising speed, sometimes
undergoing local adaptation but often not.113
My archive is an unsystematic sample. It oversamples what might be called
the core of very frequently encountered lawyer jokes in circulation in the last two
decades. It also oversamples jokes that I found engaging because they concerned
women lawyers or large firms, mentioned justice, or seemed to have dropped out
of the joke corpus. Since I kept adding items to the list, some of the late additions
are thinner in documentation than they deserve.
I have organized these jokes in clusters of stories around certain themes. Obvi-
ously there could have been fewer or more themes, but the ten (or eleven, count-
ing meta-jokes) that I ended up with impose enough order to make the material
manageable without squandering energy in futile deliberation about classification.
Many stories straddle several themes. Of course, both the scheme and these assign-
ments are mine and not those of the tellers/listeners.114
I take this corpus of lawyer jokes as reflective of popular consciousness or legal
culture and treat these themes as components of it. But themes, corpus, conscious-
ness, and culture are analytic constructs, not features experienced by the actors or
resources available to them. Few if any tellers or hearers of jokes have a sense of the
forebears, longevity, variants, and relations of the jokes they tell or hear. For exam-
ple, if we note that a contemporary set of lawyer jokes derives from earlier jokes
about Jews or mothers-in-law or politicians, this transformation may be revealing
even though it is hidden from all but a few of those who tell or hear them. Indi-
viduals have partial and overlapping knowledge of a selection of the whole fund of
shared material, which contains related, competing, and inconsistent themes. This
kind of unknowing subliminal participation in a textual “tradition” is not peculiar
to jokes. Like the carriers of literary and culinary traditions, some know more and
some know less, but no participant has a mastery over the whole complex.115 A cer-
tain level of overlap and sharing must exist to enable the enterprise to flourish,
so it is possible to draw at least some conclusions about this collective body of sen-
timent and perception even though no participant’s collection corresponds to that
imaginary composite whole.

What is a joke?
The subject here is not all legal humor, but jokes.116 Some riddles and a few defini-
tions are included, but mostly I focus on narrative jokes (including anecdotes that
have the structure of jokes).117 Robert Hetzron provides a useful working defini-
tion: “A joke is a short humorous piece of oral literature in which the funniness
culminates in the final sentence, called the punchline. In fact, the main condition
is that the tension should reach its highest level at the very end. No continuation
relieving the tension should be added.”118
 Introduction

What is a lawyer joke?

Many of the jokes discussed in this book can, with slight modifications, be told
about other groups as well as about lawyers. Indeed many originated as stories
about golfers, Jews, mothers-in-law, or other protagonists and have been “enlisted”
or “conscripted” into the corps of lawyer jokes. Some of these switched jokes have
been adapted to lawyers by adding some specific distinguishing characteristics.119
In contrast to these switched stories, many others, almost two-thirds of those dis-
cussed here, are indigenous to lawyers.120 That is, they turn on specific features of
the legal setting and have only limited applicability to other protagonists. Lawyer
jokes then cover a range from indigenous jokes through adapted jokes to those
which are switched without any significant modification.121 Many widely circu-
lated lawyer jokes are of the latter type. As we shall see, the long-established clus-
ters that make up the enduring core of lawyer jokes are dominated by indigenous
stories, while the latecomer categories that comprise the new territories of lawyer
joking consist almost entirely of switched jokes.
For the purpose at hand, that is, using the jokes as a register of perceptions of
lawyers, switched jokes are no less useful than indigenous or adapted ones. Tellers
and listeners are probably unaware of and are certainly uninterested in their impure
origins. The fact that a joke is told about lawyers indicates that tellers expect lis-
teners to see it as revealing or confirming something about lawyers, and the fact
that the joke endures in that form indicates that this expectation is fulfilled.

Lawyer jokes vs. jokes about lawyers

One significant troop of tellers and listeners are lawyers themselves.122 I do not
attempt here to distinguish “jokes about lawyers” from “lawyer jokes.” It may be
that there are some jokes told mainly by lawyers and others that are told entirely
by nonlawyers. My guess is that most of the jokes here are told by various sorts
of tellers to varied audiences. Unfortunately, the method of collecting material
employed here does not enable me to address these matters directly. I do, however,
discuss the discourse within the legal profession about lawyer jokes. That discourse
may give us some clues about the relation of lawyers to lawyer jokes as an institu-
tion. It would not be surprising if lawyers have domesticated and transformed
some lawyer jokes, just as Jews have reworked many jokes from anti-Semitic stories
told by hostile outsiders into ironic self-observations.123 It is possible that such
a process of transformation is occurring, and that it is connected to changes in
lawyers’ sense of professional identity.

The lawyer joke corpus

This book focuses on the body of jokes about lawyers that is circulating in the
United States and the way that it has changed in the last quarter century. An ever-
changing array of jokes is being told and heard, read and thought about, remem-
bered and misremembered, and forgotten. An omniscient observer might mark
 Introduction 

exactly what is being told, by whom, to whom, in what social settings, and what
hearers and readers make of it, and so forth. But obviously we have to settle for a
rough approximation of this imagined reality.

Recorded jokes and oral transmission

Some of the jokes presented here are taken directly from the oral tradition and
most from published reports of that tradition. The joke corpus contains much that
might be called folklore and much that might be called popular culture. I treat the
joke corpus as an amalgam of folk, popular, commercial, and literary elements,
and I make no effort to separate them or to privilege any over the others. The oral
tradition is not an uncorrupted stream of “original” material that exists prior to
and independent of the various published media. Oral, written, and broadcast
sources feed upon and influence one another. In telling jokes, orality has retained
a primacy that is absent in many other cultural forms. Although jokes are pre-
served in various written media as well as in oral transmission, contemporary cul-
tural usage decrees that the “reality” of these jokes resides in their oral transmission
and the authentic “text” is the oral one. Hetzron observes, “It is true that jokes may
appear printed, but when further transferred, there is no obligation to reproduce
the text verbatim, as in the case of poetry. Moreover, such secondary transmission
will be viewed as equivalent to the original, unlike in other prose where a non-
verbatim transmission is considered to be a ‘report,’ a ‘synopsis,’ a ‘paraphrase,’ but
not an authentic original piece.”124
The various recorded versions are presented here as indicators of what is abroad
in the composite multimedia “tradition” I refer to as the lawyer joke corpus. Pub-
lished jokes are like recipes, as opposed to the dishes themselves. Joke collections
are like cookbooks; they are not collections of dishes, but of recipes. A collection
of recipes provides a handy but inexact guide to what is being prepared and eaten.
Although items may linger in the cookbook literature even after they fall out of
favor with diners and cooks, on the whole changes over time in the contents of
cookbooks reflect changes in culinary behavior.

“Switching”
In the course of oral transmission, jokes are modified by tellers, mostly inadver-
tently and/or incrementally, but sometimes deliberately to adapt a joke to new cir-
cumstances or even new topics. Joke books and other commercial media, in turn,
do not just passively record what is circulating in the oral tradition. Typically they
impose the coherence and formality of writing instead of speech. In addition, these
publications are the site of entrepreneurial “switching” in which a joke about Tex-
ans or mothers-in-law or politicians is refurbished as a joke about lawyers. In the
s Milton Wright described the rise of professional gag-writing that accompa-
nied the ascendence of radio: “The humor industry today is a manufacturing
industry. The manufacturing process is switching, The raw material is old jokes.
The finished product is new jokes.”125 Or, as Eddie Davis puts it, “The comedy
 Introduction

writer does not steal. He switches. He pares a joke down to its core, then molds a
new ripe artificial fruit around it.”126
Switching may be less systematic and pervasive in the case of extended narrative
jokes than in the gags and routines of performance comedy, but it is a prominent
feature of the publication of jokes. It is particularly present in topical collections
of jokes, where the compiler/editor/author may enlarge his stock by “switching”
jokes about other topics or groups to insert the desired element.127 This is evident in
many of the collections of lawyer jokes published in the United States since the genre
resurfaced in .128 Some appear to be simply compilations of material already
circulating as jokes about lawyers, while others introduce many items that appear not
to have circulated earlier as lawyer jokes.129 Two books in particular, Larry Wilde’s
Ultimate Lawyer’s Joke Book () and the pseudonymous Blanche Knott’s Truly
Tasteless Lawyer Jokes (), seem to be responsible for grafting onto the corpus of
lawyer jokes a large number of items that had circulated as jokes about politicians,
mothers-in-law, Texans, Jews, and others. For any given item, it is always possible
that the switch took place among tellers in the oral tradition and was merely recorded
by these compilers. But the quantity of “new” material in these books and, in some
cases, its close correspondence to nonlawyer material in the authors’ earlier publica-
tions suggest that a good deal of the switching took place at the compiler’s desk.130
It should be emphasized that switching is selective rather than indiscriminate.
Some attempted switches just don’t “take” and disappear from view; others flour-
ish and may grow more prominent than the original version. But what “takes” is
not controlled by the teller or writer; it has to strike a responsive chord in the lis-
teners/readers. So just which items negotiate the transition from their original sub-
jects to new ones tells us something about social perceptions. For example, jokes
about Jews as devious and untrustworthy partners have been readily revamped as
jokes about lawyers, but none of the many Jewish jokes about extended and pre-
carious chains of deductive reasoning has made a successful transition, even
though we might suppose they would fit with the many jokes about lawyers’ pecu-
liarities of discourse.131 But once a joke has been successfully switched, those who
encounter it in its new raiment may be unaware of its origin and perceive it as
native to its new setting.132

Print media and the oral tradition

Print media preserve and disseminate (parts of ) the oral tradition. They feed
shamelessly on earlier collections; they enlarge the corpus by “switching”; and they
elaborate the oral tradition by expanding and standardizing the repertoire of
tellers. Very few jokes circulate in the oral tradition that do not show up in pub-
lished form. I was prepared to report that among the three hundred lawyer jokes
discussed here, there was only one that I have never encountered as a lawyer joke
in any recorded form. But my delay in preparing the manuscript provided time for
that story to cross the print barrier.133 Lawyer jokes may be unrepresentative in this
respect, for there are fewer inhibitions about recording animosity toward lawyers
 Introduction 

than toward currently sensitive targets like blacks, Jews, or women. Joking about
lawyers can be less clandestine.134

Representativeness
Can we estimate the overall currency of a joke from evidence about its appearances
in print? Oral and printed instances may occur in different proportions, but there
is some correlation. Consider the lawyer jokes told to sociologist Jennifer Pierce
by “secretaries, paralegals, attorneys, and other legal workers” during the fifteen
months in – that she was conducting research on law firms in the Bay
Area.135 Pierce reports twelve jokes that she was told in the course of her inter-
views and the number of times she was told each one. All of them appear in print
and the most frequently told ones are abundantly represented.136 Similarly, of the
lawyer jokes collected by Alan Dundes’s students in – and those I collected
from student and general audiences on numerous occasions in the mid-s,
there are none that are not represented in the print media.
I conclude that when a joke is told a lot, it will turn up in print a lot. One can-
not exclude the possibility that there are some hidden gems that circulate orally but
do not surface in print or on-line media, but surely not many. We cannot, however,
infer the converse, that when something turns up in print it is an active part of the
oral tradition. The exigencies of publication—the need to fill pages, the attraction
of out-of-copyright material, the sheer ease of mindless copying—may give dead
jokes an afterlife in print. Plenty of items do disappear from the written corpus. I
think it is safe to conclude that if an item turns up in print repeatedly it is probably
circulating orally. (Of course some items, like extended “lists,” are better adapted to
written rather than oral transmission.)137 It is more difficult to know what to make
of a long absence after appearance in print. The written record contains a number
of instances of jokes not surfacing in print for a lifetime, then reappearing.138

Tracing changes over time

For several reasons it is difficult to gauge changes in the quantity and character
of jokes. They are primarily an oral medium and the retrievable record may reflect
a changing and unrepresentative fraction of the whole. With the proliferation of
recorded materials (published, photocopied, faxed, online), a larger portion of all
joking behavior may now leave a documentary trace. This is especially so because
earlier inhibitions about recording and disseminating obscene and scatological
material have relaxed considerably in the past forty years. But taking into account
these difficulties in assessing joking in the past, it seems clear that the profusion of
biting, critical jokes about lawyers that have circulated in recent years was simply
not present in earlier periods. Leaving aside the obscene and scatological, which
would have had difficulty obtaining entry to respectable media, the recorded
sources from the years before  provide little evidence of the aggressively hos-
tile humor that is commonplace today.139
The individual jokographies enable us to see when a joke appears; when lawyers
 Introduction

join (or replace) others as the protagonists of a joke; which groups lawyers share
jokes with; and, in some cases, when a joke disappears. Individual stories and even
whole themes sometimes simply stop circulating. Dropouts, like the appearance of
new jokes, are evidence of changing perceptions.
We cannot tell from this material how long any joke circulated orally before
being recorded. This duration of this “gap” may well have changed with the pro-
liferation of “print” media and the change in attitudes about “dirty” material. The
existence of this unmeasurable gap requires constant qualification of statements
about the times that jokes appear and change. The dates given are reliable indica-
tors of the time by which a joke was in circulation, but the duration of its prepub-
lication circulation remains unknown.140
Nor does this collection of texts tell us who is telling these jokes to whom in
what settings, and what meanings tellers and hearers imbue them with. Jokes do
not have a single fixed meaning. They can be told with very different intonations.
The tone and setting of their telling may convey hostility, amused disdain, or self-
mockery. Lawyers and nonlawyers, men and women, educated and uneducated,
rich and poor encounter different bundles of jokes and may hear very different
messages in a given joke.
A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.141

Does the joke corpus tell us about the legal culture?

Do these stories give us a reliable reading of what Americans think about lawyers?
Obviously they are only one source among many, and it is a source that has its own
biases. Jethro Lieberman and Tom Goldstein observe that the image of lawyers
in books, dramas, and daily reports is systematically biased toward critique rather
than appreciation. On the other hand, students of movies and TV testify to the
favorable portrayal of lawyers in those media. The joke corpus falls at the critical
end of the spectrum, since jokes by their nature focus on flaws, weaknesses, and
pretensions. As a medium of fathoming life in its entirety, jokes have severe limi-
tations. They are short, permitting no development of character; they are one-
dimensional, unable to reflect the human situation in its complexity; and as comic
productions that diminish rather than ennoble their subjects, they evade profound
dimensions of human existence.142
But other features of jokes make them a good indicator of perceptions of soci-
ety and its lawyers. First, since jokes may carry messages that are not fully apparent
to teller and listener, they may evade the censorship that would screen out open
expression of scandalous and reprehensible views. Second, the sentiments they
express have to be shared rather than idiosyncratic; they register not transient and
individual perceptions of lawyers but shared perceptions that have been ratified
and confirmed by successive tellings. The persistence of jokes is a useful indicator
 Introduction 

of enduring patterns of sentiment because jokes are labile social productions,

remade at each telling, and neither controlled nor supported by organizational
sanctions or authoritative text. Thus they represent a shared and enduring collec-
tive representation even if that may be subject to different readings.
Third, jokes remain the possession and voice of individuals. While the pro-
duction of music and even fairy tales is administered by formal organizations,
there is no Time Warner or Disney of jokes. The small scale and cheapness that
make them unattractive as a profit center leave jokes as one of the redoubts of in-
dividual expression. For this reason the perspective on lawyers in jokes is different
from that in media more subject to corporate packaging and corporate control.
I conclude that jokes do tap a vein of genuine shared sentiment, even though
some themes that are important in other manifestations of public opinion may be
poorly represented in the joke corpus. In what follows, we shall be dealing with
jokes not in isolation but in juxtaposition with other expressions about lawyers and
the legal system.
In most instances I provide the full text of only a single version of each joke.
Switches and minor variations are traced in the endnotes and summarized in the
Register of Jokes (appendix). Occasionally, a second version is provided. I have
no rigid policy for choosing which of the many versions to include in full text. I
have a bias in favor of old ones; although they are sometimes stilted, they demon-
strate that the basic story has been in place for a long time. For the sake of variety,
I have mixed older and newer versions and have included some British, Australian,
Canadian, Irish, and Indian versions along with American ones.
The jokes presented here are representative texts of jokes told over a long
period. Each story is presented verbatim and in its entirety as it appeared in the
original source. By contemporary standards, and in some cases by the standards of
their own day, many are offensive in their reference to African Americans, Jews,
women, and other groups. I proceed in confidence that the readers of this book
deserve and prefer an unvarnished and uncensored view of our legal (and general)
culture, past and present. The stories reprinted here tell us not only what struck
(at least some) people as funny and worth retelling, but what passed as sufficiently
respectable to be publishable. We can assume that until the later part of the twen-
tieth century the oral tradition, incompletely mirrored by these published materi-
als, contained other materials which could not pass this test of respectability.
In giving the jokes verbatim, I sacrifice any claim to originality in the hope of
ascending to the fourth and fifth levels detailed a century ago in a much-quoted
and possibly apocryphal exchange between the formidable President of Columbia
University, Nicholas Murray Butler, and Professor Brander Matthews.

K3 “In the case of the first to use an anecdote,” said Professor Mathews, “it is originality; in
the case of the second, it is plagiarism; third, lack of originality; fourth, it is drawing from
a common stock.”
“Yes,” replied Nicholas Murray Butler, “and in the case of the fifth, it is research.”143
 Introduction

Jokes provide a rough gauge of common attributions of traits to various social

groups and perceptions of the stature of various sorts of behavior. And they give
us a useful baseline by which to assess change. The jokes reprinted here should
not be taken as revealing what their tellers or listeners “really” thought or think.
Jokes are neither transparent nor univocal; they contain multiple and ambiguous
ideas and they can be told in manners and settings that make them subject to very
different interpretations. They may express sentiments that their tellers or listeners
propound but, like songs and poems, their content may not correspond to the
convictions of teller or listener.
  


T E C 
I R A
  

Lies and Stratagems
The Corruption of Discourse

A1 How can you tell if a lawyer is lying?

His lips are moving.1

I was surprised to discover that this is a rather recent addition to the lawyer joke
corpus, appearing in print first in . It derives from a joke about husbands
which has been around since at least the s. Although sometimes told about
men, women, salespeople, criminal suspects, economists, politicians, and others,2
it has become predominantly a lawyer joke—at least in the United States.
It joins a large company of jokes that blame lawyers for misusing and cor-
rupting language, perverting discourse by promoting needless complexity, mysti-
fying matters by jargon and formalities, robbing life’s dealings of their moral sense
by recasting them in legal abstractions, and offending common sense by casuistry
that makes black appear white and vice versa. Lawyer indulgence in the sins of
discourse has been a grievance since ancient times, giving rise to an assembly of
jokes that contains some of the most venerable specimens, but regularly attracts
new additions.3

L        D        
One group of old stories plays on the similarity of the sounds of “liar” and
“lawyer.”4
A2 As a minister and a lawyer were riding together, the minister asked, “Do you ever
make any mistakes in your pleading?” “Oh, yes,” the lawyer replied. “And what do you
do in those cases?” “Well,” said the lawyer, “if they are important mistakes I correct
them, and if they are small ones I pay no attention to them, but just go on. And do you
every make any mistakes in your preaching?”
“Oh, yes,” said the clergyman, “and I observe the same rule as you do. For instance,
one Sunday not long ago I meant to say to my congregation that the devil is the father


  T E C  I R A

of all liars and my tongue slipped and I said ‘all lawyers’ instead. But the mistake was so
small that I let it go at that.”5

This play on the closeness of the vowel sounds joins an even older story that
plays on the overlap of forms of the verbs “to lie” and “to lay” and connects the
lawyer’s propensity to lie with his ability to represent either side:
A3 In Chancery, one time, when the Councel of the parties set forth the boundary of the
land in question, by the plot and the Councel of one part said, we lie on this side, my
Lord, and the Councel of the other part said, we lie on this side. The Lord Chancellor
Hatton stood up and said, “If you lie on both sides, whom will you have me believe?”6

The “two sides” story turns up in a number of variants:

A3 In the 1920s, a plaintiff brought suit against the City of New York after he claimed to
have been injured from falling into an open manhole.
During the trial, Dr. Willard Parker, appearing as an expert witness for the plaintiff,
testified that the plaintiff “had been so badly hurt that he could lie on only one side.”
Whereupon the city attorney joked, “I suppose, doctor, you mean he would make a
very poor lawyer.”7

If this originated in courtroom dialogue, it did so long before the date in this text,
for the same exchange between counsel and Dr. Parker had been published in
. A more common variant involves the critical rejoinder of a rival professional:
A3 The lawyer was endeavoring to pump some free advice out of the doctor.
“Which side is it best to lie on, Doc?”
“The side that pays you the retainer.”8

Another variant observes that lawyers enjoy good health even though, contrary to
medical advice, they lie on both sides.9 The “two sides” story makes a double dig:
lawyers are not only liars, but they are also indifferent to the merits of the disputes
and have no compunction about using their art against the meritorious side if it
is to their advantage.
A6 A man was giving evidence in a lawsuit and the defendant’s lawyer asked him,
“Didn’t you tell the defendant that you would testify for him if he would pay you
better?” “That I did,” admitted the man. “And let me ask you, wouldn’t you be on the
other side yourself if they’d offered you a bigger fee?”10

A6 A lawyer was walking down the street and saw two cars smash into one another.
Rushing over, he said, “I saw everything and I’ll take either side.”11

There is a hint here that the lawyer is sufficiently resourceful to come up with
something whatever the position in which he finds himself—a theme discussed
below.12
Other stories make clear that fashioning lies is the essence of the lawyer’s role:
. A Counciller (BM . Rowlandson, )
  T E C  I R A

A7 “Have you a lawyer?” asked the judge of a young man brought before him.
“No, sir,” was the answer.
“Well, don’t you think you had better have one?” inquired His Honor.
“No, sir,” said the youth. “I don’t need one. I am going to tell the truth.”13

A8 The judge halted proceedings and leaned forward from the bench. “Look here, my
man,” he said to the defendant, “I granted you the right to plead your own case, but
you’re lying so clumsily that I really think you ought to get a lawyer.”14

Another old joke, still current, hints that lying is what lawyers naturally and prop-
erly do:
A4 Farmer—“An’ how’s Lawyer Jones doing, doctor?”
Doctor—“Poor fellow, he’s lying at death’s door.”
Farmer—“That’s grit for ye; at death’s door, an’ still lying.”15

A sixteenth-century joke anthology tells of a lawyer disabled by newly acquired

honesty:
A9 A certain lawyer, after many cases which he always won, became a monk. And when,
after he had been put in charge of the monastery’s affairs and had been the loser in
many cases, he was asked by the abbot why he was completely changed as an arguer, he
replied: “I don’t dare to lie as I did formerly, so that I now lose all my cases. You should
get another man in my place, who cares more for worldly and temporary things than for
eternal and heavenly ones.”16

A nineteenth-century lawyer, advised that a beard was unprofessional, quipped:

A9 Right . . . a lawyer cannot be but barefaced.17

A century later the suggestion recurs that lawyers are supposed to be dishonest:
A10 Her lawyer is honest, but not enough to hurt her case.18

Through the centuries lying and dishonesty are identified as a qualification for
being a lawyer and an expertise that lawyers can be expected to display:19
A9 An old lady walked into a lawyer’s office lately, when the following conversation took
place:
Lady—Squire, I called to see if you would like to take this boy and make a lawyer of
him.
Lawyer—The boy appears rather young, madam—how old is he?
Lady—Seven year, sir.
Lawyer—He is too young—decidedly too young. Have you no boys older?
Lady—O yes, sir, I have several; but we have concluded to make farmers of the
others. I told my old man I thought this little feller would make a first rate lawyer, and
so I called to see if you would take him.
Lawyer—No, madam; he is too young yet, to commence the study of the profession.
But why do you think this boy any better calculated for a lawyer than your other sons?
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

Lady—Why, you see sir, he is just seven years old to-day. When he was only five, he’d
lie like all natur; when he got to be six, he was as sassy and impudent as any critter could
be; and now he’ll steal everything he can lay his hands on!20

For some parents it is the inability to lie that is a source of disappointment.

A9 A man, a lawyer, made a great ado over the breaking of his imported briar pipe.
When he saw the fragments of the old friend on the floor, he exclaimed:
“Who could have does this wilful thing?”
His son, six years old, spoke up: “Father I cannot tell a lie! I did it to see what was
inside.”
“Alas,” cried the now doubly-distressed man, “I did hope to make you a lawyer, my
son; but I see it is never to be.”21

A13 A countryman applied to a solicitor for legal advice. After detailing the circumstances of
the case, he was asked if he had stated the facts exactly as they had occurred. “O, ay sir,”
rejoined he, “I thought it better to tell you the plain truth; you can put the lies to it
yourself.”22

According to a variant of this story, that is precisely the lawyer’s job:

A13 A gentleman that had a suit in Chancery was called upon by his counsel to put in his
answer, for fear of incurring a contempt. “Well,” says the client, “and why is not my
answer put in then?” “How should I draw your answer,” saith the lawyer, “without
knowing what you can swear?” “Hang your scruples,” says the client again; “pray do
your part of a lawyer, and draw me a sufficient answer: and let me alone to do the part
of a gentleman, and swear it.”23

A14 ”Papa, do lawyers tell the truth?” “Certainly, my boy; they will do anything to win their
case.”24

Honest lawyers have for many centuries been believed to be rare creatures. Both
Ben Jonson and Benjamin Franklin are credited with the couplet:
A15 God works wonders now and then;.
Behold! A lawyer and an honest man25

The scarcity of honest lawyers theme is elaborated in many stories. Some have
dropped out as the social setting changed:
A16 At a railroad dinner, in compliment to the fraternity, the toast was given: “An honest
lawyer, the noblest work of God!” But an old farmer, in the back part of the hall, rather
spoiled the effect by adding, in a loud voice: “About the scarcest.”26

Yet another victim of Richard Nixon is a story that dropped out with the demise
of the Democratic “solid South”:
A17 A young graduate in law, who had some experience in New York City, wrote to a
prominent practitioner in Arkansas to inquire what chance there was in that section for
  T E C  I R A

such a one as he described himself to be. He said: “I am a Republican in politics, and an

honest young lawyer.” The reply that came seemed encouraging in its interest: “If you
are a Republican the game laws here will protect you, and if you are an honest lawyer
you will have no competition.”27

But the most popular and enduring of these “no honest lawyer” stories is a prose
rendition of the “God works wonders” couplet (A), above:
A18 A stranger, passing through the churchyard, who noticed this inscription, is reputed to
have exclaimed, “What! Two of them buried in the same grave?”28

Another turns on the epitaph of lawyer John Strange:

A19 There is an old story of a lawyer named Strange and his wife having a conference as
to the things he wished done after he had departed this life.
“I want a headstone put over me, my dear,” said the lawyer, “with the simple
inscription—‘Here lies an honest lawyer.’”
The wife expressed surprise that he did not wish his name put on the headstone.
“It will not be needful,” he responded, “for those who pass by and read that
inscription will invariably remark: ‘That’s Strange.’”29

This in turn has been extended into a ethnic joke about the English:
A19 An Englishman who has heard the story essayed to repeat it to his friend.
“I heard a good one the other night,” he says, “a very good one, indeed. There
was a barrister by the name of—his name was—well, I don’t just think of the name now,
ye know; but it’s of no consequence whatever. You see, he was telling his widow—that
is, his wife—what to do after he died, and he says: ‘I want this inscription on my
monument: “here lies an honest barrister.” You’ll get the point in a moment. It’s very
funny.’ Well, his wife says: ‘How in the world is that going to tell who you are?’ Says he:
‘Well everybody that reads the inscription will say: “That’s devilish singular.”’”30

W            M      D    
The jokes about lawyers’ departure from truth reflect a firm public belief. A 
Gallup poll asked a national sample of adults about the truthfulness of various
groups of people. Only  percent thought lawyers always tell the truth, while 
percent thought they sometimes or often say things they know are not true.31
But departure from truthfulness need not be seen as a failing; indeed, it may
be seen as essential to the lawyer’s task:
A21 Lawyer: Well, if you want my honest opinion—
Client: No, no. I want your professional advice.32

The opposition of “honest opinion” and “professional advice” suggests that the
lawyer is seen as operating in a realm disconnected from the sphere of personal
morality.
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

A22 After serving a week on a jury, a man was asked:

“You must have listened to so much law in the past week that you are almost a
lawyer yourself now.”
“Yes,” said the juryman, “I am so full of law that I am going to find it hard to keep
from cheating people after I get back to business.”33

It is expected that the lawyer’s professional persona will not be controlled by

the constraints of personal morality.
A9 A lawyer, in addressing a jury, made a statement that greatly exasperated his opponent,
who sprang to his feet and exclaimed, “Sir do you say that as a lawyer, or as a man? If
you say it as a lawyer, all is right; but if you say it as a man, you tell a falsehood.”34

The task of the lawyer may be not to reveal the truth but to obscure it:
A23 “This law is a queer business.”
“How so?”
“They swear a man to tell the truth?”
“What then?”
“And every time he shows signs of doing so some lawyer objects.”35

Through inadvertence or oversight the lawyers may fail to expose the truth,
which does not necessarily inspire universal regret.

. Cartoon by Arnie Levin (© , from cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.)

  T E C  I R A

A24 An old colored man, who had been crippled in the railroad service, served for many
years as a watchman at a grade crossing in the outskirts of an Alabama town. By day he
wielded a red flag and by night he swung a lantern.
One dark night a colored man from the country, driving home from town, steered his
mules across the track just as the Memphis flier came through and abolished him, along
with his team and his wagon. His widow sued the railroad for damages. At the trial the
chief witness for the defence was the old crossing watchman.
Uncle Gabe stumped to the stand and took the oath to tell the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth. Under promptings from the attorney for his side, he
proceeded to give testimony strongly in favor of the defendant corporation. He stated
that he had seen the approaching team in due time and that, standing in the street, he
had waved his lantern to and fro for a period of at least one minute. In spite of the
warning, he said, the deceased had driven upon the rails.
Naturally, the attorney for the plaintiff put him to a severe cross-examination. Uncle
Gabe answered every question readily and with evident honesty. He told just how he had
held the lantern, how he had swung and joggled it and so forth and so on.
After court had adjourned the lawyer for the railroad sought out the old man and
congratulated him upon his behavior as a witness.
“Gabe,” he said, “you acquitted yourself splendidly. Weren’t you at all nervous while
on the stand?”
“I suttinly wuz, boss,” replied Uncle Gabe. “I kep’ wonderin’ whu wuz gwine happen
ef dat w’ite genelman should ax me if dat lantern wuz lighted.”36

In the legal realm there is no premium on honesty. Quite the opposite, the
legal process is seen as a setting in which lying may win the day. Here is an old
version of the most common variant of a very widespread story:
A25 Judge (to witness)—“Do you know the nature of an oath?”
Witness—“Sah?”
Judge—“Do you understand what you are to swear to?”
Witness—“Yes, sah; I’m to swear to tell de truf.”
Judge—“And what will happen if you do not tell it?”
Witness—“I ‘spects our side’ll win de case, sah.”37

In another variant a young lad responds that he supposed “he would go where all
the lawyers went.”38 In yet another, the witness innocently provides a cynical
operational definition of the oath:
A25 The other day a colored man fresh from “Ole Virginy,” was on the witness stand and
the judge asked him:
“Do you know what an oath is?”
“Yes, sah; when a man swears to a lie he’s got to stick to it.”39

The dismal “truth” about the fate of truth in the legal process is typically placed
in the mouth of an innocent, low status outsider: the uneducated Negro or
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

hillbilly in the U.S., the Irishman or a child in Britain, the aboriginal in Australia.
Unschooled in the mythic picture of the legal system that is acquired by adults
of stature and respectability, he is unable to see beyond the everyday imperfection
of legal institutions.40 It takes a certain ingenuousness to fail to see the emperor’s
clothes.
Lawyers differ in their sense of obligation to resist acknowledgment of the
divergence of advocacy from truth-seeking. Half a century ago a distinguished
Boston practitioner, Charles P. Curtis, outraged many lawyers by urging that
lawyers follow Montaigne’s advice to “recognize the knavery that is part of [their]
vocation.” Curtis proposed that on rare occasions it is “one of the functions of the
lawyer to lie for his client.”41 But even when truthful “a lawyer is required to be
disingenuous. He is required to make statements and arguments which he does
not believe in. . . . When he is talking for his client, a lawyer is absolved from
veracity down to a certain point of particularity. And he must never lose the rep-
utation of lacking veracity, because his freedom from the strict bonds of veracity
and of the law are the two chief assets of the profession.” This posture commends
itself because “the administration of justice is no more designed to elicit the truth
than the scientific approach is designed to extract justice from the atom.”42 Henry
S. Drinker (–), one of the high priests of legal ethics, wrote of the “amaze-
ment and indignation” with which he read “this insidious essay.”43 Unable to
bring himself to believe that Curtis “really in his heart of hearts believes such
extraordinary statements,” Drinker supposed “he is moved to make them from an
unconscious fear of appearing stuffy.”44 Drinker affirmed that law was indeed a
noble profession, disfigured by an occasional malefactor, but peopled by good
souls who “hate falsehood, dishonesty and all that is ignoble.”45
Many thoughtful lawyers now incline more toward the view found in the
jokes and in popular culture in general. In this view lawyers’ obligations involve
a complex blend of truth-telling and concealment ordained by a distinctive “role
morality” in which their duties as advocates deflect and qualify the conventional
imperatives of truthfulness.46
The Drinker view is still invoked more than occasionally. Thus Independent
Counsel Kenneth Starr took time from his pursuit of President Clinton to deliver
a bar lecture in which he expressed concern that the foundations of American
society were threatened by a decline in lawyers’ observance of their obligation to
tell the truth.47 In a notable conflation of real and imaginary lawyers, he argued
that “times have changed.” Quoting Daniel Webster on the honesty of lawyers, he
skipped ahead to  when Atticus Finch, the fictional hero of the novel To Kill
a Mockingbird, “strove to find the truth while defending a black man wrongly
accused of rape in a segregated town.” To “this noble and trustworthy soul” Starr
contrasts “the character Bruiser in John Grisham’s book The Rainmaker and the
Al Pacino character in the film Devil’s Advocate. “Popular culture now sees lawyers
as anything but seekers of truth and justice.” Although “many of us question
whether this modern-day portrayal of lawyers is fair . . . we must concede, our
  T E C  I R A

profession has changed.” Having fallen, Starr exhorts the profession to rise again:
“The path away from the seedy world of John Grisham’s Bruiser, and a road map
for reclaiming the moral high ground of Atticus Finch,” is simply to embrace
the principle that “lawyers have a duty not to use their skills to impede the search
for truth.” A leading legal ethicist, Geoffrey Hazard, quickly responded that
“Mr. Starr’s claim is not only ludicrous; it is pernicious,” citing many occasions
on which it is legitimate and even obligatory for lawyers to obstruct the search for
truth.48 Indeed, Atticus Finch himself seems to hold a more nuanced view, for at
the story’s climax he acquiesces in the sheriff ’s reporting a “justified” killing as an
accidental suicide.49
Although Starr agrees with Drinker’s ideal of truth-seeking lawyers, he seems
to concur with Curtis and Hazard and the joke corpus that descriptively lawyers
do manage and massage the truth. It is one thing to say lawyers are sophists and
must follow the curious rules of that calling; it is another to deny it and claim they
are called to be philosophers. Some may dismiss such claims of authenticity as just
another piece of advocacy useful at the moment. But we should never underesti-
mate the capacity of people to believe the best of themselves.
E        , P              , Re             
If courts are forums not of truth but of contending stories, much depends on the
lawyer. Lawyers are not only unconstrained by the truth; they can marshal their
eloquence and resourcefulness to make arguments that are obscure, improbable,
and outrageous. They are unrestricted by requirements of consistency:
A26 The Vermont Mercury has the following excellent defence lately made to an action by a
down east lawyer:—“There are three points in the case, may it please your honour,” said
the defendant’s counsel. “In the first place, we contend that the kettle was cracked when
we borrowed it; secondly, that it was whole when we returned it; and, thirdly, that we
never had it.”50

This familiar “inconsistent defenses” story is told of other protagonists, as well as

lawyers.51 But the setting is often a court or another arena of accusation, defense,
and judgment. The joke seems to say that this is the legal model—you need not
have a consistent and coherent story; rather, you have to have a point that will beat
the other side.52 Of course, having a number of points does not guarantee success:
A27 Not long ago, in the Court of Appeals, an Irish lawyer, while arguing with earnestness
his cause, stated a point which the court ruled out.
“Well,” said the attorney, “if it plaze the coort, if I am wrong in this, I have another
point that is aqually as conclusive.”53

The joke corpus pays tribute to the lawyer’s eloquence and persuasiveness.
A28 A man in North Carolina, who was saved from conviction for horse-stealing by the
powerful plea of his lawyer, after his acquittal by the jury, was asked by the lawyer:
“Honor bright, now, Bill, you did steal that horse, didn’t you?”
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

“Now, look a-here, Judge,” was the reply, “I allers did think I stole that hoss, but
since I hearn yore speech to that ‘ere jury, I’ll be doggoned if I a’n’t got my doubts
about it.”54

On the evidence of the published sources this has enjoyed a steady popularity for
over a century, most recently as a joke about O. J. Simpson:
A28 “Man that Johnnie Cochran is a smooth talking lawyer. . . . Even O.J. thinks he’s
innocent.”55

The jokes are laced with appreciation of the lawyer’s resourcefulness, his abil-
ity to come up with something to say on behalf of the most apparently hopeless
case:
A29 Prisoner: “Before I plead guilty or not guilty, I would like to ask the court to appoint a
lawyer to defend me.”
Judge: “You were caught in the actual commission of a crime, with the merchandise
on you, a gun in your hand and your victim on the floor. What could a lawyer possibly
say in your defense?”
Prisoner: “That’s it—I’m curious also to hear what he could possibly say!”56

The lawyer is capable of abrupt reversals. There are stories of a lawyer writing
successive treatises on opposite sides of a constitutional dispute; of the lawyer who
assured his client that he could prove unconstitutional the same law he had
recently proved constitutional.57 And, not least, the drunken lawyer who mistak-
enly made a devastating argument for the wrong side:
A30 Counsel in a . . . condition of haziness hurriedly entered the Court and took up the case
in which he was engaged; but forgetting for which side he had been fee’d, to the
unutterable amazement of the agent, delivered a long and fervent speech in the teeth
of the interests he had been expected to support. When at last the agent made him
understand the mistake he had made, he with infinite composure resumed his ordination
by saying: “Such, my lord, is the statement you will probably hear from my brother on
the opposite side of the case. I shall now show your lordship how utterly untenable are
the principles and how distorted are the facts upon which this very specious statement
has proceeded.” And so he went over the same ground and most angelically refuted
himself from the beginning of his former pleading to the end.58

A30 An absent-minded attorney rose to defend a client, and, intent on winding up the
proceedings promptly and reaching the country club, got off on the wrong foot.
“This man on trial, gentlemen of the jury,” he bumbled, “bears the reputation of
being the most unconscionable and depraved scoundrel in the state. . . .”
An assistant whispered frantically, “That’s your client you’re talking about.”
Without one second’s hesitation, the lawyer continued smoothly, “ . . . but what
outstanding citizen ever lived who has not been vilified and slandered by envious
contemporaries?”59
.The Old Bailey Advocate Bringing Off a Thief (BM . ?).
Barrister places his foot in mouth of Truth as he tramples her pros-
trate body, beneath which lies the prostrate body of Justice with
broken sword and scales. The inscription reads: “Did not the Felon
firmly fix his hope / On flaw or jaw, and so escape the rope, / Justly
he’d meet that Fate without reprieve, / (Which come when
Advocate fails to deceive,) / Or, doom made sure for want of
quibbling aid, / He’d quit bad ways to seek an honest trade.”
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

Jokes about resourcefulness, dogged tenacity, and improvisation are readily

switched to lawyers. In this old joke, the lawyer replaces the Jew (or Irishman or
Cajun) who enlarges the options while being intensely self-regarding.60
A31 Three college roommates got together regularly over the years, even though their
professional lives differed widely. One had become an attorney, one a professor of Italian
literature, and one a zoologist. When they next met up, each one looked pretty gloomy,
and it turned out that each had been told by his physician that he had only six weeks to
live. Understandably, the conversation turned to the way in which each intended to live
out his last days.
“I’m going to Rwanda,” said the zoologist. “I’ve always wanted to see the rare
mountain gorilla in its native habitat.”
“Italy for me. I want to see where Dante was born, to be buried near the great man.
And you?” asked the professor, turning to the third friend. “What would you like to see?”
“Another doctor,” decided the lawyer.61

A new mutation shifts the scene to the afterlife:

A31 Three good friends were driving along on the highway one Saturday: a doctor, a
teacher, and a lawyer. All of a sudden, a brand-new SUV cut them off. In an attempt to
miss the shiny big vehicle, the driver swerved to the left and hit the median. The car
flipped several times and all three friends died instantly.
They all found themselves in the line waiting to get into Heaven. The doctor asked
the others, “Hey, what do you all want people to say at your funeral? I want them to say,
‘She was a great doctor, and she never let down any of her patients.’”
The teacher said, “I want people to remember me as a great educator, so I would
want to hear people say, ‘He was a wonderful teacher, a great role model for children,
and he changed countless lives throughout his career.’”
Then the lawyer said, “I’d like people to say, ‘Look! He’s moving!’”62

The drive and innovativeness of lawyers, along with their resourcefulness and elo-
quence, are depicted in this story, originally about a speechwriter, switched to the
setting of the large law firm.
A32 A senior partner at a major New York law firm . . . was asked by the Manhattan
Chamber of Commerce to address its membership. Accepting months in advance, he
forgets about the engagement until, cleaning off his desk late one Friday evening, he
notices the date scheduled in his calendar for the following Monday. With a big weekend
at the beach house on tap, there’s no time to write a speech. Instead, he calls in a bright
young associate.
Partner: Smith, I have to address the Chamber on Monday night and because of a
client commitment all weekend, I can’t do it myself. You’ll have to write it for me. Have it
on my desk by noon Monday.
Associate: But sir, my girlfriend and I have reservations at—
Partner: On my desk at noon. No ifs, ands, or buts.
  T E C  I R A

Comes Monday at twelve, the speech is delivered, freshly typed and bound in a
neat plastic folder. The partner, on his way to a client meeting that will last until the
evening, stuffs the speech in his briefcase without reading it. Later that night, standing
before the audience of five hundred business executives (many clients and potential
clients), he delivers the speech, which turns out to be a literary pearl filled with
humorous anecdotes, wonderful insights, and bright observations on the law, business,
and modern society. Near the end, it reaches a crescendo that has the audience on the
edge of its seats.
“Before I leave you tonight,” the partner reads, “I want to share with you my
ultimate vision for using the law not only to resolve disputes, but to create a new
chapter in the history of mankind. A chapter of unparalleled peace and prosperity
worldwide. To accomplish this, I will suggest that”—he turns the page, curious himself
to read this remarkable plan, only to find, in capital letters, IMPROVISE, YOU SON OF
A BITCH.63

Not only do we admire the nerve, resourcefulness, and eloquence of the associate,
but we also wonder if the senior partner, so justly punished for his arrogance, will
manage to come up with something to save the day.
Perhaps the most striking thing about the lawyer’s discourse is his ability to
use language to reshape things, not least the law itself. King Louis XII of France
is reported to have said: “Lawyers use the law as shoemakers use leather; rubbing
it, pressing it, stretching it with their teeth, all to the end of making it fit their
purposes.”64 Some centuries later in Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift had his hero,
describing England, recount to the Houynyms: “There was a Society of Men
among us, bred up from their youth in the Art of proving by words multiplied for
the Purpose that White is Black and Black is White, according as they are paid.
To this Society all the rest of the People are Slaves.”65
A widely published lawyer joke focuses on this kind of linguistic manipulation:
A33 The Search Committee is interviewing the three finalists for the presidency of the
University: a mathematician, a sociologist and a lawyer. The mathematician is ushered in
first and the committee members pepper him with questions about his views on the state
of higher education, the University’s financial prospects, and his theories of educational
leadership. Just as he is about to leave, a previously silent elderly member of the
committee asks, “Excuse me, sir, but can you tell us how much is two and two?” “Well,”
says the mathematician, “that is really a complex question, but for present purposes we
can say that if you take an abstract two and add another abstract two, you get an
abstract four.”
The next candidate is the sociologist and after he is quizzed on his views about
administering the University, just as he is about to leave, the same committee member
pipes up with the same question, “how much is two and two?” After pondering for a
moment, the sociologist responds, “that is an empirical question that requires very
careful collection and analysis of data, but roughly the range is from three to five with a
mean of about four.”
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

After he leaves, the lawyer enters and is questioned about his views at great length.
Just as he turns to leave and opens the door of the committee room, the elderly member
manages to say “Excuse me, just one more question: how much is two and two?” The
lawyer stops in his tracks, closes the door, turns and slowly approaches the committee. In
a soft voice he asks “How much do you want it to be?”66

This story is the most significant addition to the Discourse cluster in recent times.
It is not a very old addition, first appearing as a lawyer joke in .67 For at least
thirty years before that, it had flourished as an anti-Communist joke in the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe.68 The point was the authorities’ insistence on falsify-
ing reality and the servility or opportunism of the applicant:
A33 What does two times two make?
Whatever the Party says.69

Since its arrival in the lawyer joke corpus, it has occasionally turned up about
politicians, accountants, and economists, but it has been predominantly a lawyer
joke.70
Two plus two is an excellent example of what I call an adapted joke. It is not
merely a switch in which a lawyer has been substituted for a politician or employer
as the protagonist. The lawyer version typically reveals a distinctive twist that
makes it specific to the lawyer theme. What is distinctive about the lawyer pro-
tagonist is his readiness to put his ability to reshape reality at the service of the
“client.” He is solicitous: How much do you want it to be? He closes the door and
speaks softly or pulls down the shades and checks for hidden microphones to pro-
tect confidentiality. In contrast to the laborious mechanical responses of the other
candidates, he seeks out the need that lies behind the question. He immediately
takes the request as expressing some purpose of the questioner and indicates his
eagerness to serve that undisclosed purpose. This responsiveness to clients is the
thing that people value most in lawyers—the lawyer as entirely focused on your
problem and entirely committed to be your champion.71 As we shall see there is
anxiety about whether he will be a distracted or faithless champion.
Among lawyers, this portrayal is specific to Americans. In the UK the “how
much do you want it to be” trope is associated with accountants from at least
.72 The two plus two joke arrives, apparently from Australia, in .73 A
lawyer earlier in the series provides a legalistic answer, citing a case that “proves”
the answer is four. In another Australian version, the penultimate respondent is
a lawyer who “thought that in general it would be considered four, but that
they should have counsel’s opinion.” The punch line is put in the mouth of an
accountant whose response is not accompanied by any of the solicitude or body
language of the American lawyer versions.74
The joke places the lawyer squarely among the proponents of “indeterminacy.”
In the Communist joke, the truth is malleable. For the lawyer, too, responding is
not a search for a unique, objectively right answer. If there is objective truth, it
 T E C  I R A

does not control the answer. As one observer of the legal scene puts it: “Lawyers
make claims not because they believe them to be true, but because they believe
them to be legally efficacious. If they happen to be true, then all the better.”75 The
stock in trade of the lawyer is that he is the master rather than the slave of
the authoritative text. He uses his art to fashion an answer not to conform to the
dictate of a dominant ruling group (as in the Communist joke), but to suit the
purposes of a specific interlocutor.
Earlier critics derided lawyers as the votaries of an illusory certainty. Sixty years
ago, in a famous polemic, Yale law professor Fred Rodell decried the law as a pre-
tense, a fraud, a hoax, mumbo-jumbo, “a scheme of contradictory and nonsensical
principles built of inherently meaningless abstractions” that exercises a supersti-
tious hold over the populace. “The legal trade . . . is nothing but a high-class
racket.” Lawyers are soothsayers, modern medicine men, “purveyors of stream-
lined voodoo,” priests of mystification.76 On the culpability of lawyers for this
state of affairs, Rodell vacillates. At times he portrays them as self-deceived: “The
lawyers, taken as a whole, cannot by any means be accused of deliberately hood-
winking the public. . . . They, too, are blissfully unaware that the sounds they
make are essentially empty of meaning.”77 Yet elsewhere he depicts them as know-
ing conspirators: “For the lawyers know it would be woe unto the lawyers if the
non-lawyers ever got wise to the fact that their lives were run, not by The Law,
not by any rigid and impersonal and automatically applied code of rules, but in-
stead by a comparatively small group of men, smart, smooth, and smug—the
lawyers.”78 As we shall see, other critics portray lawyers as errant priests of the true
church of social justice. But Rodell portrays them as the idolatrous priests of a
false religion, which he thinks can be dismantled by eliminating lawyers.
Rodell’s portrayal of lawyers as the source of the mythic reification of legal
rules and as captives of the law’s empty mysteries makes important empirical
claims about the beliefs and behavior of lawyers and lay people, claims that are at
least incomplete and very likely seriously mistaken. Fifty years ago, David Ries-
man observed that lawyers “are feared and disliked—but needed—because of
their matter-of-factness, their sense of relevance, their refusal to be impressed by
magical ‘solutions’ to people’s problems. Conceivably, if this hypothesis is right,
the ceremonial and mystification of the legal profession are, to a considerable
degree, veils or protections underneath which this rational, all too rational, work
of the lawyer gets done.”79 Mystification and jargon do not necessarily imply that
lawyers are enchanted by the law. Rather than believers that the law has a single
true meaning, lawyers are as likely to be virtuosi of indeterminacy. Jethro Lieber-
man confides that:

The only secret that the lawyer really possesses about the law is that no one can ever
be certain of what the law is. . . . The lawyer is accustomed to the ways of bending
and changing rules to suit his (or his client’s) purposes, to dance in the shadows of the
law’s ambiguities. Rules hold no particular terror for the lawyer, just as the sight of
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

blood holds no terror for the surgeon. Because he operates a system of rules, the
lawyer becomes indifferent to them in the way that a doctor becomes indifferent to
the humanity of the body that is lying on the operating table.80

H   A  : L      T      F        B      
Admiration for the lawyer’s eloquence and inventiveness is balanced by a coun-
tertheme: although the lawyer is fluent and never at a loss for something to say
and although his verbosity can dominate encounters, it is often empty, mindless,
and fraudulent. Sometimes the fakery is innocuous bluff, as in this old story of
the young lawyer’s attempt to conceal his involuntary idleness. Here is a version
published in , still found in current collections with only minor changes:
A34 The young lawyer had opened his office that very day and sat expectant of clients. A
step was heard outside, and the next moment a man’s figure was silhouetted against the
ground-glass of the door. Hastily the legal fledgling stepped to his brand-new telephone,
and taking down the receiver, gave every appearance of being deep in a business
conversation.
“Yes, Mr. S.,” he was saying, as the man entered, “I’ll attend to that corporation
matter for you. Mr. J. had me on the `phone this morning and wanted me to settle a
damage suit, but I had to put him off, as I’m so busy with cases just now. But I’ll try
to sandwich your matter in between my other cases somehow. Yes, yes. All right.
Good-bye.”
Hanging up the receiver, he turned to his visitor, having, as he thought, duly
impressed him.
“Excuse me, sir,” the man said, “but I’m from the telephone company. I’ve come to
connect up your instrument.”81

Where argument fails, there is always bombast:

A35 Samuel Seigal, the famous professor of law, was lecturing on courtroom procedure.
“When you’re fighting a case,” he said, “if you have the facts on your side, hammer on
the facts. If you have the law on your side, hammer on the law.”
“But if you don’t have the facts or the law,” asked a student, “what do you do?”
“In that case,” the professor said, “then hammer on the table.82

This is the modern dress of a much older story:

A35 An old lawyer was giving advice to his son, who was just entering upon the practice of
his father’s profession. “My son,” said the counselor, “if you have a case where the law
is clearly on your side, but justice seems to be against you, urge upon the jury the vast
importance of sustaining the law. If, on the other hand, you are in doubt about the law,
but your client’s case is founded in justice, insist on the necessity of doing justice,
though the heavens fall.”—“But,” asked the son, “how shall I manage a case where both
law and justice are dead against me?”—“In that case, my son,” replied the lawyer, “talk
round it.”83
  T E C  I R A

Where the old version looks askance at lawyers for treating justice as just another
resource, the modern version omits it entirely.
Although they are impressed, even dazzled, by lawyers’ ability to talk, lay
people harbor suspicions about the substance of that talk.
A36 The lawyer was cross-examining a witness to a robbery. “When did the robbery take
place?” he asked.
“I think—“ began the witness.
“We don’t care what you think, sir. We want to know what you know.”
“Then if you don’t want to know what I think, I may as well leave the stand. I can’t
talk without thinking. I’m not a lawyer.”84

Indeed, the lawyer’s talk may come to the exclusion of thinking:

A37 Client to attorney: “How come the other side has two lawyers, and I only have one?”
Attorney: “It’s not unusual. When one lawyer is talking, the other one is thinking.”
Client: “Well, so who’s doing your thinking?”85

The propensity of the lawyer to miss the central substance while exercising his
cleverness is shown in a recent story, frequently presented as a series of questions
“actually asked of witnesses by attorneys during trials.”
A38 Q: “Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?”
A: “No.”
Q: “Did you check for blood pressure?”
A: “No.”
Q: “So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?”
A: “No.”
Q: “How can you be so sure, Doctor?”
A: “Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.”
Q: “But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?”
A: “It is possible that he could have been alive and practising law somewhere.”86

Although it is possible that some actual incident provided the germ of the story,
it is impossible to say whether the joke has crystallized out of the “true story” or
whether the joke (a nice extension of the theme of lawyers not thinking or using
their brains) inspired a creative recounter to add the “true story” element.87
The lawyer’s talk may make little contribution to the result:
A39 One of the justices of the Supreme Court tells of a young lawyer in the West who
was trying his first case before Justice Harlan. The youthful attorney had evidently conned
his argument until he knew it by heart. Before he had consumed ten minutes in his
oratorical effort the justice had decided the case in his favor and told him so. Despite
this, the young lawyer would not cease. It seemed that he had attained such a
momentum that he could not stop.
Finally Justice Harlan leaned forward and, in the politest of tones, said:
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

“Mr. Smith, despite your arguments, the court has concluded to decide this case in
your favor.”88

The lawyer may have little of substance to contribute, but his negativity is
matched by his immodesty.
A40 A lawyer dies and goes to Heaven, where he is brought before God. “A lawyer, eh?”
Says God (who seems to be a Canadian). “We’ve never had a lawyer in Heaven before.
Argue a point of the law for my edification.”
The lawyer goes into a panic and says, “Oh, God, I cannot think of an argument
worthy of your notice. But I’ll tell you what . . . you argue a point of the law and I’ll
refute it.”89

Lawyers’ talk may be discounted as mere hot air:

A41 The secretary of the Bar Association was very busy and rather cross. The telephone
rang.
“Well, what is it?” he snapped.
“Is this the city gas works?” said a woman’s soft voice.
“No, madam,” roared the secretary, “this is the San Francisco Bar Association.”
“Ah,” she answered in the sweetest of tones, “I didn’t miss it so far, after all, did I?”90

Even where the lawyer’s verbal performance is of high quality, it may contain
little of value to the client. Among the few newer lawyer jokes that originated in
Britain is a story about parliamentary answers that became a lawyer joke in the
late s and has spread throughout the English-speaking world. This elaborated
version is from Australia:
A42 A couple of blokes set off in a balloon. They’re determined they are going to stay up
longer than anyone else in ballooning history. But two days later there’s a huge storm
that wrecks all their radio equipment. And while they’re being buffeted around, their
food falls overboard. Worse still, they don’t know where they are. They might be
anywhere. On the other side of the world. So they decide to lose altitude until they
come in sight of land. Down they go, very slowly, descending through the clouds. And
they sigh with relief because they’re over land. Peering down from the basket they see
cars and think, “Well, they’re driving on the left side of the road. That means we’re
probably in the UK or Australia. And they’re playing tennis. So it must be a civilised
country.”
They come within hailing distance of the tennis court and call out to one of the
players, “Hello, down there!”
The two fellows stop playing tennis and look up. “Yeah, what do you want?”
“Where are we?”
“You got any money?”
“Yes, what do you want with money?”
“Throw it down,” says the man on the ground. So they throw a wallet down and one
of the blokes on the ground picks it up, takes the money out, splits it with the fellow on
  T E C  I R A

the other side of the net and puts the wallet in his pocket. Finally he says, “Now, what
was your question?”
“Where are we?”
“You’re in a balloon.”
At that moment they rise above the clouds and the two partners look at one another
helplessly. “That was useless,” said one.
“No, at least we know where we are.”
“What do you mean we know where we are?”
“Well, we’re over a civilized country. They drive on the left hand side of the road. And
those two fellows are lawyers.”
“How can you tell they’re lawyers?”
“Well, first of all, they wouldn’t do a thing for us until we paid them. And what they
said was absolutely true and totally useless.”91

After a decade as a lawyer joke, this story acquired an elegant coda expressing
lawyer exasperation with the elevated expectations of clients:
A42 A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and
spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: “Excuse me, can you
help me? I promised my friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don’t know
where I am.”
The man below says: “Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately thirty
feet above this field. You are between 40 and 42 degrees N. latitude, and between 58
and 60 degrees W. longitude.”
“You must be a lawyer,” says the balloonist.
“I am” replies the man. “How did you know?”
“Well,” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but I
have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost.”
The man below responds, “You must be a client.”
“I am,” replies the balloonist, “but how did you know?”
“Well,” says the man, “you don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You
have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve
your problem. The fact is you are in the exact same position you were in before we met,
but now it is somehow my fault.”92

It seems a safe bet that this client version of the balloon story originated among
lawyers. The same is true of an even newer version, which uses the joke to expose
the tensions between junior and senior lawyers and appears in chapter .

M  S
Analyzing the “trickster” element in the public image of lawyers, Marvin Mindes
found the public not much inclined to characterize lawyers as manipulative,
tricky, and evasive, ranking these tenth, thirteenth, and fourteenth among eighteen
qualities that he inquired about. Lawyers themselves found even less resonance in
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

these descriptions, ranking them thirteenth, seventeenth, and fourteenth, respec-

tively. But, strikingly, lawyers perceived that the public attributed these qualities
to them, ranking them as eighth, sixth, and seventh, respectively, in their reading
of the public’s view of the profession.93
A number of jokes depict the lawyer as the author of clever stratagems to extri-
cate clients from difficult or desperate situations:
A43 A businessman consulted his attorney about collecting a five-hundred dollar debt
from a former associate.
“Have you a note or anything which proves that he owes you the money?” the
lawyer wanted to know.
“No, I’m sorry to say.”
“Then the only thing for you to do is write him a note asking for the thousand dollars
he owes you.”
“But all he owes me is five hundred dollars.”
The attorney smiled. “Exactly. He will write and tell you so, and then we’ll have the
proof we need to use in court.”94

The lawyer uses his rhetorical skills to help the client evade his just punishment:
A44 A lawyer was defending a man accused of housebreaking, and said to the court:
“Your Honor, I submit that my client did not break into the house at all. He found the
parlor window open and merely inserted his right arm and removed a few trifling articles.
Now, my client’s arm is not himself, and I fail to see how you can punish the whole
individual for an offense committed by only one of his limbs.”
“That argument,” said the judge, “is very well put. Following it logically, I sentence
the defendant’s arm to one year’s imprisonment. He can accompany it or not, as he
chooses.”
The defendant smiled, and with his lawyer’s assistance unscrewed his cork arm, and,
leaving it in the dock, walked out.95

Both the lawyer and judge in this story illustrate the famous witticism of Thomas
Reed Powell: “If you . . . can think about a thing that is inextricably attached to
something else without thinking of the thing which it is attached to, then you
have a legal mind.”96
Of course, the lawyer is not a disinterested problem-solver; he makes sure that
his own interests are advanced, even if it consumes all the benefit to the client.
A45 A man checked in at a prominent hotel in one of our large cities. At the desk, he said
to the clerk, “Would you mind putting this hundred dollar bill in the safe? I’ll pick it up in
the morning. Hate to carry large bills around.”
The clerk took the bill. Next morning when the guest asked for his hundred dollar
bill, the clerk shrugged off the demand. “Hundred dollar bill? You never gave me a
hundred dollar bill. Have you a receipt for it?”
“No,” said the guest, “but I know I gave it to you.”
 T E C  I R A

“Sorry,” said the clerk, “but your memory’s at fault.”

The guest walked down the street until he saw a lawyer’s office. He went in and
consulted the attorney, who said, “Tell you what, we’ll use psychology. Pick up some
friend who knows you; get another hundred dollar bill, and return to the same clerk. In
the presence of your friend, ask the clerk if he’ll put the hundred dollar bill away for you.
Then you and your friend leave. You, alone, return in an hour. Say to the clerk, ‘Let me
have that hundred dollar bill now.’ The clerk, knowing you have a witness, will hand over
the money. Now find your friend, the witness, and go back to the hotel an hour later.
Step up boldly and say, ‘May I have the hundred dollars I gave you this morning while
my friend was here with me?’ You’ll have the clerk trapped.”
The psychology clicked. The guest got all his money back. He returned to the lawyer
and told him how successful the advice was. “And now, what is your fee?”
“A hundred dollars,” said the lawyer.97

. Sharpening the flats. Illustration by Harry Furniss for A’Beckett’s The Comic Blackstone,
.
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

The lawyer taking the whole of the stakes seems to be an American addition to a
British story, told of John Philpott Curran (–), an Irish barrister, parlia-
mentarian, and Master of the Rolls. The British story culminates with the coun-
tryman returning “exultingly to thank his counsel, with both hundreds in his
pocket.”98
A46 In a desperate act, Felix, a bank teller, quietly let himself into the vault and filled his
briefcase with $100 bills, then fled home. He quickly came to his senses and realized the
enormity of his action.
He phoned his attorney and said, “I’ve stolen $50,000 from the bank I work for!
I don’t know what came over me! What should I do?”
“Steal $50,000 more and bring it to me,” the attorney directed calmly.
Felix was astounded, but he did it, and after he brought her the cash, she wrote the
following letter, which served to get the man off:
“Gentlemen: Your teller, Felix Fingers, took $100,000 from your bank. The
hard-pressed family, despite their most valiant efforts, was unable to raise more than
$50,000, which they offer to return if you will not prosecute. . . .”99

In the earliest printed version of this joke, the lawyer explicitly takes half of the
stolen amount as his fee.100 More recent versions leave to our imagination what
happens to the portion not returned.
A new story attributes to the lawyer a preternatural shrewdness or discernment
that enables him to extricate a client from an apparently hopeless plight.
A47 It seems a man got turned in by his neighbour who saw him having sex with a goat.
He was arrested and told to get a lawyer. He had a choice of two. It was a small town.
One lawyer was very expensive. He usually won his case by having costly out-of-town
experts testify. The other was cheap. His forte was jury selection, he could usually get a
juror or two that would be sympathetic to his client. The defendant chose the less
expensive lawyer.
The first day of the trial the witness was told to tell the jury exactly what he saw on
the morning of March 15th. He stated that he happened to look out his kitchen window
about 8 A.M. and he saw farmer Brown drop his pants and have sex with a tan-coloured
goat. And when he finished the goat turned around and licked his penis. At this time a
front-row juror was heard to say to another juror, “You know, a good goat will do
that.”101

The lawyer’s stratagems may not be on behalf of clients, but solely for his own
gain, including the pleasure of besting rival professionals:
A48 NASA was interviewing professionals to be sent to Mars. Only one could go—and
couldn’t return to Earth.
The first applicant, an engineer, was asked how much he wanted to be paid for
going. “A million dollars,” he answered, “because I want to donate it to M.I.T.”
The next applicant, a doctor, was asked the same question. He asked for $2 million.
  T E C  I R A

“I want to give a million to my family,” he explained, “and leave the other million for the
advancement of medical research.”
The last applicant was a lawyer. When asked how much money he wanted, he
whispered in the interviewer’s ear, “Three million dollars.”
“Why so much more than the others?” asked the interviewer.
The lawyer replied, “If you give me $3 million, I’ll give you $1 million, I’ll keep
$1 million, and we’ll send the engineer to Mars.”102

Usually the three competitors in this truly international story are rival contrac-
tors and are contrasted by ethnicity or provenance rather than occupation.103 The
cunning scheme remains the same, but the lawyer version is distinctive in that his
rivals are not business competitors but unselfish souls imbued with benevolence
for others—in contrast to the self-serving chicanery of the lawyer.
But sometimes the rivalry among professions can involve outdoing the other
in guile.
A49 Seems there were three lawyers and three MBAs traveling by train to a conference.
At the station, the three MBAs each buy tickets and watch as the three lawyers buy only
a single ticket. “How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?” asks an MBA.
“Watch and you’ll see” answers a lawyer.
They all board the train. The MBAs take their respective seats but all three lawyers
cram into a restroom and close the door behind them. Shortly after the train has
departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the restroom
door and says, “Ticket, please.” The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges
with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on.
The MBAs see this and agree it was quite a clever idea. So after the conference, the
MBAs decide to copy the lawyers on the return trip and save some money (being clever
with money and all that). When they get to the station, they buy a single ticket for the
return trip. To their astonishment, the lawyers don’t buy a ticket at all. “How are you
going to travel without a ticket?” asks one perplexed MBA. “This time we can’t tell you,”
says one of the lawyers, “it’s a professional secret.”
When they all board the train the three MBAs cram into a restroom and the three
lawyers cram into another one nearby. The train departs. Shortly afterward, one of the
lawyers leaves his restroom and walks over to the restroom where the MBAs are hiding.
He knocks on the door and says, “Ticket please.”104

In later versions, it is the lawyers who are conned by engineers or by paralegals.105

Although the jokes portray the lawyer as comfortably at home in the world of
cunning and deceit, he is as often the vanquished as the victor in these games.
The lawyer is clever and resourceful; he has the wit to see opportunities and
the audacity to grasp them. The lawyer draws on a fund of gamesmanship, but the
jokes don’t attribute great brilliance or sagacity to the lawyer. Lawyers are not
credited with (Sherlock) Holmesian deduction or rabbinic wisdom. Although
many jokes have been switched from Jews (and rabbis) to lawyers, it is noteworthy
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

that the many stories of prodigious “talmudic” reasoning have not been associated
with lawyers.

T L O

The lawyer’s schemes and ruses are not always successful. Stories about clever
strategems are outnumbered by stories that show the lawyer undone by witnesses,
shrewd jurors, guileful clients, assorted rustics, and even by blondes.
The badgering lawyer defeated by the rustic or blue-collar witness is a very old
theme:
A50 A humorous fellow, a carpenter, being subpoena’d as a witness on a trial for an
assault, one of the counsel, who was very much given to browbeat the evidence,
asked him what distance he was from the parties when he saw the defendant strike the
plaintiff.
The carpenter answered, “Just four feet five inches and a half.”
“Prithee, fellow,” said the counsel, “how is it possible you can be so very exact as to
the distance?”
“Why, to tell you the truth,” says the carpenter, “I thought perhaps that some fool or
other might ask me, and so I measured it.”106

In the following story, the witness in an Indian court is a Sikh, a group often
assigned the “yokel” role in Indian humor.
A51 Joginder Singh was testifying in the witness box and the defence counsel was
attacking him viciously to make him change his statement.
“You mean to say you timed it exactly at five minutes?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure it was five minutes only?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we’ll check out your wonderful sense of time. I’m going to test you. Don’t look
at your watch and tell me when five minutes are up, starting—now!”
After exactly five minutes Joginder Singh called out, “Five minutes!”
The defence lost the case and later the lawyer asked Joginder Singh, “How did you
do it?”
“I am seeing the clock on the wall in backside of you!”107

Sometimes the witness’s assault is more than verbal.

A52 After being badgered and tongue-lashed by the plaintiff’s lawyer for a good fifty
minutes, the man on the witness stand, who was defending himself against charges of
assault and battery, still insisted that he did no more than push the plaintiff.
“I want to know just how hard you pushed him,” demanded the lawyer. “Will you
please step down and demonstrate on me the sort of push you gave my client?”
The defendant jumped down with alacrity. He headed straight for his tormentor,
jarred him with a stiff left hook, lifted him a foot off the ground with a terrific uppercut,
  T E C  I R A

grabbed him before he could fall, and tossed him halfway across the room. He then
turned to the judge and explained, “I pushed the plaintiff just about one-tenth as hard as
that, Your Honor.”108

Or the lawyer may be undone by his misreading of the jury:

A53 The defendant’s lawyer, determined at all cost to save his client from the electric
chair, surreptitiously approached one of the jurors.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” said the lawyer, “if you’ll see to it that the jury brings
in a verdict of manslaughter in the second degree.”
The trial proceeded, and the jury retired. After seven hours they brought in the
verdict, “manslaughter in the second degree,” and the defendant was given a long
prison term.
The lawyer, going to pay off the juror, thanked him warmly.
“It was pretty hard,” admitted the juror. “At first they were all for acquittal, but I
managed to talk them out of it.”109

A54 A noted criminal defense lawyer was making the closing argument for his client
accused of murder, although the body of the victim has never been found. The lawyer
dramatically turned to the courtroom’s clock and, pointing to it, announced, “Ladies and
gentlemen of the jury, I have some astounding news. I have found the supposed victim
of this murder to be alive! In just ten seconds, she will walk throught the door of this
courtroom.”
A heavy quiet suddenly fell over the courtroom as everyone waited for the dramatic
entry.
But nothing happened.
The smirking lawyer continued, “The mere fact that you were watching the door,
expecting the victim to walk into this courtroom, is clear proof that you have far more
than even a reasonable doubt as to whether a murder was actually committed.” Tickled
with the impact of his cleverness, the cocky lawyer confidently sat down to await
acquittal.
The jury was instructed, filed out, and filed back in just ten minutes with a guilty
verdict.
When the judge brought the proceedings to the end, the dismayed lawyer chased
after the jury foreman: “Guilty? How could you convict? You were all watching the
door!”
“Well,” the foreman explained. “Most of us were watching the door. But one of us
was watching the defendant, and he wasn’t watching the door.”110

The lawyer who regards himself as a master of strategy may find himself out-
foxed by deceptively simple types:
A55 A big-city lawyer was representing the railroad in a lawsuit filed by an old rancher.
The rancher’s prize bull was missing from the section of his ranch where the railroad
passed through. The rancher wanted to be paid the fair value of the bull. Before the case
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

began, the attorney for the railroad cornered the rancher and tried to get him to settle
out of court. The lawyer did his best selling job, and finally the rancher agreed to take
half of what he was asking. After the rancher had signed the release form and taken the
check, the young lawyer couldn’t help but gloat a little over his success.
“You know,” he said to the rancher, “I hate to tell you this, but I really put one over
on you. There’s no way I could’ve won the case. The train’s engineer was asleep at the
switch and the fireman was back in the caboose when the train went through your ranch
that day. I didn’t have a single witness to put on the stand. I bluffed you!”
“Well,” replied the old rancher, “to tell you the truth, young feller, I was a little wor-
ried about winning that case myself. That darned bull came home this morning.”111

Sometimes even the lawyer’s own clients may outdo him in guileful strategem.
A56 A defendant in a lawsuit involving a large sum of money was talking to his lawyer.
“If I lose the case, I’ll be ruined,” he said.
“It’s in the judge’s hands now,” said the lawyer.
“Would it help if I sent the judge a box of cigars?”
“Oh, no,” said the lawyer. “This judge is a stickler for ethical behavior. A stunt like
that would prejudice him against you. He might even hold you in contempt of court. In
fact, you shouldn’t even smile at the judge.”
Within the course of time, the judge rendered a decision in favor of the defendant.
As the defendant left the courthouse with his lawyer he said, “Thanks for the tip
about the cigars. It worked.”
“I’m sure we would have lost the case if you had sent them.”
“But I did send them.”
“You did?”
“Yes. That is how we won the case.”
“I don’t understand,” said the lawyer.
“It’s easy. I sent the cigars to the judge, but enclosed my opponent’s business card.”112

This story parallels an anecdote told about Sir Matthew Hale (–), a
practitioner and judge who rose to be chief justice of the King’s Bench:
A disposition to side with the poor against the rich and powerful was his fault and
it once completely entrapped him. A courtier, having a cause to be tried, procured a
person to go to the chief justice, as from the king, and speak in favor of his adversary.
He gained his point, “for Sir Matthew could never think very well of any one that
came so unduly recommended.”113
The client may deal with the lawyer strategically from the outset as depicted
in this widely published joke in which the canny client is often a Jew or Scot:
A57 A shrewd and thrifty farmer got into a boundary dispute with his neighbor. The battle
waxed from warm to hot and the farmer sought legal aid.
After stipulating that there was to be no fee unless there were grounds for legal
action, he gave the lawyer a detailed and elaborate account of the trouble.
  T E C  I R A

“Fine!” the lawyer said. “The case is air-tight. The other fellow hasn’t got a leg to
stand on. My advice is ten dollars, and for a forty dollar retainer I’ll start a suit at once.”
“No,” said the farmer. “No, I guess you better not. I gave you the other fellow’s
side.”114

In devising a strategy to frustrate his client’s antagonist, the lawyer runs the risk
that the newly educated client will turn it on the lawyer to evade his fee. The lawyer
hoist on his own petard theme is the longest-running lawyer joke. For over five
hundred years it has taken various forms, many descended from an anonymous
fifteenth-century French play, The Farce of the Worthy Master, Pierre Pathelin, the
Lawyer.115 In the spate of jokebooks that accompanied the Italian Renaissance:
A58 A doctor [of Law] said to a peasant, “If you are willing to pay me one ducat, I will teach
you how to litigate so that you will always win.” He promised he would pay him one
ducat and the doctor said to him, “Always deny, and you will win.” Then he asked him
for the ducat, and the peasant immediately denied having promised it to him.116

In one line of descent from Pathelin, the lawyer coaches his client to recite a
nonsensical response to all questions, defeating the claims of his adversary by
what might be called an idiocy defense, as in this seventeenth-century English
rendition:
A58 There was an unthrift in London, that had received of a Merchant certain Wares, which
came to fifty pounds, to pay at three moneths; and at three moneths. But when he had it
he consumed and spent it all: so that at the six moneths end there was not any left to
pay the Merchant: Wherefore the Merchant arrested him. When he saw there was no
other remedy, but either to pay the debt, or go to prison, he sent to a subtill Lawyer, and
asked his Counsell how he might clear himself of that debt. What wilt thou give me,
(quoth he) if I do? Five marks (quoth the other) and here it is: and as soon as you have
done, you shall have it. Well, said the Lawyer, but thou must be ruled by my counsell,
and do thus: When thou commest before the Judge, whatsoever he saith unto thee,
answer thou nothing, but cry Bea still, and let me alone with the rest. So when he came
before the Judge, he said to the Debter, Dost thou owe this Merchant so much money?
Bea (quoth he). What, beast? (quoth he) The answer to that I aske thee. Bea (quoth he
again.) Why how now? quoth the Judge, I think this fellow hath gotten a sheeps tongue
in his head: for he answereth in the sheeps language. Why, Sir, quoth the Lawyer, do you
think this Merchant that is so wise a man, would be so foolish, as to trust this Ideot with
fifty pounds worth of ware, that can speak never a word? No, Sir, I warrant you—And he
persuaded the Judge to cast the Merchant in his own suit. And so the Judge departed,
and the Court brake up. Then the Lawyer came to his Client, and asked him his Money,
since his promise was performed, and his debt discharged. Bea (quoth he.) Why, thou
needs’t not cry Bea any longer, but pay me my money. Bea, (quoth he again). Why thou
wilt not serve me so, I hope, (quoth the Lawyer) now I have used thee so kindly? But
nothing but Bea could Master Lawyer get for his paines, and so was faine to depart with
a flea in his ear.117
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

In another line of stories, the lawyer’s formula is not the client’s incompetence but
a procedural or evidentiary demand. One variant deals with the relationship
between the established older lawyer and his entourage, including rivalry with
ambitious young lawyers.
A58 About seventy years ago there was a lawyer, here in the United States, who had
won great successes as a trial lawyer. His ability in court was the talk of his profession,
and many a young lawyer would have given a good deal to know how the older man
won such honors. There was one young attorney in particular who was envious of the
older man.
It chanced that the two men found themselves together one day, in a stagecoach
bound for a city in which a circuit judge was to sit. Both lawyers were bound to the
sessions of court. The younger man lost no time in striking up an acquaintance with his
older and more famous colleague, and in the course of their conversation said to him:
“Mr. Jones, you are a prominent and successful attorney, while I am but a beginner in
the law. Will you not tell me the secret of your great success before judge and jury.”
“Young man,” said Jones, “my success has been won at the cost of long, hard work.
However, I am willing to tell you my secret on one condition.”
Without waiting to hear what that condition might be, the younger man agreed, and
Jones said:
“I will tell you my secret, and you will pay all my expenses during the three days we
shall be together during the sitting of the court. Agreed? Yes; well, my secret is this, I
deny everything and demand proof.”
They stayed three days attending court, and the older man occupied the best room
in the inn, ate the best food and plenty of it, drank the finest liquors and smoked the
most expensive cigars—all of which went on the bill.
The court sessions were over, and the two lawyers stood in the hotel office while the
innkeeper made out their bills. There was a great big one for the older lawyer, and a little
one for the younger man. The former took his bill and, without even looking at it,
handed it to the other man.
“What’s this?” said the young lawyer.
“My bill, which you agreed to pay.”
“Why,” the young man came back at him, “I deny everything and demand proof.”
“Young man,” said the older lawyer, “you don’t need any lessons from me.”118

Most modern renditions follow the original Renaissance script of the client
turning the lawyer’s trick against him. Most frequently the client demands the
lawyer “get some witnesses” but some retain the original “sheep’s tongue” response:
A58 A sheep-herder was accused of having robbed a store. He was caught with the
goods so his lawyer said, “Our defense will have to be insanity. I will contend that the
loneliness out there for weeks at a time with the sheep caused you to lose your mind.
When I put you on the stand and ask you questions, you answer each one by saying
‘Ba-a-a.’”
  T E C  I R A

The defendant agreed. His lawyer asked, “What is your name?” and the prisoner
replied, “Ba-a-a.” “What is your age?” Again, “Ba-a-a.” The jury was convinced and freed
the accused.
Out in the courthouse corridor, the attorney said to his client, “And now how about
paying me my fee/” The other said, “Ba-a-a.”119

No matter how formidable on his home ground in the courtroom, the lawyer
may find it difficult to translate his ascendency into everyday settings:
A59 A lawyer and a blonde are sitting next to each other on a long flight from L.A. to N.Y.
The lawyer leans over to her and asks if she would like to play a fun game. The blonde
just wants to take a nap, so she politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a
few winks. The lawyer persists and explains that the game is really easy and a lot of fun.
He explains, “I ask you a question, and if you don’t know the answer, you pay me $5,
and vice-versa.”
Again, she politely declines and tries to get some sleep. The lawyer, now somewhat
agitated, says, “Okay, if you don’t know the answer you pay me $5, and if I don’t know
the answer, I will pay you $500!”
Figuring that since she is a blonde that he will easily win the match [sic]. This catches
the blonde’s attention and, figuring that there will be no end to this torment unless she
plays, [she] agrees to the game. The lawyer asks the first question. “What’s the distance
from the earth to the moon?” The blonde doesn’t say a word, reaches in to her purse,
pulls out a five dollar bill and hands it to the lawyer.
Now, it’s the blonde’s turn. She asks the lawyer: “What goes up a hill with three legs,
and comes down with four?” The lawyer looks at her with a puzzled look. He takes out
his laptop computer and searches all his references. He taps into the Airplane with his
modem and searches the Net and the Library of Congress.
Frustrated, he sends Emails to all his coworkers and friends he knows. All to no avail.
After over an hour, he wakes the blonde and hands her $500. The blonde politely takes
the $500 and turns away to get back to sleep.
The lawyer, who is more than a little miffed, wakes the blonde and asks, “Well, so
what IS the answer!?” Without a word, the blonde reaches into her purse, hands the
lawyer $5, and goes back to sleep.120

A60 Johnny Cochran was duck hunting in Montana recently, when he attempted to cross a
fence into a field to retrieve a duck he had shot. A farmer suddenly pulled up in his
pick-up truck, jumped out, and asked Mr. Cochran what he was doing on his property.
“Retrieving this duck I just shot,” he replied. “That duck is on my side of the fence, so
now it’s mine,” replied the farmer. Mr. Cochran asked the farmer if he recognized who
he was talking to. “No,” replied the farmer, “I don’t know, and I don’t care.” “I am
Johnny Cochran, famous lawyer from Los Angeles,” came the reply. “I am the lawyer that
got O. J. Simpson off. I’m the reason he is a free man today. And if you don’t get me that
duck, I can sue you for your farm, your truck, and everything else you own. I’ll leave you
penniless on the street.” “Well,” said the farmer, “in Montana the only law we go by is
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

the three kicks law.” “Never heard of it,” said Johnny. The farmer said, “I get to kick
you three times, and if you make it back to your feet and are able to kick me back
three times, that duck is yours.” Cochran thought this over. He grew up in a tough
neighborhood and figured he could take the old farmer. “Fair enough,” he said. So the
farmer kicked Johnny violently in the groin. As he was doubling over, the farmer kicked
him in the face, and when he hit the ground, he kicked him hard in the ribs. After several
moments, Johnny slowly made it back to his feet. “Alright, now it’s my turn,” said
Johnny. “Aw, forget it,” said the farmer. “You can have the duck.”121

Finally, the lawyer who attempts to push his skills of discursive manipulation
beyond conceptual boundaries risks being the victim of his own overreaching.
A61 A Charlotte N.C. lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars then
insured them against fire among other things. Within a month, having smoked his entire
stock-pile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium
payment on the policy, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company. In his
claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost “in a series of small fires.” The insurance
company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason: that the man had consumed the
cigars in the normal fashion.
The lawyer sued . . . and won! In delivering the ruling the judge agreed with the
insurance company that the claim was frivolous[;] however[,] the judge stated that the
lawyer held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were
insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining
what is considered to be “unacceptable fire,” and was obligated to pay the claim. Rather
than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the
ruling and paid $15,000.00 to the lawyer for his loss of the rare cigars lost in the “fires.”
NOW FOR THE BEST PART . . .
After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on
twenty-four counts of ARSON!!!! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the
previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning
his insured property and sentenced him to twenty-four months in jail and a $24,000.00
fine.122

T   A           L     T   
Discourse jokes are solidly indigenous. They arise from and refer to the legal set-
ting; only a handful have been switched to lawyers. They are also the oldest of
our joke clusters. At least two-thirds of jokes discussed here were in circulation
before ; a sizable contingent were current before . With the coming of
the great explosion of lawyer jokes after , some new material has accrued to
the Discourse cluster, but the themes were well established long ago. The bitterness
and hostility that have entered into the lawyer joke corpus are largely located else-
where, at least so far as we can find them in the texts. (Of course even these Dis-
course stories can be told with a hostile edge or may appear to have such an edge
when juxtaposed with other types that arrived later.)
 T E C  I R A

Looking back at this selection of jokes about the lawyer’s discursive powers, we
find a firm sense that lawyers are detached from ordinary canons of truth. Beyond
that we find something of an “on the one hand / on the other hand” quality.
Lawyers are fluent and resourceful, do amazing things with language, and are
eager to put their art at the service of clients. While doing so they are looking out
for themselves. They are so enclosed in a world of talk that they miss substance
for form and often descend into senseless bombast; they overreach and clients and
others turn the tables on them—outsmarting them and exposing their empty blus-
ter. Although the tone overall is critical and mocking, there is an admixture of ap-
preciation for their fluency, resourcefulness, cleverness, and attentiveness to clients.
The contemporary discussion of lawyers’ sins and shortcomings adds a new
dimension. The dominant role of lawyers in American public life has long been
noted. Alexis de Tocqueville found they resembled “the hierophants of Egypt” as
exclusive interpreters of an occult science.123 One hundred thirty years later, histo-
rian Jerold Auerbach observed, “Law is our national religion: lawyers constitute our
priesthood,” a condition he blamed on America’s “consuming individualism, un-
relenting contentiousness, and discordant heterogeneity.”124 In The High Priests of
American Politics, Mark Miller finds that American political institutions “have
adopted lawyers’ ways, lawyers’ language, as well as lawyers’ approaches to problem
solving.”125 They emphasize procedure and process, rules and precedents; they take
a rights-focused, case-by-case incremental approach to substantive social problems.

. Cartoon by Mort Gerberg (© The New Yorker Collection , from cartoonbank.com.
All rights reserved.)
 Lies and Stratagems: The Corruption of Discourse 

So not only are lawyers guilty of various discursive sins, but the cumulative
effect of their increasing presence undermines and drives out other forms of
thought. Legal talk becomes the dominant discourse. Vice President Al Gore
defended himself against charges of improper fundraising by insisting “counsel
tells me there is no controlling legal authority that says that is any violation of any
law.”126 The domination of legal discourse is noted resentfully by a movie critic:
“What American has not uttered a curse in his heart against lawyers. We have
created them in numbers beyond reason; and allowed them into every corner of
our lives. Like priests in the Middle Ages, they hover over the essential rites of our
civilization, talking, talking, talking. . . . They have altered intellectual life and
public discourse. . . . At times, legal reasoning begins to supplant reason itself, and
the triumphs and defeats of lawyers replace justice.”127 The sentiment is ratified
by an editorial writer who observes, “The strange election of  . . . certified
the ascendency of lawyers in the moral and political life of the United States. . . .
Everywhere people are learning to speak the language of lawyers for the purpose
of understanding their own predicament.”128 These resentments of lawyers’ wider
effect on public life do not show up as Discourse jokes but as other kinds of attacks
on lawyers. The complaints we shall examine are not just about discrete misdeeds
of lawyers but about the role they play in contemporary society. The recurrence
of the analogy between contemporary law and lawyers and medieval religion and
priests suggests, however faintly, that the resentment of lawyers may reflect the
ebbing of other sources of coherence and meaning in modern society.
  

The Lawyer as
Economic Predator

O      L      W  
Public imagination has long envisioned the basic figure of two litigants con-
tending over a valuable object while the process of law consumes their resources
and impoverishes both. In Poor Richard’s Almanac for , Benjamin Franklin
counsels:
B1 Honest Men often go to Law for their Right; when Wise Men would sit down with the
Wrong, supposing the first Loss least. In some Countries the Course of the Courts is so
tedious, and the Expence so high, that the Remedy, Justice, is worse than, Injustice, the
Disease. In my Travels I once saw a Sign call’d The Two Men at Law; One of them was
painted on one Side, in a melancholy Posture, all in Rags, with this Scroll, I have lost my
Cause. The other was drawn capering for Joy, on the other Side, with these Words, I have
gain’d my Suit; but he was stark naked.1

The beggar in the following story bases his strategy on the same insight:
B1 A beggar posted himself at the door of the Chancery Court, and kept saying: “A penny
please, sir! Only one penny, sir, before you go in!” “And why, my man?” inquired an old
country gentleman. “Because, sir, the chances are, you will not have one when you come
out,” was the beggar’s reply.2

Both Franklin and the beggar know the sad truth that the remedies and pro-
tections of the law are not free. Indeed, they are often so costly that they are
worthless. They are costly because, among other things, the same law that prom-
ises a remedy to the aggrieved guarantees to the other party a full complement of
protections in the form of procedural niceties. Like ships taking on pilots to nav-
igate treacherous coastal waterways, claimants and defendants take aboard lawyers
to guide them through the intricacies of the law. The suit becomes a contest


 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

between these competing champions, each equipped with the capacity to foil and
frustrate the other. Summoning witnesses, investigating and proving contested
facts, obtaining copies of records must all be paid for. But the greatest expense is
the fees of the lawyers themselves. The Civil Litigation Research Project found
that in ordinary civil litigation some  percent of individuals’ out-of-pocket
expenses were payments to lawyers to cover fees and expenses.3
Lawyers are thus the “gatekeepers” of the legal system. Inability to afford one
effectively rules out resort to the law in many matters. But having a lawyer is no
guarantee of success. The value of the matter in dispute may be outweighed by the
lawyer’s fees and other expenses. Often this is not apparent until there has been a
heavy investment. Once these sunk costs are paid, there is an incentive for parties
to invest even more in the hope of recouping something. There is also an incentive
for lawyers paid fixed fees (by the hour or the engagement) to encourage further
investment in chancy causes.4 Encouraged by his lawyer, the claimant may find
himself consumed by his cause:
B1 “I guess you heard about Ezry losin’ his farm?” said the man who was showing him
around.
“No I hadn’t,” said the visitor. “How did it happen?”
“Wal,” said the local man, “Ezry got the idea that his neighbor’s fence was
encroachin’ on his land, and he got to broodin’ on it. Finally, he went to see a lawyer
who thought so, too.”5

The apparent winner may himself be a victim (of the lawyer):

B1 “I sent you an account of $25 for collection,” said a man coming into the office of a
Dakota lawyer.
“Yes, you did.”
“What success have you had?”
“Sued him last week and got it.”
“That’s good. Give me the money and tell me the amount of your fees and I will pay
you.”
“My fees are $50. I have given you credit for the $25 collected—pay me another
$25 and we’ll be square.”
“What!” gasped the man, “I don’t see where I made anything by collecting the
debt.”
“Nothing, my dear sir, from a money point of view, but you have the satisfaction of
knowing that a dishonest man has been brought to justice! You can use your own
pleasure about paying that $25 now; I took the precaution to commence suit against
you for the amount this morning.”6

B3 Said a lady to her friend, “When we got our divorce, we divided everything we had
equally between us. Two children stayed with me, two went to my ex-husband.”
“What happened to the property?” asked a friend.
“That was shared equally between his lawyer and mine.”7
  T E C  I R A

Both stories, one from the U.S. frontier, and the other from present-day India, con-
verge on the theme that the lawyers are the chief or sole beneficiaries of litigation.
B3 Two travellers . . . quarreling about the possession of an oyster, submit their difference to
a lawyer. Having heard the matter in dispute, the lawyer whipp’d out his knife, opened
the oyster, swallow’d the fish, gave the plaintiff and defendant each a shell and gravely
went his way.8

The visual equivalent of this very old story is a famous nineteenth-century

print entitled “The Lawsuit,” which depicts plaintiff and defendant straining to
pull a cow in opposite directions while a fat lawyer seated on a milking stool is
milking the cow into his bucket.9 Client response to the tendency of lawyers to
end up with everything in their pockets ranges from resignation to resistance, as
shown in the next two stories.
B5 The sick man had called his lawyer. “I wish to explain again to you,” said he weakly,
“about willing my property.”
The lawyer held up his hand reassuringly.
“There, there,” said he, “leave that all to me.”
The sick man sighed resignedly. “I suppose I might as well,” said he, turning upon his
pillow. “You’ll get it anyway.”10

B6 “I’ll have you understand,” declared the wealthy young man, “that all the money I’ve
got I got through hard work.” “Aw, go on!” said his friend scornfully. “I happen to know
that it was all left to you by your rich uncle.” “Sure it was,” agreed the other. “But don’t
you ever think it wasn’t tough work getting it away from the lawyers.”11

All these counsels of prudence—that law impoverishes, that it is better to lump it

than to pursue a grievance, that it is better to settle a case than fight to the end,
that law impoverishes litigants, that only lawyers come out ahead, and so forth—
are very much alive today. Of course, they are invoked selectively and balanced by
folk wisdom about the necessity of standing up for your rights and by tales of
claimants who win outrageous undeserved sums.
T     I A 
Many suspect that material gain is the principal motivation of lawyers. Lawyers
are proverbially unwilling to move without the stimulation of a fee:
B7 It is said, that in former days, an eminent counsellor was called on for his professional
advice, by a countryman, who entered on the consultation thus: “Mr. A., my father died
and made his will.” The lawyer professed himself utterly unable to understand him; the
countryman in vain endeavoured to make himself understood; and took his departure,
surprised at the dullness of one reputed to be singularly acute. Meeting with a friend, he
expressed to him his disappointment: his friend, more knowing, at once inquired
whether he had given a retaining fee to the lawyer? “No,” was the reply; “I left that for
another opportunity.” His friend advised him to return, and by no means to postpone
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

that preliminary step. He did so; placed a shining guinea in the learned gentleman’s
hand, and began once more, “My father died, and made his will.” The lawyer stopped
him, saying, “Oh! I understand you now; you mean, your father made his will, and
then died.” From that time forward, the client found no cause to complain that his
counsel was either dull of apprehension or negligent of his interests. Hints should not
be thrown away.12

There are many stories about the unwillingness of lawyers to proceed without
a fee.13 And, once payment has ended, so do his attentions:
B7 A blustering attorney was trying to keep his client from the gallows and wept before the
jury, and after a windy argument won his case. When the jury came in with a verdict of
“not guilty” the client was surrounded by a weeping wife and relatives, who were all
making quite a stir in the court room, when the Judge, as well as the defendant’s
attorney, walked into the side room to get away from the commotion. The Judge turned
to the lawyer and said, “Why don’t you continue weeping with the rest of your crowd?”
The attorney, realizing the pointed remark, turned to the Judge and said, “No, my pay
is stopped.”14

Not the client’s need, but his ability to pay determines the level of service the
lawyer will render:
B8 A man accused of stealing two thousand dollars went to a lawyer to retain him for
his defense. The lawyer said:
“Now that you are here, you had better make a clean breast of it to me. Did you take
the two thousand dollars?”
“I did,” said the client.
“How much of it is left?”
“I’ve got only ten dollars of it left.”
The lawyer rose and buttoned his coat. “In that case,” he said, “you had better plead
guilty and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.”
“I suppose I’ll have to,” said the man. “How much for that advice?”
“Ten dollars,” said the lawyer.15

Other times, as in real life, ability to pay determines whether the lawyer will ren-
der any services at all:
B9 A prisoner charged with embezzlement appeared in court without counsel.
“How does it happen you have no lawyer?” asked the judge.
“Well, I did engage an attorney,” explained the prisoner, “but as soon as he found
out that I had not stolen the $10,000, he would have nothing to do with my case.”16

A similar idea occurs in the form of a cynical portrayal of the

B10 lawyers creed: a man is innocent until proven broke.17

The lawyer’s exactions may be seen as part of a system of pay-offs.

  T E C  I R A

B11 Judge: “Have you anything to offer to the court before sentence is passed on you?”
Prisoner: “No, judge. I had ten dollars, but my lawyers took that.”18

Lawyers are eager to extract everything the client has. Successful extraction is
not automatic, but takes effort and strategy on the lawyer’s part. A long line of
jokes detail how lawyers manage to do this while maintaining their professional
dignity and their pose of devotion to the client’s interest and indifference to their
own:
B12 An attorney, on being called to account for having acted unprofessionally in taking less
than the usual fees from his client, pleaded that he had taken all the man had. He was
thereupon honourably acquitted.19

Like several other jokes, this was often told as a story about the distinguished
lawyer Rufus Choate (–). In a memoir by the junior lawyer who handled
the case in question, Choate, “with a rich smile mantling over the lower part of
his face,” ends the exchange: “You took all he had, did you? Well, I’ve nothing to
say to that—that’s strictly professional.”20 The story flourished in both the U.S.

. Cartoon by Leo Cullum (© The New Yorker Collection , from cartoonbank.com.
All rights reserved.)
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

and in Britain, where it was told of several barristers.21 This story has expired, not
having broken into print since .22 The lack of current appeal (in the U.S. at
least) may reflect the demise of prescribed minimum fees after the United States
Supreme Court declared in  that bar associations’ minimum fee schedules
violated antitrust laws.23
A long and vigorous joke tradition holds that the charges of lawyers and doc-
tors (and the services to be rendered) are calculated with an eye to the customer’s
purse rather than his problem.24 Thus the lawyer, with the connivance of an
understanding judge, contrives to extract the maximum in this story, published
by Ambrose Bierce in , about a probate proceeding:
B13 “Your Honor,” said an Attorney, rising, “what is the present status of this case as far
as it has gone?”
“I have given a judgment for the residuary legatee under the will,” said the Court,
“put the costs upon the contestants, decided all questions relating to fees and other
charges; and, in short, the estate in litigation has been settled, with all controversies,
disputes, misunderstandings and differences of opinion thereunto appertaining.”
“Ah, yes, I see,” said the Attorney, thoughtfully, “we are making progress we are
getting on famously.”
“Progress?” echoed the Judge “progress? Why, sir, the matter is concluded!”
“Exactly, exactly; it had to be concluded in order to give relevancy to the motion that
I am about to make. Your Honor, I move that the judgment of the Court be set aside and
the case reopened.”
“Upon what ground, sir?” the Judge asked in surprise.
“Upon the ground,” said the Attorney, “that after paying all fees and expenses of
litigation and all charges against the estate there will still be something left.”
“There may have been an error,” said his Honor, thoughtfully. “The Court may have
underestimated the value of the estate. The motion is taken under advisement.”25

A shorter criminal law version circulates more widely.

B14 “Why do you want a new trial?”
“On the grounds of newly discovered evidence, your Honor.”
“What’s the nature of it?”
“My client dug up $400 that I didn’t know he had.”26

It is not clear whether this is a modification of Bierce or whether Bierce was

inspired by this story or some ancestor.
B15 A businessman was involved in a costly lawsuit which carried the threat of
imprisonment. “I know the evidence is strongly against my innocence,” he told his
attorney, “but I have $50,000 in cash to fight the case.”
“As your lawyer I can assure you,” said the attorney, “you’ll never have to go to
prison with that amount of money.”
And he didn’t. He went there broke.27
  T E C  I R A

However dire the client’s fate, these stories emphasize that the lawyer is always
eager to maximize his return. For example,
B16 A Western lawyer entered a condemned client’s cell. “Well,” he said, cheerfully,
“good news at last.”
“A reprieve?” exclaimed the prisoner eagerly.
“No, but your uncle has died, leaving you $5,000, and you can now go to your fate
with the satisfying feeling that the noble efforts of your attorney in your behalf will not
go unrewarded.”28

The lawyer’s propensity to expand the services provided in order to empty the
pocket of the client is codified in a light bulb joke, whose punch line also raises
the question of the rationing of justice.
B17 Q. How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
A. How many can you afford?29

Another response harks back to the theme of the lawyer consuming the stakes.
B18 It only takes one lawyer to change your lightbulb to his lightbulb.30

A P         P       
One of the enduring sources of resentment of lawyers is that, like doctors,
undertakers, and auto repair shops, they flourish on the troubles of others. And,
they are experts to whom we defer to define those troubles and prescribe a rem-
edy. The combination of diagnosis and prescription affords great opportunity for
overreaching.
B19 An opulent farmer applied to an attorney about a lawsuit, but was told he could not
undertake it, being already engaged on the other side; at the same time he gave him a
letter of recommendation to a professional friend. The farmer, out of curiosity, opened it,
and read as follows:
“Here are two fat wethers fallen out together,
If you’ll fleece one, I’ll fleece the other,
And make ‘em agree like brother and brother.”
The perusal of this epistle cured both parties, and terminated the dispute.31

Folklorists Herbert Halpert and Gerald Thomas assembled forty versions of this
tale (including both rhyming and all-prose versions) dating from . Half came
from Ireland and Wales; the others from North America, Scotland, England,
France, and Finland.32
Typically a single lawyer is capable of doing the shearing unassisted:
B20 An eminent Scottish divine met two of his own parishioners at a house of a lawyer,
whom he considered too sharp a practitioner. The lawyer ungraciously put the question,
“Doctor, these are members of your flock; may I ask, do you look upon them as white
sheep or as black sheep?” “I don’t know,” answered the divine drily, “whether they are
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

black or white sheep; but I know, if they are long here, they are pretty sure to be
fleeced.”33

B21 “How are you getting along in the law business, old man?”
“I have one client.”
“Is he rich?”
“He was.”34

The prospering on the troubles of others theme is pointedly present in one of

the few jokes about the practice of divorce law:
B22 A young lawyer’s wife was fretting over the bareness of their home.
“We need furniture, drapes, carpets everything,” she wailed. “Cheer up, my dear,”
comforted her husband. “I have an excellent divorce case pending. I represent the wife,
and the husband has plenty of money. As soon as I finish breaking up their home, we can
fix ours up.”35

The following lawyer as extractor joke has been in favor for well over a cen-
tury. Two distinct versions have continued quite unchanged since the late nine-
teenth century and two new ones have been added more recently:36
B23 A lawyer had his portrait taken in his favorite attitude standing with his hands [sic] in his
pocket. An old farmer remarked that the portrait would have been more like the lawyer if
it had represented him with his hand in another man’s pocket, instead of his own.37

Although this portrait version is the oldest, it seems to be fading away and has
been published in the United States only once since the s. It has been over-
taken by the following two speakers version:
B23 George Ade had finished his speech at a recent dinner party, and on seating himself a
well known lawyer rose, shoved his hands deep into his trousers’ pockets, as was his
habit, and laughingly inquired of those present:
“Doesn’t it strike the company as a little unusual that a professional humorist should
be funny?”
When the laugh had subsided, Ade drawled out:
“Doesn’t it strike the company as a little unusual that a lawyer should have his hands
in his own pockets?”38

The first “professional humorist” to deliver this punch line was Mark Twain, but
it is most frequently attributed to the no-longer-celebrated George Ade (–
).39 Yiddish humorist Sholem Aleichem appears in a Jewish-American version.
These notables are sometimes paired with famous lawyers: Twain with William
M. Evarts and Joseph H. Choate, Sholem Aleichem with Louis Marshall.40
By , yet another version was in print:
B23 The lawyer had ordered a special suit made to order and when he went for the final
fitting he was delighted at the wonderful cut, the marvelous texture of the cloth, and the
  T E C  I R A

magnificent styling and lines of the design. But when he went to put his money into the
pockets, he found there weren’t any.
“But why no pockets?” he protested to the tailor.
“It shouldn’t make any difference,” the tailor answered. “Who ever heard of a lawyer
with his hands in his own pockets?”41

In the mid-s, a very condensed form of pockets appears as quip about

B23 the weather being so cold that lawyers put their hands in their own pockets.42

That the lawyer is indeed a prodigious predator, outranking all manner of

competitors, has been proclaimed in books, films, and on stage. In The Beggar’s
Opera (), John Gay has the Peachums sing the following reflection on a pos-
sible challenge to their daughter Polly’s dowry:
A Fox may steal your Hens, Sir,
A Whore your Health and Pence, Sir,
Your Daughter rob your Chest, Sir,
Your wife may steal your Rest, Sir,
A Thief your Goods and Plate.
But this is all but picking,
With Rest, Pence, Chest and Chicken;
It ever was decreed, Sir,
If Lawyer’s Hand is fee’d sir,
He steals your whole Estate.43
The same thought is put in the mouth of the distinguished jurist Lord
Mansfield (–):
B24 A man was brought before Lord Mansfield, charged with stealing a silver ladle, and the
counsel for the crown was rather severe upon the prisoner for being an attorney. “Come,
come,” said his lordship, “don’t exaggerate matters; if the fellow had been an attorney,
he would have stolen the bowl as well as the ladle.”44

And more recently, in the mouth of Theodore Roosevelt:

B24 When President Theodore Roosevelt was trying to persuade his son to become a lawyer,
he used the following argument: “A man who never graduated from school might steal
from a freight car. But a man who attends college and graduates as a lawyer might steal
the whole railroad.”45

Not to be outdone in cynical knowledge, Don Corleone in The Godfather ()

observes: “A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than one hundred men with
guns.”46 Hence the lawyer has long been ranked with predators of fabled scale and
ferocity:
B25 Lawyer: “When I was a boy my highest ambition was to be a pirate.”
Client: “You’re in luck. It isn’t every man who can realize the dreams of his youth.”47
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

The pirate trope reappeared in a recent proceeding challenging the fees of the
lawyers who represented the State of Wisconsin in its claim to recover health care
costs from the manufacturers of cigarettes. Objectors to the size of the fees cited
a  case in which the Supreme Court of Wisconsin condemned a contract by
which a lawyer solicited clients among flood victims for another lawyer. Justice E.
Roy Stevens wrote: “Attorneys are entitled to good pay, for their work is hard, but
they are not entitled to fly the black flag of piracy. Such contracts as are here in
question tend to make the lawyer forget his high duty as a minister of justice and
to convert him into a mere grubber for money in the muck-heaps of the world.
They also tend to make the name of lawyer a proverb and a byword among lay-
men.”48 Some contemporary lawyers are less punctilious about the pirate image,
perhaps in hope of becoming “a proverb and a byword” in their own right. Flam-
boyant plaintiff ’s lawyer Melvin Belli (–) installed a flagpole on the roof
of his office, so that he could run up the Jolly Roger whenever he won a case,
much to the embarrassment of his more respectable colleagues.49
The lawyer is such a formidable predator that he can turn the tables on even
the most feared beasts in the urban jungle:
B26 Two muggers met in an alley, one of them breathless.
“I just tried to mug a lawyer,” the man panted.
“Cripes,” said the other. “He get anything?”50

Again, the earliest turnabout story seems to be an Ambrose Bierce fable:

B26 Two Footpads sat at their grog in a roadside resort, comparing the evening’s
adventures.
“I stood up the Chief of Police,” said the First Footpad, “and got away with what he
had.”
“And I,” said the Second Footpad, “stood up the United States District Attorney, and
got away with—“
“Good Lord!” interrupted the other in astonishment and admiration, “you got away
with what that fellow had?”
“No,” the unfortunate narrator explained, “with a small part of what I had.”51

As a debate on “Is it wrong to cheat a lawyer?” concluded, it is “not wrong, but

too difficult to pay for the trouble.”52 For a century, muggers, burglars, and pick-
pockets have been bested by lawyers, who have not only talked them out of their
swag, but also poached on their prey and occasionally made them into clients.53
B26 Burglar: “Talk about hard luck, I broke into a lawyer’s house last night an’ he got the
drop on me an’ advised me to get out.”
Pal: “Huh! Yer got off dead easy.”
Burglar: “Easy nothing! He charged me $10 for advice.”54

Usually, the lawyer prevails without explicitly charging fees, but other enter-
prising professionals manage to sell insurance or real estate to their would-be
  T E C  I R A

victimizers.55 The endurance and spread of the theme of the fellow-predator’s

regard for the lawyer’s extractive abilities are displayed in this pair, the first from
England in  (and the U.S. in the s), the second from India in :
B27 A couple of pickpockets followed a gentleman for some distance with a view of availing
themselves of the first opportunity to relieve him of his purse. He suddenly turned into a
lawyer’s office. “What shall we do now?” asked one. “Wait for the lawyer,” said the other.56

B27 Two pick-pockets [are] outside a theka [tavern]. After they had ordered their drinks,
they saw a car pull up on front of a house on the other side and fat sethji [moneylender]
step out of it. Said one pick-pocket to the other, “Looks like a nice shikar [quarry]. Let’s
polish him off before we enjoy our drink.”
“Don’t be silly,” replied the other, “He has gone into the house of a lawyer. When he
comes out, his pocket will have already been picked by his host.”57

The extractive propensities of lawyers are summarized in riddles comparing

them with bloodsuckers:
B28 What is the difference between a lawyer and a vampire?
A vampire only sucks blood at night.58

But the most widespread and distinctive of the Predator jokes is based on an
equation with that emblematic predator the shark. The term “shark,” suggesting
a combination of skill and deception (as in “pool shark” or “card shark”), was used
to refer to a pickpocket or rapacious swindler by the early eighteenth century and
was seafarers’ slang for lawyers by the early nineteenth century.59 The first con-
nection with “professional courtesy” is in :
B29 Two lawyers, while bathing at Santa Cruz the other day, were chased out of the water by
a shark. This is the most flagrant case of want of professional courtesy on record.60

By  the professional courtesy theme was the basis of an elaborate narrative:
B29 A minister, a scientist, and a lawyer were adrift on a life raft in the tropics. At last
they sighted land. But the wind died down while they were still a short way off the
beach. The lawyer, the only one who could swim, volunteered to go ashore with a line
and pull the raft to land. The minister knelt and prayed for his safety.
Then the lawyer dived in. His companions saw the black fin of a shark making
straight for him. The shark disappeared, then came up on the other side, having passed
under the swimmer. Shortly they saw an even bigger shark darting toward him, but this
one also swerved just in time.
After the lawyer had reached shallow water, the minister said to the scientist, “There,
you Doubting Thomas, there is proof of the power of prayer.”
“Power of prayer, hell!” retorted the scientist. “That was just professional courtesy.”61

This shark joke is occasionally switched to other formidable types such as

Mafia capos, Jewish mothers, and Robert Maxwell, but overwhelmingly it is told
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

of lawyers.62 Starting in the s, the sharks salute the lawyer by formally escort-
ing him.63 The shark image is ambiguous, however. It testifies to the ferocity and
power of the lawyer, but who is the prey? Is it the opposing party? Or is it the
client as well? At least some lawyers have embraced the shark image as a totem,
flaunting it on T-shirts, signboards, and even in advertisements.64 In a newspaper
advertisement (figure a) adorned with a drawing of a smiling shark with sun-
glasses, striped tie, and briefcase, a lawyer counseled potential clients: “Some-
times, all it takes is the sight of a dorsal fin to get people moving. Sometimes, all
it takes is a letter from us.”65

. The shark image is domesticated by lawyers and turned into an ironic icon of the
trade. (Just Litigation ad reproduced with permission of Walter Moore. Trust Me T-shirt
reproduced from the For Counsel holiday catalog with permission.)
  T E C  I R A

A recent spin-off from the professional courtesy story gives the same fin image
a less benign reading. Taking the point of view of the devoured opposing party,
it invokes the “even worse than” trope to demote the lawyer from moral equality
with the shark.
B30 A doctor took his family on vacation to the ocean. When they were walking on the
beach, the doctor became hysterically frightened when he saw a fin sticking up in the
water. Trying to calm him down, his wife said, “Honey, that’s just a shark. You’ve got to
stop imagining there are lawyers everywhere.”66

These well-established themes have flourished and been elaborated in the great
surge of lawyer joking that began in the s.

F  S     
People do not think they get good value from lawyers. In a  survey,  per-
cent of a national sample of Americans thought “most lawyers charge more for
their services than they are worth.”67 A  survey found that  percent of a
national sample disagreed with the statement that lawyers’ fees were “quite reason-
able in light of the services they provide clients.”68 Only  percent agreed. In a
 survey, a national sample of adults was asked to rate “the value you get for
your money” for lawyers’ fees. Only  percent thought they got good value; 
percent average value; and  percent poor value.69 Resentment of lawyers’ fees
seems to be rising. In National Law Journal surveys in  and , respondents
who had hired a lawyer were asked whether they were charged a fair fee or over-
charged. From  to , those who thought the fee fair decreased from  per-
cent to  percent, while those who said the lawyer charged too much rose from
 percent to  percent.70

. Cartoon by Charles Barsotti (© The New Yorker Collection , from cartoonbank.com.
All rights reserved.)
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

Traditionally lawyers charged by assessing an inclusive unitemized fee for the

matter at hand, such as arguing a case or writing a will. Many of the older jokes
above refer to this kind of fee-setting. As different fee arrangements developed,
they too were commented on in the joke corpus.
The contingency fee, in which the lawyer charges a specified portion of the
amount recovered by the client, was condemned in England and elsewhere as
incompatible with professional dignity and a dangerous incentive to overzealous
representation. Although prohibited in most legal systems, it has flourished in the
United States, where it was an established feature of the legal scene by the mid-
nineteenth century.71 In his study of personal injury litigation in New York City,
historian Randolph Bergstrom found that the contingency fee was little used in
, but much in use by  and pervasive by .72 From its inception, it
has been accompanied by accusations of illegitimacy. Attacks on the contingency
fee have recurred with regularity, often in conjunction with campaigns against
plaintiffs’ lawyers for degrading professional standards by fomenting meritless
litigation, ambulance chasing, and accident faking.73
A small set of jokes focus directly on the contingency fee relationship. Like the
contingency fee itself, these jokes are confined largely to the United States, Here
is an  version:
B31 A New Yorker asked Wm. M. Evarts what he would charge for managing a certain
law case.
“Well,” said Mr. Evarts, “I will take your case on a contingent fee.”
“And what is a contingent fee?”
“My dear sir,” said Mr. Evarts, mellifluously, “I will tell you what a contingent fee to a
lawyer means. If I don’t win your suit I get nothing. If I do win it you get nothing. See?”74

A century later the same story is still current:

B31 “I’ll take this case on contingency.”
“What’s contingency?
“If I lose, I get nothing.”
“And if you win?”
“You get nothing.”75

Other stories express the resentment of the size of the lawyer’s share of the
recovery:
B32 An Englishman while passing along the main street in a small town in Maine stepped
in a hole in the sidewalk and, falling, broke his leg. He brought suit against the city for
one thousand dollars, and engaged Hannibal Hamlin for counsel. Hamlin won his case,
but the city appealed to the supreme court. Here also the decision was for Hamlin’s
client. After settling up the claim, Hamlin sent for his client and handed him one dollar.
“What’s this?” asked the Englishman.
“That’s your damages, after taking out my fee, the cost of appeal, and several other
expenses,” said Hamlin.
  T E C  I R A

The Englishman looked at the dollar and then at Hamlin. “What’s the matter with
this?” he asked; “is it bad?”76

Although Hamlin (–), once a practicing lawyer, governor of Maine, and

one of Abraham Lincoln’s vice presidents, has long departed public consciousness,
the joke is still around:
B32 A man walking along a city street fell through an open sewer hole and broke his leg. He
engaged a famous attorney, brought suit against the city for twenty thousand dollars and
won the case. The city appealed the case to the Supreme Court, but again the lawyer
won the decision. After the claim was settled the lawyer sent for his client and handed
him a dollar bill. “What’s this?” asked the man, looking at the dollar. “That’s your
damages, after deducting my fee, the cost of the appeal and other expenses,” replied
the attorney. The man looked at the dollar again, turned it over and carefully scanned
the other side. He then looked up at the lawyer and said, “What’s the matter with this
dollar? Is it counterfeit?”77

Implicit in the condemnation of the lawyer’s charges is the contrast between what
is for the lawyer a routine occasion for the exercise of his craft but for the claimant
a life emergency. Again, a century has brought little change from this  version:
B33 Litigant—“You take nine-tenths of the judgement? Outrageous!”
Lawyer—“I furnish all the skill and eloquence and legal learning for your cause.”
Litigant—“But I furnish the cause.”
Lawyer—“Oh, anybody could do that.”78

B33 The man looked at the check he received after winning his suit against the city.
“Wait a minute!” he said to his attorney. “This is only a third of the full amount!”
“That’s right,” said the attorney. “I took the rest.”
“You!” screamed the man. “I was the one who was hurt!”
“You forget. I provided the intelligence required to build the case, the expertise to
find precedents, and the oratory to convince the jury. Any asshole could fall down a
manhole.”79

The role of underappreciated contributor can be shifted from lawyer to client:

B34 Patrick Murphy, while passing down Tremont Street, was hit on the head by a brick
which fell from a building in process of construction. One of the first things he did after
being taken home and put to bed was to send for a lawyer. A few days later he received
word to call, as his lawyer had settled the case. He called and received five crisp, new,
one-hundred dollar bills.
“How much did you get?” he asked.
“Two thousand dollars,” answered the lawyer.
“Two thousand, and you give me $500? Say, who got hit by that brick, you or me?”80

These stories take the contingency fee as the occasion to complain of the size
of the lawyer’s fee, but register no complaint about the contingency device itself.
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

The public generally regards it as an essential safeguard. In a  survey, some 

percent agreed that this method of paying the lawyer “gives everyone, even poor
people, access to the courts because they don’t have to pay the lawyer anything in
advance, or anything at all if they lose the lawsuit.” Only  percent disagreed with
this viewpoint.81 In another survey, conducted in late  at the height of the
furor about the liability crisis, some  percent of the public agreed that it was
important to retain the contingency fee system.82 Attachment to the contingency
fee is inversely related to income and education: the most prosperous and edu-
cated people and those in top jobs were less attached.83
The pattern of lawyer jokes provides indirect but telling confirmation of the
survey data showing public acceptance of the contingency fee as an institution.
Although there is resentment of the lawyer’s cut, there is an acceptance of its
necessity and appreciation of the benefits of the arrangement.84 Its enemies are not
those who avail of it or who fear they might have to use it. Peter Karsten observes
that its late nineteenth-century critics included “railroad attorneys, physicians fac-
ing malpractice suits, treatise writers, law journal editors and jurists.”85 A century
later the contingency fee is assailed by a comparable alliance of adverse economic
interests and professional notables.
Compared to the proliferation of jokes about lawyers’ overcharging, relentless
billing, and predatory practices, the contingency fee jokes are relatively mild and
infrequent. The resentment of lawyers’ fees is not particularly focused on the con-
tingency fee: individual clients are far more exercised about hourly, retainer, and
percentage fees in divorce, property transactions, and probate, while corporate
clients complain about superfluous billing at excessive hourly rates. The first print
appearance of the best known story about billing is in the dissenting opinion of a
judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals in a  case:
B35 An immediately deceased lawyer arrived at the Pearly Gates to seek admittance from
St. Peter. The Keeper of the Keys was surprisingly warm in his welcome: “We are so glad
to see you, Mr. [X]. We are particularly happy to have you here, not only because we get
so few lawyers up here, but because you lived to the wonderful age of 165.” Mr. [X] was
a bit doubtful and hesitant. “Now, St. Peter, if there’s one place I don’t want to get into
under false pretenses, it’s Heaven. I really died at age seventy-eight.” St. Peter looked
perplexed, frowned, and consulted the scroll in his hand. “Ah, I see where we made our
mistake as to your age. We just added up your time sheets!”86

The timing of this addition to the corpus of lawyer jokes is not surprising, for
the hourly fee did not become widespread until the s and s.87 Since its
appearance (by ), this single story about abuse of hourly fees has appeared in
the print and electronic media far more often than all the various contingency fee
jokes combined.88
As the purchase of durables on the installment plan became widespread, the
installment payment idea was used to twit professionals for the material concerns
that lay just beneath the surface of their professional attentions. For example,
  T E C  I R A

B36 “Here’s my bill,” said the lawyer. “Please pay down $100, and $25 a week thereafter
for ten weeks.”
“Sounds like buying an automobile,” said the client.
“I am,” returned the attorney.89

Although the lawyer bills clients assiduously, there may be pleasure in think-
ing (even if it is not so) that he earns less than those who contribute visibly to
the well-being of society. This item switches to lawyers just as lawyer earnings are
taking off.
B37 A . . . plumber . . . had been working at the lawyer’s house for only a short time when
he corrected the problem and presented him with a bill. After some quick calculating in
his head the lawyer exclaimed, “Why, that’s over two hundred dollars an hour. Even I
don’t make that.” “I know,” said the plumber. “I didn’t make that either when I was a
lawyer.”90

T  M

In addition to public bemusement and outrage at the amount of lawyers’ charges,
lawyers have another persistent problem: what is it that they can charge for? Where

. Cartoon by Sam Gross (© , from cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.)
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

does the social leave off and the professional begin? A series of jokes portray
lawyers using the blurriness of this boundary to exploit clients and evade social
obligations. These stories suggest that the lawyer’s social life is inauthentic, feign-
ing genuine commitment to others as a strategy for obtaining clients. In short,
being a lawyer impoverishes or even obliterates him as a social being.91
The lawyer turns the occasion of an indisputable social claim invoked by a
neighbor or tradesman into a technical consultation, so that he can offset his fee
against the claim:
B38 Between a Protestant clergyman and a Roman Catholic lawyer, who had very good
feeling towards each other, the following occurrence took place not far from Bath:
“If,” asked the clergyman, “a neighbour’ dog destroy my ducks, can I recover damages
by law?” “Certainly,” replied the lawyer, “you can recover; pray, what are the
circumstances?” “Why, Sir, your dog, last night, destroyed two of my ducks.” “Indeed,

. Cartoon by Aaron Bacall in S. Gross, ed., Lawyers! Lawyers! Lawyers! (© A. Bacall )
  T E C  I R A

then you certainly could recover the damages; what is the amount? I’ll instantly
discharge it.” The demand of four shillings and six pence was made and paid, when
the lawyer immediately made a demand of his fee, six shillings and eightpence, which,
unless instantly paid, he should adopt legal means to recover.92

The classic joke on this subject involves a claim by the butcher:

B38 A vigorous looking man once came into the office of Max D. Steuer and said that he
wanted to consult him about a certain case.
Steuer asked him to be seated.
“I am a butcher,” commenced the visitor. “About a week ago a dog ran into my store
and snatched from the counter a five pound steak. It was worth three dollars, and I want
to know if the owner of the dog is responsible.”
“He certainly is,” Steuer replied.
“If so,” said the butcher slyly, “please pay the three dollars. It was your dog.”
Steuer opened his wallet and handed him three dollars.
“Thank you,” said the butcher, triumphantly, and rose to leave the office.
“Wait a moment,” said the eminent jurist. “My minimum fee for legal advice is five
hundred dollars.”93

More generally, the lawyer is suspected of turning social exchanges with clients
into services to be charged to clients, as in this  tale:
B39 A worthy old gentleman in the country having employed an attorney, of whom he had
a pretty good opinion, to do some law business for him in London, he was greatly
surprised, on his coming to town, and demanding his bill of law charges, to find that it
amounted to at least three times the sum he expected; the honest attorney assured him,
that there was no article in his bill, but what was fair and reasonable. “Nay,” said the
country gentleman, “there’s one of them I am sure cannot be so, for you have set down
three shillings and four-pence for going to Southwark, what is the meaning of that, Sir?”
“Oh, Sir,” said he, “that was for fetching the chine and turkey from the carrier’s that you
sent me for a present out of the country.”94

B40 The renowned attorney Samuel Untermeyer was accustomed to taking an early
morning walk around Central Park in New York. For a period of several weeks on each
of those excursions, a neighbor greeted him with these words: “Isn’t it a good morning,
Mr. Untermeyer?”
Untermeyer would invariably reply: “Yes, it certainly is.”
After several weeks of this abbreviated dialogue, Untermeyer sent the greeter a bill
for fifty dollars for “advice services rendered.”
The next time the greeter came upon Mr. Untermeyer in the park at the usual time
and place, he said, “It’s a good morning, Mr. Untermeyer, and this time I’m telling you,
not asking you.”95

A young Welsh girl was more cautious in dealing with future Prime Minister
Lloyd George.
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

B40 When Lloyd George was a young country solicitor in Wales he was riding home in
his dogcart one day, and came upon a little Welsh girl trudging along so wearily that he
offered her a ride. She accepted silently, and all the way along, although the future
statesman tried to engage her in conversation, he could not get her to say anything
more than “Yes” or “No.”
Some days afterward the little girl’s mother happened to meet Mr. Lloyd George, and
said to him smilingly, “Do you remember my little girl riding with you the other day?
Well, when she got home she said, ‘Mamma, I rode from school with Mr. Lloyd George,
the lawyer, and he kept talking to me, and I didn’t know whatever to do, for you know
Mr. Lloyd George, the lawyer, charges you whenever you talk with him, and I hadn’t any
money.’”96

Lawyers are accused of charging for social greetings, chat about the weather, and
pointers during golf matches.97 But even the eighteenth-century charge for fetch-
ing the client’s gift is outdone by the recent report of the large Los Angeles firm
that charged clients for the flowers it sent to their funerals.98
Sometimes the exchange is not with an avowed client, but arises in a social
encounter. The classic is the following:
B41 A doctor was fuming when he finally reached his table at a banquet after breaking
away from a woman who sought his advice on a health problem. “Do you think I should
send her a bill?” he asked a lawyer who was sitting next to him.
“Why not?” the lawyer replied, “You rendered professional services by giving advice.”
“Thanks,” physician said. “I think I’ll do that.”
When the doctor went to his office the next day to send a bill to the annoying
woman he found a statement from the lawyer. It read: “For legal services $25.”99

That the lawyer’s response is not idiosyncratic, but an expression of his profes-
sional mindset, is made clear in a recent offshoot:
B42 I consulted a lawyer to find out if I needed a lawyer. He said no and sent me a bill for
$300. Two days later, I was at a party and met another lawyer. I told him how all I did
was ask the first guy if I needed a lawyer and he socked it to me for $300. “Can he do
that?” I asked. “Yes,” the second lawyer said. The next morning he sent me a bill for
$300 for legal advice.100
Of course, others can play the game of blurring the line between sociability
and professional consulting. The lawyer’s defense is as good as his offense. An
older British story shows the lawyer adept at using the law to thwart attempts to
secure free legal advice:
B43 A story is told of a close fisted business man who, wanting advice on a knotty point of
commercial law, invited a solicitor to dinner, and in the course of the meal elicited the
opinion he required. On his return home, however, the lawyer, feeling that he had been
done, sent in a bill for advice given. To this the merchant retaliated with a bill for dinner
and wine. Not to be outdone, the solicitor reported the merchant to the Excise for selling
  T E C  I R A

intoxicants without a licence, and obtained the reward due from that Department to an
informer.101

Once a relationship with the client is established, what activities can the lawyer
charge for? The lawyer’s labor is partly thought—and thought may occur away
from court or office in the midst of the lawyer’s private life. This is a problem that
has bedeviled lawyers since they first started to market advice rather than paper-
work or courtroom advocacy:
B44 “I’m beginning to think my lawyer is too interested in seeing how much money he
can get out of me.”
“Why?”
“Just listen to this bill: ‘For waking up at night and thinking about your case—$5.’”102

Although this joke predates hourly billing by several generations, it has become
more troubling in the era of hourly fees. The pressure to bill hours is revealed in
the sad report of a high-powered woman litigation partner at a large Miami firm
who lost primary custody of her children to a stay-at-home ex-husband. At the
hearing:
One mother testified that she saw Ms. Hector read lawbooks while attending a
school performance.
Ms. Hector said she did not read while her child was on stage. “I probably took a
lawbook,” she said, “so that I could bill hours and still be there.”103
Although one court is reported to have rejected a request for fees for thinking
about a case during travel to the courthouse, billing for thinking about the client
while showering or engaging in other grooming activities is encouraged by many
firms.104 A secretary in a large firm reports seeing a memo from a partner that
advised “if you even think about a file, whether in your car, in the shower, or on
the golf course, its gets a minimum fifteen-minute charge.”105 An associate in a
large Washington office recalls being prompted, “When you’re taking a dump,
you’re always thinking about a client.”106
But suppose the purported service is totally valueless?
B45 A corporate executive received a monthly bill from the law firm that was handling a big
case for his company. It included hourly billings for conferences, research, phone calls,
and everything but lunch hours. Unhappy as he was, the executive knew that the
company would have to pay for each of these services. Then he noticed one item buried
in the middle of the list: For crossing the street to talk to you, then discovering it wasn’t
you at all—$125.107

This joke, which was told about lawyers by , mirrors an older story about
medical students being instructed about fees, in which one asks the expert, “What
do you charge for passing a patient on the street?”108
Since legal services are discursive, the provision of the services and the dis-
cussions that frame that provision may bear sufficient resemblance to tempt the
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

service provider to throw the meter earlier in the interaction than the would-be
client anticipates.
B46 Client. You have an item in your bill, “Advice, Jan. 8, $5.” That was the day before I
retained you.
Lawyer. I know it. But don’t you remember, on the 8th I told you you’d better let me
take the case for you?
Client. Yes.
Lawyer. Well, that’s the advice.109

This nineteenth-century story anticipates an increasingly popular contemporary

joke:
B46 A man went to see a lawyer and asked what his least expensive fee was. The lawyer
replied, “$50 for three questions.”

. The Lawyer Winding Up His Accounts (BM. ). Lawyer makes up itemized
account of charges to expedite collection from client who is bound to lose his cause. A devil
assists and complains of overwork.
  T E C  I R A

Stunned, the man asked, “Isn’t that a lot of money for three questions?”
“Yes,” the lawyer said. “What is your final question?”110

Lawyers frequently share jokes with doctors, politicians, Jews, and mothers-in-
law. The three questions story is told about only one other group, a group that
intersects with the lawyer joke corpus only in this single instance: fortune tellers,
clairvoyants, and Gypsies.111 It is difficult to tell which version appeared first, but
the recent wave of jokes about lawyers has given the lawyer version more promi-
nence. The joint tenancy of this joke suggests that clients turn to lawyers, as to
clairvoyants, to learn things about their situation that lie beyond the boundaries
of their own knowledge and vision. But, the joke tells us, it is difficult to negoti-
ate entrance into such a relationship. Instead of meeting the would-be client in a
safe zone, the clairvoyant/lawyer insists on squeezing immediate advantage from
the intimidated and inexperienced client.

S             : P           S   / S    P        
For the most part, the jokes in the Economic Predators category are old, long
predating the contemporary explosion of jokes about lawyers. Of the fifty or so
jokes discussed earlier in this chapter, only eight appeared after . The themes
that animate these jokes have been in place for a long time. At least a third of
these jokes were in circulation before  and two-thirds before . But one
new theme has emerged as a feature of jokes about the economic exactions of
lawyers—the fusion of sexual and economic predation, which I refer to as sex-
ploitation. It is possible that jokes of this sort were present earlier but remained
unrecorded because of the censorship that prevailed in the written media. If so,
one would expect bowdlerized versions to mark their place. Since they are not
present, I conclude that this theme had not developed earlier.
A whole cycle of stories in which the roles of sexual and economic predator are
combined, often with overtones of betrayal, have emerged since the s. The
message is that what lawyers do is “screw” people, merging that term’s connota-
tions of fraudulent extraction and of copulation.
The single old and indigenous lawyer joke, dating back to  or earlier, that
explores this territory was joined in the s by switches of many sexploitation
jokes told earlier about other kinds of protagonists but now newly enlisted as
jokes about lawyers.
B47 The elderly spinster hired a young lawyer to prepare her will. “I have ten thousand
dollars set aside,” she explained, “and I want to spend it on myself. Nobody in this town
has ever paid any attention to me, but they’ll sit up a take notice when I die.” Warming
to the subject, she cackled, “I want to spend all of eight thousand dollars on the biggest,
fanciest funeral this town has ever seen!”
“Well,” said the lawyer, “that’s a lot to pay for burying in these parts, but it’s your
money, madam, and you’re entitled to spend it any way you like. Now what about the
other two thousand?”
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

“I’ll take care of that!” the old woman replied with a broad smile. “I’ve never been to
bed with a man, and I aim to try that at least once before I’m through. As you can see,
I’m not much to look at, but I figure for two thousand dollars I can get me a man that’s
young enough and handsome enough to please me.”
That night, the lawyer reported the conversation to his wife. As they discussed the
situation, the wife casually mentioned how nice it would be to have the two thousand
dollars.
Minutes later, they were on their way to the spinster’s house, the wife driving. As the
lawyer stepped from the car, he instructed his wife: “Pick me up in two hours.”
Returning at the prescribed hour, the wife tooted the horn. No response from the
house. She then blew a prolonged blast. An upstairs window was raised and the lawyer
thrust out his head. “Come back in four days,” he shouted. “She’s decided to let the
county bury her.”112

Here the lawyer is not portrayed as a sexual predator. The lust is the spinster’s; his
motive, so far as we can tell, is purely economic. The lawyer is literally equated
with a prostitute—providing sexual favors for gain rather than desire. What the
joke displays is not his thrusting libido but his greed and opportunism. Exploit-
ing the opportunity offered by the client’s vulnerability, he cultivates her needi-
ness to run up the bill far beyond what the client anticipated.
Direct sex for gain exchanges are infrequent, but not entirely absent:

B48 At the Dulles Airport departure gate, Kirinsky was bidding farewell to the man for
whom he was handling a big case. Harrison, who was also boarding the plane to New
York, overheard the lawyer saying, “You’ve been a wonderful host, Andy. Thanks for the
use of your guest room.”
“And thank your wife. She’s great in bed. I really enjoyed making love to her.”
“It’s nothing. Have a good trip.”
Once on the plane, Harrison approached the lawyer. “Excuse me,” he said, “but I
couldn’t help overhearing. Did you really enjoy making love to his wife?”
“No,” said the lawyer, “but I really need this case.”113

This is yet another s switch to lawyers, this one from a joke about the man
who doesn’t want to insult a good friend.114 In the lawyer version, the motiva-
tion shifts from commendably accommodating a friend to crass self-serving. This
equation of lawyering with prostitution surfaces elsewhere in the joke corpus.115
The lawyer’s characteristic vice is not sex for gain but gain as sex. Gain—espe-
cially gain from exploitation, i.e., from “screwing” someone—is eroticized. Thus,
we are not surprised when the lawyer spurns intimates to boost productivity:

B49 An architect, an artist, and a lawyer were discussing whether it was better to have a
spouse or a lover.
The architect said he enjoyed time with his spouse, building a solid foundation for an
enduring relationship.
  T E C  I R A

The artist said he enjoyed time with his lover, because of the passion and mystery he
found there.
The lawyer said, “I prefer to have both.”
“Both?”
Lawyer: “Yeah, If you have both a spouse and a lover, they will each assume you
are spending time with the other, and you can go to the office and get some work
done.”116

A line of jokes develops the notion that screwing (in its economic exploitation
sense) is the characteristic and defining activity of the lawyer. The simplest of
these, and also the oldest, is a play on words, much in evidence since the early
s:
B50 What is the difference between a lawyer and a rooster?
When a rooster wakes up in the morning, its primal urge is to cluck defiance.117

To play his role as sexual-economic predator, the lawyer should be worldly,

sexually adventurous, uninhibited, and opportunistic:
B51 A Baptist minister had the misfortune of being seated next to an attorney on his flight
home. After the plane was airborne, the flight attendant came around for drink orders.
The attorney asked for a whiskey and soda, which was brought and placed before him.
The attendant then asked the minister if he would also like a drink. The minister replied
in disgust, “I’d rather savagely ravish a brazen whore than let liquor touch these lips.”
The attorney then handed his drink back to the attendant and told her with delight,
“I didn’t know there was a choice!”118

Here, the worldly sophisticate puts down the Puritanical bluenose and displays his
own sexual avarice. The lawyer clearly identifies with the pursuit of this-worldly
gratification and displays his alacrity in pursuing it.119
B52 A handsome young man turned off a number of young ladies he met in a bar.
“Listen,” the bartender said, “don’t tell them you’re a plumber. These chicks want to
meet professional men. Next time say you’re a lawyer.”
Moments later a women sat next to the man and asked his occupation.
“Lawyer,” he said.
“You must have many interesting cases to talk about,” she replied. “Why don’t we go
up to my apartment and you can fill me in?”
Soon they were in bed and he was laughing. “Why are you laughing?” she asked.
“This is great. I’ve only been a lawyer for an hour and I’m already screwing
somebody.”120

This descends from a line of jokes about the instantaneous effects of conversion.
For instance, a Jewish convert to Roman Catholicism explains, “I’ve only been a
Gentile for twenty minutes and already I hate those Jews.”121 The lawyer version
arrives in , apparently derived through a political variant.122
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

B53 Two lawyers are sitting in a bar drinking when a stunning blonde in a skin-tight,
low-cut dress slinks by. One of them stares for a moment, then turns to his buddy and
says, “Boy, would I like to screw her!”
The other lawyer asks, “Out of what?”123

In circulation by , this joke is told almost exclusively of lawyers.124 A story

about the woman whose successive husbands are disabled from consummating
the marriage by various professional tics has been adapted to affirm that screwing
is the lawyer’s characteristic activity.125
B54 A mature woman was in the pastoral study counseling for her upcoming fourth
wedding.
“Father, how am I going to tell my husband that I am still a virgin?”
“My child, you have been a married woman for many years. Surely that cannot be.”
“Well, Father, my first husband was a psychologist, and all he wanted to do was talk,
and the next one was in construction and he always said he’d get to it tomorrow. The
last one was a gynecologist and all he did was look. But this time, Father, I’m marrying a
lawyer and I’m sure I’m going to get screwed.”126

The same theme animates another new switch to the lawyer joke corpus.
B55 In a long line of people waiting for a bank teller, one guy suddenly started massaging
the back of the person in front of him. Surprised, the man in front turned and snarled,
“Just what the hell are you doing?”
“Well,” said the guy, “you see, I’m a chiropractor, and I could see that you were
tense, so I had to massage your back. Sometimes I just can’t help practicing my art.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” the guy replied. “Look, I’m a lawyer. Am
I fucking the guy in front of me?”127

Jokes about predation, emphasizing the economic exactions of the lawyer,

often contain betrayal themes as well. The lawyer misuses a position of trust to
gain an unfair advantage—to screw the other both metaphorically and often lit-
erally. In what might be called “double discharge” jokes, the lawyer opportunisti-
cally parlays financial dealings into sexual exploitation.
B56 Milt and Ernie established a law practice together, and not long after that, Ernie was
the best man at Milt’s wedding to Gabby, a gorgeous blonde. Ernie thought she was the
most desirable woman he’d ever seen, and he went from flirting with her over the phone
to sending her flowers, to begging her for a date; but each time, his partner’s wife
demurely resisted his advances. Finally he offered her a thousand dollars for a few sweet
hours together, and that did the trick. Gabby arranged for a time for him to come by the
house, and Ernie had barely closed the front door before she was pulling his clothes off.
He just had time to put the thousand dollars on the hall table before she took him by the
hand and led him upstairs.
Ernie had only been gone for a few minutes when Milt’s Audi pulled into the drive-
way. “Aha!” he exclaimed as he stepped in the door. “I see my partner was here today.”
  T E C  I R A

Gabby paled and was about to confess all when Milt went on cheerfully. “For once
that son-of-a-bitch kept his word. He borrowed a thousand bucks from me last week and
said he’d drop it off today—and damned if it isn’t right here on the hall table.”128

This is an old and widespread tale, found in Boccaccio and Chaucer, about the
friend who corrupts a wife with money borrowed from her husband.129 The most
popular contemporary version, of which the previous story is an instance, involves
a friend or fellow-worker of the husband, repaying a loan or delivering his pay.130
A similar story of a faithless emissary features comparable gamesmanship and
compromises the lawyer’s professional obligation:
B57 The lawyer went to the whorehouse and, flashing one thousand dollars, asked for Becky
Smart. He was shown to the attractive young hooker, and had a great time with her.
The next night, the lawyer returned and, once again putting one thousand dollars on
the table, asked the madam for Becky Smart. Once again, he had a great time.
This went on every night for a week. On the seventh night, the lawyer was dressing
and Becky said, “Listen, big guy—where you from?”

. Symptoms of Crim Con!! (BM . Cruikshank, ). Barrister importunes young
female client while her husband dozes.
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

“White Plains,” he said. “Woodlands Avenue.”

“Really!” said the whore. “That’s amazing! I just won a paternity suit with a guy who
lives on Woodlands!”
“I know,” said the lawyer. “He’s my client—and here’s the last of the seven grand he
owes you.”131

The presentation of the lawyer as an exploitative sexual predator is combined

with the theme of professional rivalry in a story that is revealing about elite atti-
tudes toward lawyers:
B58 A doctor, an engineer, and a lawyer go out hunting in the woods one day. Each of
them brings along his hunting dog, and they spend most of the morning arguing about
which of the dogs is the smartest. Early in the afternoon, they discover a clearing in the
forest. In the middle of the clearing is a large pile of animal bones.
Seeing the bones, the doctor turns to the others and says, “I’m going to prove to you
two that my dog is the smartest. Watch this!” He then calls his dog over and says,
“Bones! See the bones? Go get ‘em!” The dog rushes over to the pile, rummages around
for a bit, and then proceeds to build a replica of the human skeleton, perfect down to
the last detail. The doctor grins smugly; after all, his dog has just built a human skeleton
from animal bones.
The engineer, however, is totally unimpressed. “That’s nothing,” he says. “Watch
this.” He calls his dog over, and points out the pile. “Bones! Get the bones!” The dog
rushes over, tears down the skeleton, and in its place builds a perfect replica of the Eiffel
Tower. It even has a little French flag waving at the top. The doctor is forced to agree
that the engineer’s dog is, in fact, smarter than his own.
The lawyer, however, is still not impressed. “My dog is smarter,” he says. “Watch.”
He then calls his dog over, points to the pile, and says simply “Bones.” The dog rushes
over to the pile, tears down the tower, eats half the bones, buries the other half, screws
the other two dogs, and takes the rest of the afternoon off.132

Mirroring their masters, the other dogs are constructive, even creative; the
lawyer’s dog is destructive and predatory. He not only contributes nothing, but
appropriates the others’ deserved rewards, and violates them “personally.” (This
late twentieth-century dog may be a descendant of the larcenous lawyer’s dog who
for centuries has preyed on the butcher.)133 In some versions the other dogs are
completely devoured by the lawyer’s dog or their efforts are demolished by the
lawyer’s dog. The lawyer’s relation to the rival professionals here is strikingly dif-
ferent from the two plus two joke (A), where the lawyer’s accommodating response
contrasts with the mechanical and unhelpful answers of the other professionals.
Like the three questions joke (B), dogs is distinctive in the groups that share
it with lawyers—in this case not fortune tellers and clairvoyants but government
workers and trade unionists, who match the lawyer in destructiveness and self-
indulgent despoliation. The joke’s targets are, in short, a rogue’s gallery of the
slackers and knockers blamed for hobbling free-enterprising America.
  T E C  I R A

B58 Four men were bragging about how smart their dogs were. The first man was an
Engineer, the second an Accountant, the third man a Chemist, and the fourth a
Government worker.
To show off, the Engineer called to his dog, “T-Square, do your stuff!” T-Square
trotted over to the desk, took out some paper and a pen and promptly drew a circle, a
square, and a triangle. Everyone agreed that T-Square was pretty smart!
But the Accountant said his dog could do better. He called his dog and said, “Spread-
sheet, show ‘em how smart you are!” Spreadsheet went out into the kitchen, and
returned with a dozen cookies. He divided them into four equal piles of three cookies
each. Everyone agreed, that was good!
But the Chemist said his dog could do even better. He called his dog and said,
“Measure, do your thing!” Measure got up, walked over to the fridge, took out a quart
of milk, got a ten-ounce glass from the cupboard and poured exactly eight ounces
without spilling a drop. Everyone oohed and ahhed and were quite impressed! Then the
three men turned to the Government Worker, and said, “What can your dog do?”
The Government Worker called to his dog and said, “Coffee Break, do your stuff!!”
Coffee Break jumped to his feet, ate all the cookies, drank the milk, crapped on the
paper, sexually assaulted the other three dogs, claimed he injured his back while doing
so, filed a grievance report for unsafe working conditions, put in for Worker’s
Compensation, and went home for the rest of the day on sick leave!!!!134

The linkage is mirrored in Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot’s observa-
tion, in , just as dogs was becoming an emblematic joke about lawyers, that

. Cartoon by Steve Kelley (©  Steve Kelley, The Times-Picayune)

 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

“lawyers have replaced trade unionists as the chief scourge of American busi-
ness.”135 The joke captures the intense indignation of professionals and business
people who feel attacked, hemmed in, and overcharged by lawyers. It reflects
resentment of the emergence of medical malpractice, product liability, civil rights,
wrongful discharge, and other sorts of litigation that expose America’s managers
and authorities to unwonted and unwarranted accountability.
If lawyers were once seen as pillars of the establishment, by the late s they
were scorned by major sections of elites as enemies of prosperity and order. They
are not alone in these sentiments. Americans generally believe that there are too
many lawyers, that they have too much influence and power in society, and that
they are principally responsible for a litigation explosion in the United States.136
And those with more wealth and education believe these things in much larger
numbers.137
The dogs story paints the lawyer’s predation on a wider canvas. It is not just
that lawyers victimize individual clients or opponents, but that they destroy social
assets and unravel the social fabric. This is a complaint that has been around a
long time: In , H. St. John Crevecoeur, in his widely read Letters of an Amer-
ican Farmer, spelled out the parasitic and destructive character of the lawyer:
Lawyers are plants that will grow in any soil that is cultivated by the hands of others,
and when once that have taken root they will extinguish every vegetable that grows
around them. The fortunes they daily acquire in every province from the misfortunes
of their fellow citizens are surprising. The most ignorant, the most bungling member
of that profession will, if placed in the most obscure part of the country, promote liti-
giousness and amass more wealth than the most opulent farmer with all his toil. . . .
What a pity that our forefathers who happily extinguished so many fatal customs and
expunged from their new government so many errors and abuses both religious and
civil, did not also prevent the introduction of a set of men so dangerous. . . . The value
of our laws and the spirit of freedom which often tends to make us litigious must nec-
essarily throw the greatest part of the property of the Colonies into the hands of these
gentlemen. In another century, the law will possess in the North what now the church
possesses in Peru and Mexico.138
In the late s, as significant sections of America’s elites recoiled from the ex-
pansion of legal remedies, these themes resurfaced. In an article entitled “Will
Lawyering Strangle Democratic Capitalism?” Laurence H. Silberman, later to
become a federal judge, detailed how “the legal process, because of its unbridled
growth, has become a cancer which threatens the vitality of our forms of capital-
ism and democracy” and “the harmful impact of an ever expanding legal process
on our society.” The profligate creation of new individual rights was weakening the
“intermediate institutions [families, churches, schools, corporations, labor unions,
and political parties] . . . that are indispensable pillars of a pluralistic democracy.”
In addition, “litigation of all kinds [was] becoming a major structural impediment
to our economy.”139 Overuse of lawyers, Silberman declared, contributed to the
 T E C  I R A

competitive advantage enjoyed by our economic rivals in Japan and Europe.140

According to the executive vice president of the Insurance Counselors Association
of Texas, “Each year at the beginning of June, , law school graduates with
visions of faultily-designed football helmets dancing in their heads, descend upon
American commerce and industry like a plague of locusts.”141 A decade later, the
lawyers as parasites idea reached for academic respectability when a University of
Texas finance professor proclaimed that countries with the highest lawyer popu-
lations suffered from impaired economic growth and that each American lawyer
decreased the output of goods and services by one million dollars annually.142
Weak data, peculiar research design, and absence of controls for other influences
on economic growth led to the rapid demolition of this theory, but not before it
had been adopted as part of the campaign to diminish the civil justice system.143
The economic cluster is the largest of all the categories of lawyer jokes. Some
new items have been switched to lawyers, but overall this cluster remains over-
whelmingly composed of jokes that are indigenous to the legal setting. The major
exception is the new theme of sexual exploitation that has been grafted on since
. Of the twelve sexploitation jokes given above, only three seem indigenous
to the legal setting and nine have been switched to lawyers. Not all of the switches
will prove enduring additions to the lawyer joke corpus. As the repertoire of
lawyer jokes is enlarged and the demand for joke material shifts from lawyers to
others, many jokes attached to lawyers in the boom years of antilawyerism may
face an early retirement.

T  J       T     
The persisting sense of grievance about legal fees is multilayered. First, there is the
widespread and recurrent perception that lawyers charge unfairly: they overcharge
for what they have done, charge for services they have not rendered, and charge for
things they shouldn’t charge for. These grievances form one of the oldest, largest,
and most enduring limbs of the body of lawyer jokes. These grievances are so per-
sistent and enduring because they trace fault lines that are intrinsic to the nature
of legal services and the structure of lawyer-client relations. And they resonate
with more profound misgivings about the way that legal work is institutionalized.
One of these is the notion that legal fees are themselves a nasty, harmful, and
unjustified institution. In , John W. Pitts published a little book that both
anticipates and illuminates current discontents.144 Pitts thought lawyers were
driven by self-interest both to make laws prolix and complicated and to “excite
strife, confusion and debate.”145 As the dominant group of legislators, lawyers
made law complex and generated a need for lawyers to vindicate the rights that
they established.146 These rights are then diminished by the very need for profes-
sional lawyers, who extract fees for securing these rights for their clients. What the
justice parties obtain is thus flawed and incomplete, for a portion of their entitle-
ment is diverted to the lawyers, who add no value. Thus, for Pitts, every legal enti-
tlement is diminished by the presence of an occupational group that is paid for
 The Lawyer as Economic Predator 

vindicating it. This “justice tariff ” (my phrase, not his) is an affront to liberty,
which is “the power of enjoying rights without paying for them.” For Pitts, “Fees
at the bar, from their first institution up to this hour, have been the source of more
numerous and more malignant evils in the countries where they have been toler-
ated than all the wars, pestilence, famines, tornadoes & earthquakes that ever
harassed these lands.”147 Beneath Pitts’s bluster lie some of the deep roots of re-
sentment of lawyers, growing from the necessity of using and paying lawyers to
secure what people regard as already rightfully theirs.
Legal philosopher Max Radin discerned an ancient theme that “justice is a
man’s right. That is what society is for. It should be free as air.”148 As Jake Warner,
one of the founders of Nolo Press, a leading publisher of do-it-yourself legal mate-
rial, puts it, “There’s a reason people hate lawyers. . . . It’s because they have a
monopoly on what rightfully belongs to everyone.”149 A long tradition holds
that the need for lawyer intermediaries is not natural but is itself an outgrowth of
lawyers’ corruption of legal discourse. It is because lawyers have made law com-
plex and mysterious that they can levy the justice tariff.
Lawyers’ fees are offensive not only because they levy a tariff on justice, thereby
diminishing and distorting it. The true offense of lawyers is to take something of
ineffable value like justice—one of the things in life that should not be in the mar-
ket—and debase it by commercializing it. Although the jokes (and other mani-
festations of public opinion) propose no alternative model, they echo a persistent
sense that lawyers’ expertise should not be a commercial service.150 In mocking
lawyers because they are successful merchants and not priests of justice, we res-
onate with some of the passion of the medieval satirist who execrated lawyers for
abandoning religion for gain:
Many study the law these days, not for justice,
But because avarice wishes to acquire more goods.
I beg Christ to confound the jurists;
They are no psalmists, but the harpists of Satan.
The lawyer, the doctor, and the whore are always alert;
If anyone offers them a higher fee, they slip away and follow him.151

When lawyers flourish in the marketplace, the profession appears to have fallen
from a purer nobler calling. Another medieval critic set the standard for anti-
lawyer invective:
That once venerable name and glorious profession of advocate is now debased by
notorious venality, and sells its miserable and abandoned tongue, buys litigation, dis-
solves legitimate marriages, breaks friendships, revives the ashes of sleeping disputes,
violates contracts, calls settlements into question, shatters legal traditions, and in set-
ting its nets and snares for the capture of money destroys all justice. . . . The lawyer
should give freely of what he has freely received, should plead for the orphan and
widow, for the good of the commonwealth, for the liberty of the Church, demanding
 T E C  I R A

nothing, undertaking obligations voluntarily, “delivering the poor from the hand of
them that are stronger than he; the needy and the poor from them that strip him.”152
As we shall see, this account of the lawyer’s failings has many echoes in contem-
porary popular views of lawyers. From the s into the early s, critics rang-
ing from Ralph Nader to Jimmy Carter excoriated lawyers for their cooptation by
the powerful and their deflection from the promotion of justice.153 In our time,
this “public justice” critique has abated, and has been displaced by prominent
attacks on lawyers as parasites subverting the economy.
Public dissatisfaction with the profession has its counterpart among lawyers
who bemoan the decline of their calling from true professionalism into com-
mercialism. Distress about the decline from a noble profession infused with civic
virtue to crass commercialism has been a staple of concern in legal circles in the
United States for over one hundred years.154 At the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury there was already a sense that the profession had fallen from its former high
estate and, by too close an embrace of business, had become merely a branch of
commerce. In  a law journal said the bar “has allowed itself to lose, in large
measure, the lofty independence, the genuine learning, the fine sense of profes-
sional dignity and honor. . . . For the past thirty years it has become increasingly
contaminated with the spirit of commerce which looks primarily to the financial
value and recompense of every undertaking.”155 Such admonitions multiplied in
the s, which saw a remarkable flowering of lament about the demise of pro-
fessional virtue.156 Both the lay public’s charge of economic predation and the
profession’s discomfort about commercialism reflect that sense of paradox or con-
tradiction that something as ineffable and “priceless” as justice is bought and sold.
  

Playmates of the Devil

Most of the jokes in the Discourse and Economic categories focus on some disagree-
able or outrageous behavior of lawyers, displaying some specific nasty trait, like
dishonesty, arrogance, greed, or disloyalty. But some sorts of lawyer jokes do not
detail specific items of nastiness; instead they summarize the lawyer’s shortcom-
ings in a judgment of general moral deficiency. The oldest and most widespread
of these are jokes about lawyers’ association with the devil, sin, hell, and irreligion.

T   D     ’ O  
The connection with the devil is proclaimed by the legend of St. Ives (Yves, Ivo,
Yvo, Evona; –, canonized in ), who was sent to paradise as ambassa-
dor of the Breton legal fraternity to petition God to grant the lawyers a patron
saint. After the heavenly archivist found no lawyers in the roll of saints1
C1 God said to him: “Maître Yves, as you observe, we cannot give you for patron a saint
who pleaded in his lifetime, but in order to show Our good will in the matter, you shall
go blindfolded along the passage where my saints have their statues, and you may there
select one of my Elect by placing your hand upon his image; that one, whether good or
indifferent . . . shall be your patron saint.”
Carrying out this command, the honest Breton tied a heavy bandage over his eyes,
and step by step, with arms extended, went down the passage, racking his brain for
some inspiration to guide him in making a suitable choice.
At last, with some hesitation, he came to a halt, and passing his hand over a head,
“Brow, bald and receding,” said he, “mouth cynical, this must surely be an attorney, if
indeed it is not a president or even a judge. Well, here goes! For better or for worse. I will
select him as the lawyer’s patron.”
Immediately an immense burst of laughter broke from the ranks of the Elect, who
through curiosity had come to assist at the ceremony. Yves de Kermartin, anxious to


  T E C  I R A

discover his choice, tore the bandage from his eyes, and with one glance at the statue
uttered a cry of dismay. It was worse than a president, it was much worse than a judge,
it was even much worse than an attorney; it was no less than . . . Satan. . . .
You ask, no doubt, how his Satanic Majesty came to be there. The reason is, that
Saint Michael is represented there, as on earth, overcoming the devil, and paring his
diabolical lordship’s claws. The Breton had mistaken the devil for an angel.
“Ah ! My poor man,” said God, “your luck has played you a bad turn this time. But
as I would not have such a patron to represent the Bar, especially the Bar of Brittany,
henceforth I enroll you among my Elect, and the lawyers will no longer be without a
patron.”
At that moment, it is said, the gentleman from Breton died at his home in Trequier,
the 19th day of May, 1303, and this is how . . . Saint Yves the glorious friend of God
became the lawyer’s patron saint.2

Tracing the origins of “the lawyer-devil type in English literature,” E. F. J.

Tucker finds “the major influence seems to stem from the morality drama of the
fifteenth century in which the legal profession is virtually always on the side of
vice.”3 The lawyer-devil equation became conventional by Shakespeare’s time.
Dean Swift, chiding lawyers for pleading wrongful causes, called them the devil’s
children.4
The devil connection was emphatically present in the early days of the Amer-
ican republic. Indeed the editor of an  book of jests complains of the inde-
cency and the “hackneyed character” of its predecessors, including the “standing
jest . . . [that] the doctor is in league with the undertaker, the attorney with the
devil,” and promises his readers a collection that “combine[s] wit and humour,
without indelicacy . . . [and] excite[s] pleasure in the mind, without leaving an
injurious impression on the heart.”5 The “standing jest” of which this editor
complained proved robust:
C2 A country attorney happened to be at a tavern with an honest peasant, and was very
facetious at the countryman’s expense. They nevertheless agreed to try for a bottle of
wine who could make the best rhyme. The lawyer enquired the peasant’s occupation,
who cheerfully informed him he was a weaver, upon which the lawyer wrote the lines:
The world, tho’ large, is but a span;
It takes nine weavers to make one man.
The weaver in his turn, enquired the lawyer’s occupation, and being informed:
“I thought,” said he, “you were of the law by the glibness of your tongue, but since
you have rhymed about the world, so will I too,” and then he wrote,
The world is wide, and full of evil
And half a lawyer makes a devil.6

A companion jest has remained unchanged since this  version.

C3 “Did you present your account to the defendant?” inquired a lawyer of his client.
“I did, sir.”
. A Lawyer and His Agent (BM c.). Smiling devil pays friendly visit to lawyer,
possibly admonishing him for overreaching in his wickedness.
  T E C  I R A

“And what did he say?”

“He told me to go to the devil.”
“And what did you do then?”
“Why, then, I came to you.”7

Not only were lawyers associated with the devil, but the latter was himself often
described as a lawyer, the grand master of the profession’s deceptive arts.

C2 A grave old country blade coming before a judge and taking his oath on a cause was
bade to have a care what he swore to, lest he went to the devil. “I fear not that,”
replied he, by way of retort, “for I have given him my oldest son, and he ought to be
content with one out of a family.” “How’s that?” says the judge; “Pray explain yourself.”
“Why, truly, I have made him a lawyer and you know the devil was a lawyer from the
beginning.”8

The exchange continues with the judge suggesting that the countryman means a
liar, but the witness responds that “we in the country know no difference between a
lawyer and a liar.”
The identification of the lawyer with the devil is far less ferocious than the
medieval identification of Jews with the devil. Medieval society shared a “general
conviction . . . of the Jew as an alien, evil, antisocial and antihuman creature,
essentially subhuman . . . and . . . answerable for the supreme crime of seeking
to destroy by every subversive technique the fruits of . . . Christian civilization.”9
In this cause he was “the devil’s associate, accepting his counsel and leadership,
actively cooperating with him as his terrestrial agent.”10 In an age when the devil’s
agency was credited as highly efficacious, the association was more than metaphor-
ical; the Jew was “sorcerer, murderer, cannibal, poisoner, blasphemer, the devil’s
disciple in all truth.”11
The identification of the lawyer with the devil, though it has its roots in the
same nexus of ideas, is more metaphoric than literal. The legend of St. Ives
involves an inadvertent embrace of a representation of Satan, not a deliberate
alliance with him. The medieval satirist who reproved money-hungry lawyers as
“no psalmists, but the harpists of Satan,” goes on to compare them with doctors
and whores who also follow the money.12 Although occasionally lawyers were
blamed for a host of social ills, the jokes suggest that they are accepted as a kind
of piquant side dish at the social feast, a relish that contributes a distinct flavor if
it lacks nutritive value and is likely to cause stomach distress. The lawyer is rarely
viewed as an active principle of evil to be eradicated. His wickedness, at least in
small doses, was tolerable and his antics a source of amusement. Law practice was
a stage in the downward journey, not its consummation.

C4 A small boy in an Austin, Texas Sunday school was asked: “Where do the wicked finally
go?” “They practice law a while and then they go to the Legislature,” was the reply of
that observant youth.13
 Playmates of the Devil 

H         H  
The sign of the lawyer’s moral standing is his postmortem destination. The traf-
fic between earthly and infernal stations is described in a story, popular in
nineteenth-century America, and still found in the U.K.:
C5 A gentleman in the country who had just buried a rich relation, who was an attorney,
was complaining to Foote, who happened to be on a visit to him, of the very great
expenses of a country funeral, in respect to carriages, hatbands, scarfs, etc. “Why, do you
bury attorneys here?” asked Foote gravely. “Yes, to be sure we do, how else?” “Oh, we
never do that in London.” “No!” said the other, much surprised; “how do you manage?”
“Why, when a patient happens to die, we lay him out in a room over night by himself,
lock the door, throw open the sash, and in the morning he is entirely off.” “Indeed!” said
the other in amazement. “What becomes of him?” “Why, that we can’t exactly tell, not
being acquainted with supernatural causes; all that we know of the matter is, there is a
strong smell of brimstone in the room the next morning.”14

A long series of jokes establish that many lawyers are to be found in hell and
few, if any, in heaven. Hell is on the lawyer’s itinerary. The lawyer’s work leads
there; it is a place where lawyers can penetrate and conduct operations:
C6 Two old codgers had become involved in a land dispute, and it was brought into the
county court to be decided. After a decision had been rendered by the county judge,
the losing farmer assailed the winner with:
“You may think you’re purty smart now, but this ain’t the end. I’m a-goin’ to law ye
to the district court about this.”
“When you do, I’ll be thar,” said the other complacently.
“And if I lose that, I’ll law ye to the supreme court of this state,” howled the loser.
“I’ll be thar when ye do,” said the other easily.
“And if I don’t get the decision there, I’ll law ye to the United States Supreme
Court.”
“I’ll be thar, too,” repeated the winner.
“And after that I’ll law ye to hell,” shrieked the other.
“That’s all right. My attorney will be there when ye do.”15

Will this lawyer make a special trip to hell, or is the client just relying on the fact
that he is fated to arrive there eventually?
C7 “What are you waiting for?” said a lawyer to an Indian, who had paid him money.
“Receipt,” said the Indian.
“A receipt,” said the lawyer, “a receipt! What do you know about a receipt? Can you
understand the nature of a receipt? Tell me the nature of one, and I will give it to you.”
“S’pose mabe me die; me go to heben; me find the gate locked; me see ‘postle
Peter; he say, ‘Indian, what you want?’ Me say, ‘Want to get in.’ He say, ‘You pay A that
money.’ What me do? I hab no receipt. Hab to hunt all over hell to find you.” He got his
receipt.16
. The Lawyer’s last Circuit (BM . Baker ?). Demons hail lawyer being carried off
by Death. The inscription reads: “In his Office with Writs and Parchments hung round /
Midst Letter and Lawsuits Old Justice was found / His eyeballs were sunk, whilst his hands
grasp’d his fees, / For Old Nick would no more be put off with sham Pleas, / On shelves
Bills in Chanc’ry were rang’d pile o’er pile, / With Demurrers, Decrees, and Injunctions to
file / But his Petition’s answer’d—his Orders are past / And Death’s struck a Docket against
him at last! / No more he’ll declare, or for Clients e’er plead, / Though Issue was join’d, his
Cause did not succeed, / His Counsel, ’twas plain, could not lend him relief, / Though
doubly he fee’d him—he threw up his Brief, / His false Witness heard—to gain time then he
try’d, / But Chief Justice Death a fresh Trial denied; / His Costs are all tax’d—final judgment
is past, / And Old Nick with a CA SA [writ to take into custody till the plaintiff’s claim is
satisfied] has got him at last, / The news through the regions of Pluto soon fled, / And on
Earth it was whisper’d “Old Justice was dead,” / Whilst thousands flock’d round, none
believing the tale, / ’Till they saw his poor Clients their sad loss bewail, / His Creditors
met—but soon clamorous grew, / For his Assents [sic] wouldn’t yield e’en the Devil his due,
/ To find him they swore—yet the road none could tell / Though ’tis said that the Lawyer’s
last Circuit’s to Hell.”
 Playmates of the Devil 

C8 A certain sharp attorney was said to be in bad circumstances. A friend of the

unfortunate lawyer met Douglas Jerrold, the English wit, and said, “Have you heard
about poor R? His business is going to the devil.”
“That’s all right—then he is sure to get it back again,” said Jerrold.17

If hell is not foreordained, the lawyer is certainly in danger of ending up there,

a result that inspires recent additions to this cycle:
C9 In Pittsburgh an M.D. was summoned to a courtroom where an attorney had had a
seizure. After examining his still form the doctor rose to go. “Is Lawyer Cobb out of dan-
ger?” asked the judge.
“He’s dead,” said the physician. “But I’m afraid he is far from being out of danger.”18

C10 As the lawyer slowly came out of the anesthesia after surgery, he said, “Why are all
the blinds drawn, doctor?”
“There’s a big fire across the street,” the doctor replied. “We didn’t want you to think
the operation had been a failure.”19

The lawyer population of hell is considerable according to a story often told as an

anecdote about various nineteenth-century notables, including Abraham Lincoln,
Ulysses S. Grant, and Lorenzo Dow. The story is still going strong after a century
and a half:
C11 Lorenzo Dow, an evangelist of the last century, was on a preaching tour when he
came to a small town one cold winter’s night. He entered the local general store to get
some warmth and saw the town’s lawyers gathered around the pot-bellied stove,
discussing the town’s business. Not one offered to allow Dow into the circle.
Dow told the men who he was and that he had recently had a vision where he had
been given a tour of Hell, much like the traveler in Dante’s Inferno. When one of the
lawyers asked him what he had seen, he replied, “Very much what I see here: all of the
lawyers, gathered in the hottest place.”20

The lawyers’ unfavorable position in the next world is a mirror image of the priv-
ileged position they arrogate to themselves in this one.
The abundance of lawyers in hell means that it is uniquely free of one of the
torments of life on earth, “the law’s delay.”
C12 Why does it take only two weeks to get a trial date in Hell? There are plenty of lawyers to
handle the load.21

But hell’s advantage is qualitative as well as quantitative. Hell is home to a great

concentration of legal talent:
C12 An attorney observed a boy about nine years of age, diverting himself at play, whose
eccentric appearance attracted his attention. “Come here my lad,” said he. The boy
accordingly came, and after chatting a bit, asked the attorney what case was to be tried
next. “A case between the Pope and the Devil,” (answered the attorney) “and which do
  T E C  I R A

you suppose will gain the action?” “I don’t know,” said the boy, “I guess ‘twill be a pretty
tight squeeze; the Pope has the most money, but the devil has the most lawyers.”22

This story faded away early in the last century, but was soon replaced by another
story of the devil as litigant:
C12 A scoffing young attorney came to a Rabbi and said: “Heaven and hell, you will
agree, are no doubt separated by a wall. Should this wall accidentally fall down, who, in
your opinion, would rebuild it? The righteous would insist that the wicked do it; the
latter would likely refuse the job. If this case should come up before a judge, which do
you think would emerge the winner?”
“It seems to me,” said the Rabbi, “that any fair-minded judge would render a verdict
against the wicked, since the likelihood is that the wall would crumple from the fires of
hell rather than from what is taking place in paradise. On the other hand I realize that
hell will surely contain a predominance of glib-tongued attorneys and I should therefore
not be surprised if they would win the case.”23

To the lawsuit between heaven and hell, this story adds an earthly contest between
religious authority and cynical lawyer that mirrors the celestial struggle. Another

. Cartoon by Mort Gerberg (© The New Yorker Collection , from cartoonbank.com.
All rights reserved.)
 Playmates of the Devil 

branch of the broken fence story dropped this frame and shifts the focus to the
absence of lawyers in heaven, a venerable theme.

A  H
In another telling of his legend, when St. Ives arrived at the entrance to paradise,
St. Peter tried to expel him: “A lawyer indeed! and what is that? such a calling is
quite unknown in the Divine Kingdom.”24
Lawyers have remained scarce in heaven to this day.
C13 A man who had a case in court said that if he lost it in the Common Pleas he would
appeal to the Supreme Court, and from there to the United States Court, and from there
to heaven. “Certainly, then,” replied a gentleman, “you will be defeated; for you will not
be present to answer for yourself, and no attorney is ever admitted there!”25

C13 In a lawsuit, between two members of the same church, counsel for one of the parties
suggested that the brethren ought to defer their differences for adjustment to the higher
court above; to which the client responded that the same idea had occurred to him, but
there seemed to be an insuperable obstacle in the way—he couldn’t contrive any way to
get his lawyer there.26

But lawyers are resourceful and difficult to control:

C13 There is a pleasant story of a lawyer who, being refused entrance into heaven by St.
Peter, contrived to throw his hat inside the door; and then, being permitted by the kind
saint to go in and fetch it, took advantage of the latter’s fixture as doorkeeper to refuse
to come back again.27

Subsequently St. Peter adjusted his standards to deal with lawyers:

C13 Recently a teacher, a garbage collector, and a lawyer wound up together at the Pearly
Gates. St. Peter informed them that in order to get into Heaven, they would each have to
answer one question. St. Peter addressed the teacher and asked, “What was the name of
the ship that crashed into the iceberg? They just made a movie about it.” The teacher
answered quickly, “That would be the Titanic.” St. Peter let him through the gate. St.
Peter turned to the garbage man and, figuring Heaven didn’t REALLY need all the odors
that this guy would bring with him, decided to make the question a little harder: “How
many people died on the ship?” Fortunately for him, the trash man had just seen the
movie and answered, “about 1,500.” “That’s right? You may enter.” St. Peter then
turned to the lawyer. “Name them.”28

C14 While a number of lawyers and gentlemen were dining in Wiscasset, a few days since,
a jolly son of the Emerald Isle appeared and called for dinner. The landlord told him he
should dine when the gentlemen were done.
“Let him in among us,” whispered a limb of the law,” and we will have some fun
with him.”
The Irishman took a seat at the table.
  T E C  I R A

“You was not born in this country?” said one.

“No, sir, I was born in Ireland.”
“Is your father living?”
“No sir, he’s dead.”
“What is your occupation?”
“A horse jockey, sir.”
“What was your father’s occupation?”
“Trading horses.”
“Did your father ever cheat anyone while here?”
“I suppose he did cheat many, sir.”
“Where do you suppose he went?”
“To heaven, sir.”
“Has he cheated anyone there?”
“He has cheated one, I believe, sir.”
“Why did they not prosecute him?”
“Because they searched the whole kingdom of Heaven, and couldn’t find a lawyer.”29

All of these seem to have fallen out of the joke corpus, the last one after a suc-
cessful hundred-year run. But the thought lives on in more contemporary vehi-
cles. The following story (obviously a cousin of the rabbinic story related in the
last section) has been extremely popular over the past sixty or so years.
C15 Once upon a time, so the story goes, the fence broke down between HEAVEN and
HELL. St. Peter appeared at the broken section of the fence and called out to the devil . . .
”Hey, Satan, it’s your turn to fix it this time.”
“Sorry,” replied the boss of the lower regions. “My men are too busy to go about
fixing a mere fence.”
“Well, then,” scowled St. Peter, “I’ll have to sue you for breaking our agreement.”
“Oh yeah,” echoed the devil, “WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO GET A LAWYER?”30

After being firmly crystallized for half a century, a new version suddenly appeared
in :
C15 An engineer died and went to heaven. St. Peter looked at his computer printout and
said, “I’m sorry, your name isn’t here. The down elevator is to the right,” and so, the
engineer went to hell.
He found hell to be everything it was supposed to be. It was hot and dirty; it
didn’t have plumbing. It was terrible. So he got himself a corner office and started
working.
Before long they had air conditioning, running water, electricity, cars, dishwashers,
the whole works. It got so good there, God heard about it. God said to his secretary,
“Get me Lucifer on the phone.” In a minute she said, “The Devil on line two.” God
picked up the phone and said, “God here. What’s this I hear about your fixing the
place up and starting to compete directly with me. You’re disregarding our original
agreement.”
 Playmates of the Devil 

The Devil says, “I know; it didn’t start out that way. I got this engineer down here,
and things just got out of hand.”
God says, “Yeah, I heard about him; he’s one of Pete’s screw-ups. He’s supposed to
be up here. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You send him up to me and put the place back the
way it was by the end of the month, and we’ll forget all about it. If not, I’m going to sue.”
The Devil laughs and says, “Where in heaven are you going to find a lawyer?”31

The shortage of lawyers in heaven not only impairs the enforcement of divine
rights, but restricts the provision of services to the inhabitants:
C16 A devout couple were about to get married when a tragic car accident ended their
lives. When they got to Heaven they asked St. Peter if he could arrange for them to be
married, since it was what they’d hoped for in life. He thought about it and agreed but
said they’d have to wait.
About 100 years later, they discovered that, perhaps, it would be better not to spend
all eternity together. They returned to St. Peter and said, “We thought we’d be happy
forever but now believe we have irreconcilable differences. Is there any way we can get
divorced?”
“Are you kidding?” said St. Peter. “It took me 100 years to get a priest up here to
marry you. I’ll never get a lawyer.”32

The lawyer element here is a recent addition that supplements or in some cases
supplants the much older story about the inability to find a clergyman in heaven.33
The absence of lawyers in heaven, we saw, formed part of the legend of St.
Yves. Like the lawyer who entered by the hat trick, he proved hard to dislodge:
C17 Dying, [Yves] presented himself at the gate of paradise in a train of many nuns. Of these
St. Peter demanded: “Who are you?” “Nun.” “Enter then; heaven is full of your sisters.”
Then addressing himself to St. Yves: “and you?” “Lawyer.” “Come in; we have never had
till now a man of the law.” St. Yves found his way in all right, but a day arose when there
was a pettifogging inquiry into his title deeds, and the effort was made to expel him
from paradise. “I will not resist,” said the saint, “but it is necessary that service of the
writ of my expulsion shall be made upon me by a bailiff.” Needless to say, the legend
concludes, they were never able to find a bailiff in heaven.34

The arrival of the first lawyer in heaven disrupts the association of rewards
with deserts:
C17 A priest, a doctor and a lawyer are killed in a bus crash and all arrive at heaven
together. The priest is just awed. Heaven is really heavenly. The streets are lined with
mansions and paved with gold.
St. Peter puts his arm around the priest and says, “Michael, it’s wonderful to have
another priest here. Come, I’ll show you your new home.”
Nestled on a grassy knoll is a charming cottage. Roses grow over the doorway and
birds sing in the surrounding trees. “It’s everything I ever wanted,” says the priest. “May I
continue on with you to see where my friends are going to live?”
  T E C  I R A

“Certainly,” says St. Peter. The sun is shining, flowers are blooming and the air is fresh
and clean. As they progress, the lawns and gardens get more magnificent and the houses
more palatial.
Stopping before a forty-room mansion, St. Peter says, “Dr. Bob, you have spent your
life caring for your fellow man and this home, with twelve bathrooms, fifteen fireplaces
and a staff of twenty is yours for eternity. You need never work again.”
“Thank you,” says Dr. Bob. “I am a little tired after my life’s work. I think I’ll take a
short nap.”
St. Peter, the lawyer, and the priest walk on, and the neighborhood continues to
improve. Rounding a bend, they see a magnificent mansion on a knoll, surrounded by a
garden of blooming flowers. The priest wonders if the mansion might be the home of
one of the saints, or even of the Lord Himself.
As they mount the marble stairs to the front door, St. Peter says to the lawyer, “Son,
this is your eternal home.”
The attorney nods, and without saying a word, opens the door. The priest catches a
glimpse of a hallway paved with lapis lazuli and gold, and as the lawyer disappears
inside, St. Peter shouts after him, “If you want anything, just pick up the red phone. It’s
connected to my office. And if, for any reason, I’m unable to satisfy your needs, use the
white phone. It’s a direct line to God.”
As they walk away, the priest is lost in thought.
“Do you mind if I ask a question,” he says.
“Go right ahead,” replies St. Peter.
“Well, I don’t mean to complain,” says the priest, “but I’d like to know why that
lawyer deserves more of a reward than Dr. Bob or myself.”
“That’s easy,” says St. Peter, “We get a lot of priests, and a few doctors, but that man
was our first lawyer.”35

This is the lawyer version of an old tale about the arrival of a rich man in heaven
which provokes song and dance because of the rarity of such an event.36 It has also
been applied to such suspect categories as admiral, senator, congressman, doctor,
sales manager, and jazz musician.37 But since , when it first appeared as a
lawyer joke, it has been predominantly told about lawyers. The rarity of lawyers
confers on them a kind of prodigal son celebrity. Their mere presence elicits a spe-
cial solicitude that provokes resentment among those whose rectitude and deserv-
ingness are habitual and predictable.

A K        T    W   
Since their postmortem prospects are so unpromising, it is not surprising that
lawyers seek to make the best of it here.
C18 William Nibbs was a South Carolina lawyer of ordinary standing, but is remembered
as having said one good thing. He had managed a case successfully for the Rev. Mr. Lilly,
and called for his fee. Mr. Lilly jestingly replied, “Why, Mr. Nibbs, I thought you
gentlemen of the bar were not in the habit of charging us ministers for your services.”
 Playmates of the Devil 

“Ah! With regard to that,” said Mr. Nibbs, “you look for your reward in the next
world; we lawyers expect ours in this.”38

More than a century later, the changes are minor:

C18 The priest settled into a chair in the lawyer’s office.
“Is it true,” said the priest, “that your firm does not charge members of the clergy?”
“I’m afraid you’re misinformed,” said the attorney. “People in your profession can
look forward to a reward in the next world, but we lawyers have to take our reward in
this one.”39

Is the implication that the lawyer will experience punishment rather than
reward in the next world? Or just that he is skeptical whether reward is to be
expected beyond the world at hand? Although many features of the law have
religious roots and some lawyers regard the practice of law as an expression of
religious mission or calling, the joke corpus portrays the lawyer as, at best, very
much of this world.40 This tension has been long noted by Christian thinkers
whose view of the practice of law was summed up in the proverb, “Bonus jurista,
malus Christista” (a good lawyer is a bad Christian).41
The contrast between the lawyer and the follower of Christ is dramatized in
an old and still popular story:
C19 An old farmer was on his deathbed. He requested that two lawyers from a neighboring
town be sent for. When they came he motioned them to take seats, one on each side of
the bed. He looked from one to the other for a few moments, and then with his last
breath exclaimed: “I die content, like my Savior, between two thieves.”42

The sense of opposition between the law and religion is displayed in these old
stories:
C20 “Don’t you want to be a Christian?” a Sunday-school teacher asked one of the
members of her class.
“No, ma’am,” was the ready response. “My papa wants me to be a lawyer.”43

C20 A prominent figure in the legal world has recalled a conversation of his student days
with a North Country farmer who was interested enough to ask if he was studying for
the ministry.
“Oh, no,” replied the student, “I’m not going to be a minister I’m going to be a
lawyer.”
“Man, man,” said the farmer, with a slow shake of the head, “Jist the opposite!”44

Especially in jokes that circulate among lawyers, the law is efficacious, while
religion is ineffectual or too remote to address the realm of earthly well-being and
justice entrusted to the lawyer.
C21 In a case of an assault by a husband on his wife, the injured woman was reluctant to
prosecute and give her evidence. “I’ll have him to God, me lord,” she cried. “Oh, dear,
no,” said the judge; “it’s far too serious a matter for that.”45
  T E C  I R A

In these jokes, skepticism about the efficacy of religious actors, ceremonies, and
God himself is typically articulated not by lawyers but by judges, the godly
authorities of the earthly legal order. In yet another version of the oath story (A),
when a child witness responds that if she doesn’t tell the truth she will go to hell,
the judge says “Let her be sworn . . . she knows more than I do.”46
C22 A colored man at Marshalltown, Iowa, was brought into the Justice Court. Despite
the efforts of his attorney the offender was bound over to await the action of the Grand
Jury. When court convened the negro’s counsel was not present. The case was called and
the judge asked the defendant if he had an attorney.
“Well, suh, I had one,” he said, looking, “but I ain’t seen him since I was done up
before the Justice, an’ I guess he’s done absconded, suh.”
“Well, do you wish to employ another attorney?” asked the Court.
“No, suh,” was the answer. “I ain’t got no money. I’se willin’ to let God Almighty look
after my case.”
“The Court will appoint a lawyer to assist your counsel,” was the reply from the
bench.47

C23 A defendant who had been convicted of murder was before the court for sentencing.
As usual, the judge asked if he had anything to say before the sentence was pronounced.
The defendant said:
“As God is my judge, I didn’t do it. I’m not guilty.” To which the judge replied:
“He isn’t, I am. You did. You are.”48

In the same vein,

C22 A judge . . . in sentencing a prisoner to death, observed: “Prisoner at the bar, you will
soon have to appear before another, and perhaps a better judge.”49

Similarly, it was reported that an Irish judge admonished a witness “you may
think to deceive God, sir, but you can’t deceive me.”50
A newly emerged story suggests that where religious counsel is efficacious it is
because it leads to action in the realm of secular legality.
C24 Wilfred Benton was an active layperson at the Grace Presbyterian Church. He went to see
his minister, Carl Wattling, for advice. Wilfred complained that he was severely
depressed—business was bad, his wife had left him, the bill collectors were after him,
and he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
The minister gave him what solace he could, then said “Go home, pick up the Bible
and open it at random. Ask the Lord for guidance. Then read the first two words you see.
They will provide the advice you need for your situation.”
“Just the first two words I happen to see?” repeated Wilfred.
“That’s right,” said the pastor.
Pastor Wattling did not hear from Wilfred for several months. Then one day while in
town, the minister saw Wilfred drive up in a Rolls Royce. He got out of the car with a
 Playmates of the Devil 

beautiful young woman on his arm. The minister walked up to him and said “Well, I see
your situation has changed. You look very prosperous.”
“Yes,” replied the man. “I took your advice, went home, opened the Bible at random
and read the first two words.”
“Well, what were the two words that served you so well?” asked the minister.
“Chapter Eleven,” replied Wilfred.51

The relative authority of law and religion is explicitly addressed in the follow-
ing story.
C25 Two ladies once had a dispute as to which was the most influential, the clergy or the
bench.
“I think the bench is the most influential,” said one, “because the Judge can say:
‘You shall be hanged.’”
“But,” said the other, “the clergyman can say: ‘You shall be damned.’”
“Ah, yes,” said the first, “but when the Judge says, ‘You shall be hanged’ you are
hanged.”52

The primacy of earthly law has an echo in the Jewish tradition in the famous
talmudic story of Akhnai’s oven, in which the rabbis, debating the fitness of a
particular style of oven, uphold rule by a majority of jurists over God’s direct
intervention.
C22 Supp. We have been taught: Say a man made an oven out of separate coils [of clay, placing
one upon another], then put sand between each of the coils—such an oven, R. Eliezer
declared, is not susceptible to defilement, while the sages declared it susceptible. The
oven discussed was the oven of Akhnai—“snake” [so called because it precipitated
arguments as numerous as the coils of a snake].
It is taught: On that day R. Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument, but
the sages did not accept any of them. Finally he said to them, “If the Halakhah [binding
law] agrees with me, let this carob tree prove it!” Sure enough, the carob tree was
uprooted [and replanted] a hundred cubits away from its place. “No proof can be
brought from a carob tree,” they retorted.
Again he said to them, “If the Halakhah agrees with me, let the channel of water
prove it!” Sure enough, the channel of water flowed backward. “No proof can be
brought from a channel of water,” they rejoined.
Again he urged, “If the Halakhah agrees with me, let the walls of the house of study
prove it!” Sure enough, the walls tilted as if to fall. But R. Joshua rebuked the walls,
saying, “When disciples of the wise are engaged in halakhic dispute, what right have
you to interfere?” Hence, in deference to R. Joshua they did not fall, and in deference to
R. Eliezer they did not resume their upright position; they are still standing aslant.
Again R. Eliezer said to the sages, “If the Halakhah agrees with me, let it be proved
from heaven!” Sure enough, a divine voice cried out, “Why do you dispute R. Eliezer,
with whom the Halakhah always agrees?” But R. Joshua stood up and protested, “‘It [the
Torah] is not in heaven’ (Deut. 30: 12). We pay no attention to a divine voice, because
 T E C  I R A

long ago, at Mount Sinai, You wrote in the Torah, ‘After the majority must one incline’
(Exod. 23: 2)”.
[Subsequently] R. Nathan met [the prophet] Elijah and asked him, “What did the
Holy One do in that moment?” Elijah: “He laughed [with joy], saying, ‘My sons have
defeated Me, My sons have defeated Me.’”53

The coda presents God as amused at the usurpers. There is no report that the
Christian god is similarly entertained by his displacement from the legal world.
There are lawyers who are religious,54 but they are entirely absent from the joke
corpus. In the jokes the lawyer stands apart from religion. He is worldly and un-
impressed with religion rather than actively opposed to it. But his responsibilities

. Cartoon by Frank Cotham (© , from cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.)
 Playmates of the Devil 

and ambitions put him at cross-purposes with those who see life as preparation
for the hereafter.
For many centuries the man of religion was the single most frequent target
of jokes. When religion was the most prominent source of order and meaning
in people’s lives, joking about priests or preachers was a way of expressing doubts
and anxieties about that order and meaning. Now that law has moved to a more
central position and rivals where it does not displace religion as a source of order
and meaning, the jokes more frequently target lawyers as surrogates for our am-
bivalence about the increasingly secularized and legalized world.
Overall, the ascent of lawyers has been part of the desacralization of the world.
Tracing the role of lawyers in early modern European culture, William Bouwsma
concludes:
Lawyers represented the growing assumption that life in the world is only tolerable
when it is conceived as a secular affair and that the world’s activities must be con-
ducted according to manageable principles of their own rather than in subordina-
tion to some larger definition of the ultimate purpose of existence. By applying this
assumption to solve the constantly changing problems of their societies lawyers were,
in a manner far more effective than that of any abstract philosopher, the supreme sec-
ularizers of their world.
. . . The lawyer[’s] . . . role was to foresee and provide against as many as possible
of the dangers that might lie ahead, and thus it reflected both distrust of the future
and, at the same time, some confidence in the ability of men to plan ahead and to con-
trol the unfolding of their earthly lives. . . . [R]esort to lawyers implied the reverse of
fatalism.55
Not only was the law drained of its supernatural connections, but it became an
agency for secularizing other sectors of social life:
By imposing their own secularism on the machinery of social life, they helped to
accustom their contemporaries to think in secular terms, thus contributing in a fun-
damental way to the secularization of every other dimension of human concern.56
  

Conflict
Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife

E         I            C           
Lawyers have long been associated with discord and strife. They are frequently
portrayed as aggressive, competitive hired guns, unprincipled mercenaries who
foment strife, prolong conflict, and promote disorder by encouraging individual
self-serving and self-assertion rather than cooperative problem solving.
Lawyers are also thought to be naturally argumentative. Just as children with
an inclination to lie are steered toward legal careers, so are those who are con-
tentious and intrusive:
D1 “What profession is your boy going to select?”
“I’m going to educate him to be a lawyer. He’s naturally argumentative and bent on
mixing into other people’s troubles, and he might just as well get paid for his time.”1

Because it is ingrained, the lawyer’s combativeness is reflexive and often

pointless:
D2 “It is my understanding that you called on the plaintiff,” stated Counselor Lutkin.
“I did,” replied the witness.
“What did he say?”
The prosecutor leapt to his feet and slammed down his book, vehemently objecting
to the question. He denounced the question as irrelevant, misleading, and tending to
incriminate an entirely innocent party. He accused Lutkin of using illegal tactics, and of
being a wholly immoral person, guilty of malicious practices by daring to try to introduce
such testimony. He continued, questioning the legitimacy of Lutkin’s birth, the decency
of his mother, and the marital conduct of his wife.
Lutkin, boiling with rage, jumped for the prosecutor’s throat, and court attendants
were forced to subdue the two antagonists, but not before they’d bloodied each other’s
noses and blackened each other’s eyes.


. A Cheap Beating (BM  Cruikshank ). Barrister punches tailor.
  T E C  I R A

The judge, after restoring order, ruled that Lutkin would repeat the question and
directed the witness to answer.
The court fell into a deep silence, waiting to hear the crucial testimony.
Wiping blood from his upper lip, Lutkin said, “I repeat, then: What did he say?”
The witness answered, “He didn’t say anything. He wasn’t home.”2

Lawyers may be criticized for insufficient as well as excessive combativeness,

recalling the observation that the qualities for which lawyers are despised are close
to the ones for which they are esteemed. Here the lawyer is reproached for failure
to be as aggressive and demanding as the client would like:
D3 Her lawyer phoned Mrs. Gitkin and said excitedly, “I told you when I took your
divorce case that I would rather avoid lengthy litigation and try to make an out-of-court
settlement. Well, I’ve just concluded a meeting with your husband’s attorney and we
have worked out a settlement that, I believe, is eminently fair to both of you!”
“Fair to both!” exploded Mrs. Gitkin. “For that, I had to hire a lawyer! That I could
have done myself!”3

. The Learned A___s or a legal Construction of Rogues and Vagrants (BM 
?B. Heath ). Two barristers fight with umbrellas, based on an  incident involving
opposing counsel in a case involving the construction of the Police Act regarding vagrants,
rogues and vagabonds.
 Conflict: Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife 

The lawyer’s failure to live up to the role of being zealous champion and hard-
ball negotiator on behalf of the client is an instance of what Richard Raskin in his
analysis of Jewish jokes calls “role fiasco.”4 Perhaps beneath the surface there is a hint
of exemplary deviance—the lawyer’s departure from the client’s stereotype may be
in the client’s best interest—at least if that interest lies in achieving a resolution
rather than punishing the opponent.5 But the client’s discontent in this story catches
something important in the behavior of lawyers and client perceptions of it. Con-
trary to the popular myth of lawyers as unrelentingly contentious and combative,
there is evidence that lawyers often “cool out” clients, advise them against aggressive
moves, counsel compromise and conciliation, and downplay adversary combat.
Studying the application of a new statute favorable to consumers, Stewart Macaulay
found that for the most part lawyers acted as mediators rather than aggressive cham-
pions.6 In a much cited  article entitled “The Practice of Law as a Confidence
Game,” Abraham Blumberg indicted criminal defense lawyers for allowing them-
selves to become coopted by the court organization, so that they became “double
agent[s]” cynically manipulating their clients.7 Austin Sarat and William Felstiner
observed divorce lawyers undermining their clients’ drive to adversary trial. The
method of disposition was raised early and often and “in those conversations the
lawyers’ message is overwhelmingly pro-settlement. They consistently emphasize
the advantages of informal as opposed to formal resolution. Adjudication is pre-
sented in an unfavorable light, as an alternative to be avoided.”8 In each of these
instances we see lawyers for individual one-shot litigants disappointing their cli-
ents’ expectations of untrammeled advocacy by a zealous champion. Fair to both
reflects both the client’s disappointment with the lawyer who seems insufficiently
adversarial and the lawyer’s exasperation with the client who craves a shooting war.
If lawyers are valued for pursuing conflict on behalf of individual clients, their
prowess in contention makes us uneasy, for once let loose the conflict they engen-
der is a destructive force, threatening social order.

D4 Three professional men . . . were debating the advantages and disadvantages of their
respective professions in terms of what they do for society. They consisted of a physician,
an architect and a lawyer. Since each of them could propound many reasons why they
were valuable to society, the discussion, although animated, gradually stalemated.
Eventually the physician broke the stalemate by suggesting divine origin for his
profession. After all, the first successful surgery is talked about very early in the Book of
Genesis when the Lord takes Adam’s rib and creates Eve. The architect was not to be out-
done. He also claimed divine origin for his profession and said that his divine origin was
even pre-eminent because even before this initial surgery, there was first chaos and
confusion. Then the Lord created heaven and earth and formed the sun, the moon and
the stars, and in this act of creation there was architecture. So his was the most pre-
eminent profession. The lawyer was bewildered; what could he say? Never at a loss for
words, however, he piped up very quickly, and said: “Who do you think was responsible
for the chaos and confusion?”9
  T E C  I R A

This story is now firmly established as a lawyer joke, but that is a new devel-
opment in its career. It starts out in the s as a joke about communists and is
soon told about politicians generally.10 In a number of early renditions, the first
professional in the series is an American lawyer, who argues, “Man would never
have survived the first days of creation if he hadn’t had a few laws to govern
him.”11 Politicians have remained the target in Britain, Australia, and India, but
in the United States lawyers joined politicians in the public imagination as figures
capable of unleashing powerful forces of disorder.12 The course of this turnabout
is revealed by the timing and the provenance of the version recounted above, one
of the very first in print in which the lawyer has moved to the final position as
author of chaos. It was told at a conference in London on product liability, by a
lawyer from New York who reported that the story was “making the rounds in the
United States,” and he segues into his topic by noting that “chaos and confusion”
can be found “right here in product liability law.”13 This is , just at the cul-
mination of the first product liability insurance crisis, at the very crux of the turn
against law, or at least against the expansion of legal remedy, by America’s legal and
business elites. During the preceding year Chief Justice Warren Burger’s Pound
Conference had pronounced American law dangerously overextended, and the
terms “tort reform” and “alternative dispute resolution” entered our vocabulary.14

P           C      
The joke corpus unreservedly subscribes to the observation that “lawyers have
an economic interest in generating and prolonging conflict.”15 Not only do law-
yers reap advantage from others’ conflicts and troubles, but they require them to
prosper:
D5 At a revival meeting, a young lawyer was called upon to deliver a prayer. Totally
unprepared, he got to his feet, and these words tumbled out: “Oh, Lord, stir up much
strife amongst thy people lest Thy humble servant perish.”16

The lawyer joke corpus is rich in depictions of lawyers as impresarios of conten-

tion, who manage to benefit from the conflict they instigate.
D6 “Father,” asked the little son, “what is a lawyer?”
“A lawyer? Well, my son, a lawyer is a man who gets two men to strip for a fight and
then runs off with their clothes.”17

The very presence of lawyers, and particularly their confrontation with one
another promotes strife:
D7 There was a small town with just one lawyer and he was starving for lack of business.
Then another lawyer moved to town and they both prospered.

D7 A small town that can’t support one lawyer can always support two.18

The eagerness of lawyers to promote conflict is codified and stigmatized in

jokes about their connection with ambulances. The term “ambulance chaser” was
 Conflict: Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife 

current by .19 But although Conflict jokes frequently depict the personal in-
jury lawyer, jokes about ambulances do not appear in print until somewhat later.
D8 Two attorneys, one decidedly glum of countenance, met on the street.
“Well, how’s business?” the first asked of the dismal one.
“Rotten!” the pessimist replied. “I just chased an ambulance twelve miles and found a
lawyer in it.”20

D8 Did you hear about the lawyer who was so successful he had his own ambulance?21

D8 My lawyer had a bad accident.

An ambulance backed over him.22

Conversely, an insurance man in a state that enacted no-fault auto insurance was
reported to have quipped:
D8 Things have gotten so bad for an attorney friend of mine with the new setup, he has had
to sell his ambulance.23

Once there is conflict, the lawyer cynically protracts and enlarges it in pursuit
of gain.
D9 Two friends, who hadn’t seen each other for some time, met. One was on crutches.
“Hello,” said the other man. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Streetcar accident,” said the man on crutches.
“When did it happen?”
“Oh, about six weeks ago.”
“And you still have to use crutches?”
“Well, my doctor says I could get along without them, but my lawyer says I can’t.”24

More generally, some stories point directly to the role of the lawyer in “con-
structing” the clients’ injury.
D10 “Are you badly injured?”
“Can’t tell till I see my lawyer!”25

Recently, the injured party has acquired medical credentials.

D10 A car ran through a stop sign at an intersection and rammed into the side of another
car. The errant driver quickly rushed over to the disabled vehicle and saw that the driver’s
door was open and the driver was sprawled on the pavement.
“Are you all right?” the first driver asked, observing that the man was slowly getting
to his feet and brushing off his clothes.
“How should I know?” retorted the angry driver. “I’m a doctor, not a lawyer.”26

Of course, the lawyer is expected to favor litigation rather than amiable reso-
lution, but his motives may be more complex. The proclivity to litigate is both
depicted and mocked in an old story, attributed to Joseph Choate, who was report-
edly fond of telling this story as a lesson for those with a leaning toward litigation.
  T E C  I R A

D11 “It’s this way,” explained the client. “The fence runs between Brown’s place and
mine. He claims that I encroach on his land, and I insist that he is trespassing on mine.
Now, what would you do if you were in my place?”
Lawyer: “If I were in your place, I’d go over and give Brown a cigar, have a drink with
him, and settle the controversy in ten minutes. But, as things are, I advise you to sue him
by all means. Let no arrogant, domineering, insolent pirate like Brown trample on your
sacred rights! Assert your manhood and courage. I need the money!”27

T   C         C      
Stories like those in the previous section that locate the impetus to exaggerate the
injury in the lawyer were at one time greatly outnumbered by stories of conniv-
ing claimants who seize the opportunity to “construct” or magnify an actionable
injury.
D12 A New York lawyer tells of an old and well-to-do farmer in Dutchess county who had
something of a reputation as a litigant.

. Cartoon by Jerry Marcus (© , from cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.)
 Conflict: Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife 

On one occasion this old chap made a trip to see his lawyers with reference to a law-
suit he intended to bring. He sat down with one of them and laid out his plan at great
length. The lawyer said: “On that statement you have no case at all.” The old fellow
hitched his trousers nervously, twitched his face, and hastily added:
“Well, I can tell it another way.”28

D12 The late Thomas B. Reed used to tell this story of an enterprising client by whom he was
retained to prosecute an action. On talking with the plaintiff’s witnesses, Mr. Reed found
that their stories were far from consistent, so he reported the fact to his client, and
advised that the suit be dropped. The client was somewhat perturbed, but told the attor-
ney he would have a talk with the witnesses and let him know next morning what he
had decided to do. True to his word he dropped in bright and early wearing the cheerful
look of one who has fought the good fight. “I’ve seen those witnesses,” he exclaimed,
“and they say they must have been mistaken.”29

These stories of fabrication of evidence in the litigation context are matched

by stories of fabrication and exaggeration of injury.
D13 “Did ye get damages fer being in that railway accident, Bill?”
“Sure; fifty dollars for me and fifty fer the missus.”
“The missus? I didn’t hear she was hurt.”
“She wasn’t; but I had the presence o’ mind to fetch her one on the head with me
foot.”30

D13 Levi’s son Abe was in a train going from Boston to New York; the train got wrecked, and
about five hundred killed and wounded, but Abe escaped without a scratch. So he
telegraphed home to his father and told him of his good luck in escaping from injury.
When his father got the telegram he was wild, and exclaimed: “Abe in a railroad accident
and not hurt! He must be crazy!” So he sent back this message: “Dear Abe, go and hire
some Irish bummer to break your face—we must get some damages.”31

D14 Ikey came upon a crowd at the crossing, the wreckage of an automobile and two
men gasping on the ground.
“Vat was it; an engine?” he asked one of the victims.
“Yes,” he answered feebly.
“Did they blow der whistle?”
“No.”
“Did dey ring the bell?”
“No.”
“Has der claim-agent been here yet?”
“No.”
“Do you mind if I lie down here mit you?”32

Fake victim jokes reflect public awareness of accident faking for purposes of
gain, an undertaking that descended from earlier schemes that accompanied the
rise of fire and life insurance. Faking of accidents to collect compensation is a
. Litigation (BM  Landseer c.). “A sudden thought strikes me!” Fashionable ape
client conveys his sudden inspiration to ape barrister. (The conniving claimant of another
day!) The inscription, from Pope, reads: “In such a cause, the Plaintiff will be hiss’d, / ‘My
Lord,’—The Judges laugh—& ‘you’re dismiss’d.’”
 Conflict: Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife 

distinctively American contribution which arose in the last quarter of the nine-
teenth century. When faking flourished in the early years of the twentieth century,
it was often associated in the public mind with Jews. Joke D depicts what Ken
Dornstein in his book Accidentally, on Purpose describes as a prevalent type of
fraud involving professional accident fakers or just random passersby who would
insert themselves into genuine trolley accidents and then pretend to be injured.
He recounts an early instance of “this basic, unorganized fraud” in the aftermath
of an  trolley accident in the Italian Market section of South Philadelphia.
Under the headline “Foreigners Feign Trolley Injuries” the Philadelphia Press
reported that when two trolley cars collided: “The glass in both cars was broken
and the passengers were thrown from their seats to the floor. . . . Within two or
three minutes, the wrecked cars were filled with a crowd of men, all of whom
appeared to have received some injury. But as there were several times as many
of the injured as there had been passengers in both cars, the trolley men did not
give them any encouragement and tried to put them off the cars. The foreigners
resisted, and a lively fight was breeding when a couple of policemen appeared and
drove the foreigners off.”33 Accident faking appeared on the scene at the same time
as, and was often confused with, ambulance chasing by lawyers.
Even if the injury is genuine, it may be the basis for malingering:
D15 “When will your father’s leg be well so he can come to work?”
“Not for a long time, I think.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause compensation’s set in.”34

The malingering theme has recently reappeared in a new joke:

D16 [Jesus walked into a bar.] He approached three sad-faced gentlemen at a table, and
greeted the first one: “What’s troubling you, brother?” he said. “My eyes. I keep getting
stronger and stronger glasses, and I still can’t see.” Jesus touched the man, who ran
outside to tell the world about his now 20–20 vision. The next gentleman couldn’t hear
Jesus’ question, so The Lord just touched his ears, restoring his hearing to perfection. This
man, too, ran out the door, probably on the way to the audiologist to get a hearing-aid
refund. The third man leapt from his chair and backed up against the wall, even before
Jesus could greet him. “Don’t you come near me, man! Don’t touch me!” he screamed.
“I’m on disability.”35

Not all victims are connivers, however. Some victims, especially ethnic and
racial outsiders, may be so naive or intimidated that they perceive themselves as
targets of claims rather than as claimants.
D17 Up in Minnesota Mr. Olsen had a cow killed by a railroad train. In due season the
claim agent for the railroad called.
“We understand, of course, that the deceased was a very docile and valuable
animal,” said the claim agent in his most persuasive claim-a[gent] gentlemanly manner,
  T E C  I R A

“and we sympathize with you and your family in your loss. But, Mr. Olsen, you must
remember this: Your cow had no business being upon our tracks. Those tracks are our
private property and when she invaded them, she became a trespasser. Technically
speaking, you, as her owner, became a trespasser also. But we have no desire to carry
the issue into court and possibly give you trouble. Now then, what would you regard as
a fair settlement between you and the railroad company?”
“Vall,” said Mr. Olsen slowly, “Ay bane poor Swede farmer, but Ay shall give you two
dollars.”36

And not all connivers are claimants. Potential defendants may engage in denial,
ruses, or intimidation to avoid liability:
D17 After standing in front of the store for several minutes, seemingly undecided what to
do, he entered and asked for the proprietor, and then began:
“My ole woman was gwine ‘long yere las’ night an’ fell down on your sidewalk and
busted her elbow.”
“Ah! Well, being you are a poor man I’ll make the charges as light as possible!”
“But dat hain’t de case, sah. A lawyer tells me that you is ‘sponsible fur dat slippery
sidewalk, an’ dat I kin git damages.”
“Exactly; but you don’t understand the matter. In the first place you must fee your
lawyer and put up for court expenses. Then you prove that I own the sidewalk. Then you
prove that your wife was not guilty of contributory negligence. Then you prove that your
wife didn’t bust her elbow by falling down stairs. Then I appeal the case and the higher
court grants a new trial. By that time your wife and her busted elbow are dead and
buried, and you are married again, and you offer to settle for five pounds of brown sugar.”
“Fo’ de Lawd! but has I got to wade frew all dat?”
“All that and more. The grocery business is cut so close that I shall probably be
bankrupt by April, and then what good will a judgment do you?”
“Dat’s so, dat’s so.”
“Or the case may hang in the Supreme Court until both of us are dead.”
“I see. And you would gin two pounds of brown sugar to settle de case now?”
“Well, yes.”
“Den you may do it up, an arter dis de ole woman takes de oder side of de street or
we dissolve partnership! I ‘spected ebery minit you war gwine to tist it around to levy on
my household goods, an’ if I’m two pounds of sugar ahead I want to close de case to
once afore you bring in a bill for contributory piracy.”37

D18 A reporter on a Kansas City paper was among those on a relief train that was being
rushed to the scene of a railway wreck in Missouri. About the first victim the Kansas
City reporter saw was a man sitting in the road with his back to a fence. He had a black
eye, his face was somewhat scratched, and his clothes were badly torn—but he was
entirely calm.
The reporter jumped to the side of the man against the fence. “How many hurt?” he
asked of the prostrate one.
. A Flat between Two Sharps (BM . c.). Solicitor and barrister mock bewildered
country client before Westminster Hall.
  T E C  I R A

“Haven’t heard of anybody being hurt,” said the battered person.

“What was the cause of the wreck?”
“Wreck? Haven’t heard of any wreck.”
“You haven’t heard of any wreck? Who are you, anyhow?”
“Well, young man, I don’t know if that’s any of your business, but I am the claim-
agent of this road.”38

As these stories suggest, defendants may connive to deny injury and blame the
victim.
D18 Son: Papa! Papa! The lid to our coal-shoot was left open and a man fell down inside.
What should I do?
Father: Quick! Put the cover on it. I’ll call a cop and have him arrested before he can
sue us.39

The heavy Jewish presence in these conniving claimant jokes reflect a once
widespread (and perhaps persisting) belief that Jews are overeager to pursue legal
remedies and to invoke the legal system to obstruct remedy for others:
D19 Two Jewish gentlemen were playing golf. They had wagered a dollar a hole on the
contest and the battle was waxing fast and furious. One saw the other pick his ball up
out of a bad lie and throw it out on the fairway.
“Moe,” he yelled, “you can’t do that.”
“Vy can’t I?”
“It gives in the rulebook that you can’t pick your ball up.”
“Vell, I did it, didn’t I?”
“But vat if you should win this match and my money by such actions. Vat would I do
then?”
“Sue me.”40

In the first half of the twentieth century Jews were widely regarded as only partly
within the moral community, unconstrained by a common morality and with an
inappropriate affinity for opportunistic use of formal legal controls. Whether
there was a basis for the perception of Jewish readiness to sue,41 its shadow lives
on in such items as:
D19 What’s a Jewish car accident?
No damage to the automobile, but everyone inside has whiplash.42

D19 Q: Did you hear about the new Japanese-Jewish restaurant?

A. It’s called So-sumi.43

The provenance of these stories suggests that their currency is now largely intra-
ethnic, among Jews themselves. And today the notion that some people have
inappropriate recourse to legal remedies has been de-ethnicized into a generalized
worry about frivolous cases and the “litigation explosion.”
 Conflict: Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife 

The most pervasive and enduring of these Jewish claimant jokes alleged a
propensity to set fires to commercial premises in order to collect insurance. The
accusation is one with a long history. Joshua Trachtenberg recounts the lethal
association of Jews with fires in medieval Europe:

Fire swept rapidly through the tinderbox towns of those days, and the populace was
justifiedly in dread of a conflagration. But the responsibility was so consistently laid
upon the Jews—entire communities were time after time ravaged and expelled, even
when the fire did not first break out in the Jewish quarter—that we cannot ascribe this
circumstance solely to the cupidity or passion of the mob. If, as was often the case, it
was asserted that the guilty arsonists were witches in league with the devil, then the
Jews could not escape the taint of complicity, supported as this suspicion was by their
purported intention to destroy Christendom by whatever means.44

In the early twentieth century jokes about insurance fires started by Jewish busi-
nessmen were common in both England and the United States, reflecting what
many regarded as a “notorious fact.”45

D20 Ikey saw his friend Jakey in the smoking-car when he entered, and sat down in the
same seat.
“How was that fire in your place last week, Jakey?” he inquired.
Jakey started nervously.
“Sh!” he whispered. “It vas next week.”46

D21 A citizen who maintained a pawnshop took out a fire insurance policy. The same day
a blaze broke out that destroyed the building and its contents.
The insurance company tried in vain to find sufficient grounds to refuse payment,
and was obliged to content itself with the following letter appended to the check:
“Dear Sir: We note that your policy was issued at ten o’clock on Thursday morning
and that the fire did not occur until three-thirty. Why this unseemly delay?”47

The theme that ties together these stories of conniving claimants is that mis-
fortune is good fortune, for the victim or for those near and dear to him.

D23 Loeb and Weinstein were discussing the affairs of a fellow textile merchant. “Did you
hear about Schwartz?” asked Loeb.
“Hear what? How’s business for him?”
“Finished. Over the weekend his warehouse burned to the ground.”
“Such a nice guy, Schwartz,” responded Weinstein, “and finally he gets the good luck
he deserves.”48

D23 “Can he recover, doctor?” asked a woman whose husband had been hurt in a railway
accident.
“I fear not, madame,” replied the doctor; “but you can. You should get at least
twenty thousand dollars from the company”49
  T E C  I R A

D23 The agent for one insurance company was a wide-awake guy and as he gave Mrs.
Stanton a check for the insurance payment on her late husband, he put in a strong pitch
for her to take out some insurance on her own life.
“Why, I do believe I will,” she said. “My husband had such good luck with his.”50

A recent update of the last story brings the gender politics into the foreground:
D23 A new-made widow called at the office of an insurance company for the money due
on her husband’s policy. The manager said:
“I am truly sorry, madam, to hear of your loss.”
“That’s always the way with you men,” said she. “You are always sorry when a poor
woman gets a chance to make a little money.”51

Another prototypical conniving claimant was the “gold digger,” who sought
“heart balm” from wealthy men for breach of promise to marry, seduction, or
other misdeeds.
D24 “Well, may I hope then, dearest, that at some time I may have the happiness of
making you my wife?”
“Yes, I hope so, I am sure,” she replied. “I am getting tired of suing fellows for breach
of promise.”52

D24 “I have met a lovely girl, who tells me she will be perfectly satisfied with $50 a week.”
“With or without?”
“With, or without what?”
“Attorney’s fees.”53

Jokes about the gold digger flourished from early in the century. In the s, a
great wave of antipathy to these “heart balm” suits led to their legislative abolition
in a number of states.54
Since the Second World War, the entire cluster of conniving claimant stories,
including the Jewish fire stories and golddigger stories, have largely disappeared.
There are only a few notable exceptions. One is the single fire-for-profit story that
has survived:
D25 Two Jews meet in Miami Beach. “Hello, Einhorn,” says one. “How are you feeling?
Everything okay? Or are you down here for your health?”
“Not exactly. You see, Finkelstein, by me in the shop there was a big fire. So when I
collected the insurance, I thought I would come down here for a little rest, before I open
again. But, Finkelstein, what are you doing here right in the middle of your busy season?”
“Well, it happened like by you. Except by us we had a big flood. While the insurance
company is arranging to pay off, I thought I would come down here for a while.”
At this point, Einhorn looks at him quizzically and asks, “Listen, how to make a fire
we all know, but how do you make a flood?”55

This joke is no longer exclusively told about Jews and has recently been switched
into a lawyer joke:
 Conflict: Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife 

D25 A lawyer and an engineer were fishing in the Caribbean. The lawyer said, “I am here
because my house burned down and everything I owned was destroyed. The insurance
company paid for everything.”
“That is quite a coincidence,” said the engineer, “I’m here because my house and all
my belongings were destroyed by a flood, and my insurance company also paid for
everything.”
The lawyer looked somewhat confused and asked, “How do you start a flood?”56

In a switch that occurs with some frequency in contemporary joking, the lawyer
takes the place of the conniving Jewish businessman.57
Another survivor is the story of the claimant who is testifying about his
impairment:
D26 A . . . story is told of the late Lord Birkenhead in his early days at the Bar. He was acting
for a tramway company, one of whose vehicles had run down a boy. According to the
statement of counsel the boy’s arm was hurt, and when he entered the witness-box his
counsel made him show that it was so much injured that he could no longer lift it above
his head. In due course “F.E.” rose to cross-examine, which he did very quietly. “Now,
my boy,” he said, “your arm was hurt in the accident?” “Yes, sir,” said the boy. “And you
cannot lift your arm high now?” “No, sir.” “Would you mind,” said “F.E.” very gently,
“just showing the jury once more how high you can raise your arm since the accident?”
The boy lifted it with apparent effort just to the shoulder level. “And how high could you
lift it before the accident?” asked “F.E.” in the most innocent manner, and up went the
arm straight over the boy’s head.58

I recall hearing this in law school in the s (the point was not the chutzpah of
the claimant, but the cleverness of the cross-examining lawyer), and it is current
today in the law school setting.
A final “survivor” is a robust example of the conniving claimant that emerged
a generation or more later than its companions, and is frequently told of Jewish
or Irish protagonists:
D27 Abraham Goldberg, a Chicago Jew, has a collision with the heavy limo of his Irish
neighbor, the multimillionaire Jim McCormick. Goldberg claims that he’s paralyzed from
the waist down and is awarded damages of one million dollars. As McCormick makes the
payment, he says: “Now look, Abe. Here is my check. But I warn you: Great pleasure you
won’t get from this money. I’m going to watch you like a hawk. The moment I see you
taking a single step, you will not only have to return the money, but you’ll go straight to
jail.” And so it was. Goldberg travels to the casino in Atlantic City. Who is staying in the
room next to him? Jim McCormick. Goldberg travels to Tahiti. Who has the bungalow
next to his on the beach? Jim McCormick. Goldberg travels to Switzerland and finds
McCormick waving to him from the adjacent chalet. Until McCormick’s private
investigators inform him that Goldberg has purchased a ticket on Air France. No sooner
has Goldberg been lifted out of his wheelchair and been installed in his first class seat,
than he hears from behind the ironic voice of McCormick: “Hello, Abe, where to this
 T E C  I R A

time? To Paris? Les Folies Bergeres?” “No, Jim,” answers Goldberg, “this time we’re
going to Lourdes. And there you will witness the greatest miracle of our time.”59

Life almost managed to match this scenario. In , a Texas woman brought
suit against the Steak & Ale restaurant, where a waiter had dropped “a large tray
of double-plated dinners on her,” and she claimed that as a result she was confined
to a wheelchair. In the midst of the trial in May , the parties agreed on a two-
million-dollar settlement, which was orally approved by the judge. A month later
she was observed walking in high heels “without apparent difficulty” in another
San Antonio restaurant. Steak & Ale hired private detectives who videotaped her
for five days, during which she neglected to use a cane, walker, or wheelchair. The
trial court refused to allow Steak & Ale to withdraw its consent to the settlement
agreement on the ground that it was final. However, the Supreme Court of Texas
found that although the trial judge had approved the settlement at the time of
the trial, he did not “render judgment” by preparing and signing the agreement
until after Steak & Ale’s June  request to withdraw—even if “the trial court
believed that he had rendered judgment during the May  hearing.”60 The set-
tlement was nullified and the plaintiff sent away empty-handed. There is surely a
lesson here for claimants: in no case should Lourdes be omitted from the post-
settlement itinerary!
L         F   
The disappearance of this whole cycle of stories about conniving claimants (and,
less frequently, defendants) scheming for undeserved legal advantage does not
mean that such activity has become less salient. On the contrary, popular lore
overflows with accounts of unfounded claims and malingering claimants. Twenty
years ago, at the onset of concern about the “litigation explosion,” U.S. News &
World Report reported that
Americans in all walks of life are being buried under an avalanche of lawsuits.
Doctors are being sued by patients. Lawyers are being sued by clients. Teachers are
being sued by students. Merchants, manufacturers and all levels of government—
from Washington, D.C., to local sewer boards—are being sued by people of all sorts.
This “epidemic of hair-trigger suing,” as one jurist calls it, even has infected the
family. Children haul their parents into court, while husbands and wives sue each
other, brothers sue brothers, and friends sue friends.61
A few years later columnist Jack Anderson reported:
Across the country, people are suing one another with abandon; courts are clogged
with litigation; lawyers are burdening the population with legal bills. . . .
This massive, mushrooming litigation has caused horrendous ruptures and dis-
locations at a flabbergasting cost to the nation.62
In a similar vein eminent judges, lawyers, and academics registered dismay at Amer-
ican litigiousness and warned about its consequences.63 Pundits and politicians
 Conflict: Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife 

retailed “horror stories” of outlandish claims and grotesque verdicts: tales of absurd
and outrageous awards to burglars and psychic fakers, and stories of havoc visited
on beleaguered Little Leagues and abandoned day care centers. These stories
reported that the system had “spun out of control” and America’s substantial and
productive citizens were the victims of unchecked litigiousness. Upon examina-
tion by journalists and scholars, these resilient stories turned out to be embellish-
ments where they are not complete fictions.64 Although the events they recount
are far from typical of what goes on in the civil justice system, they captured wide-
spread attention and credence.
The conniving claimant, once portrayed in stories that depicted bizarre devi-
ations from the normal, is now presented as emblematic of a new and alarming
normality. The notion that deviants or outsiders are misusing the legal system
is generalized into the notion that frivolous cases are the normal and typical stuff
of the legal system.65 Sociologist of law John Lande, who interviewed senior exec-
utives in publically held companies on their views about litigation, found “they
were virtually unanimous that there has been a litigation explosion and the vast
majority believed that most suits by individuals against businesses are frivolous.”66
With this, the conniving claimant figure has departed the joke arena, for in this
new and debased normality, unfounded or exaggerated claims are unexceptional;

. Cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan (© The New Yorker Collection , from
cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.)
  T E C  I R A

since they do not deviate from the expected, they lack the element of surprise to
function as jokes. So stories of outlandish claiming flourish, no longer as jokes but
as fables of decline. For example, former Vice President Dan Quayle, conveys our
fallen condition in the following account:
We have become a crazily litigious country. Today a baseball comes crashing through
a window, and instead of picking it up and returning it to the neighbor whose kid
knocked it through—and who pays the glazier’s bill in a reasonable, neighborly way—
the “victim” hangs on to the baseball as evidence and sues the neighbor. (Or the base-
ball’s manufacturer. Or the glassmaker. Or usually all three.) Several lawyers are soon
billing hours, and the civil docket has been further crowded by one more pointless
case that’s probably going to be part of the  percent of cases that get settled before
they come to trial—but not before a huge amount of time and money has been wasted
on everything from “discovery” to picking a jury that will be discharged before it ever
deliberates this case that shouldn’t have gotten started in the first place. In America we
now sue first and ask questions later.67

Such fables feed on and give expression to popular concerns about litigation.
Their currency does not depend entirely on spontaneous welling up from the folk;
instead they are broadcast and disseminated by multimillion-dollar campaigns
spawned by a minor industry of lobbyists, consultants, think tanks, and “tort re-
form” groups whose pronouncements are parroted by politicians and pundits.68
Paradoxically the industrious projection of the image of unrestrained litigious-
ness and rampant overclaiming turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Persuad-
ing many that substantial compensation is readily obtainable encourages resort to
lawyers.69 And it reinforces the sense that the system is so routinely abused by ex-
aggerated and deceptive claiming that one would be a sucker not to play the game.70
This feverish enthusiasm for litigation is blamed squarely on lawyers. As con-
cern about excessive litigation mounted, then Chief Justice Warren Burger knew
who to blame: “The entire legal profession . . . [has] become so mesmerized with
the stimulation of the courtroom contest that we tend to forget that we ought to
be healers—healers of conflicts. . . . Healers, not warriors. . . . Healers, not hired
guns.”71
The chief justice was anticipated in the joke corpus. Ignoring other values and
disdaining the possibilities for amicable resolution, the lawyer is quick to see every
situation as an occasion for staking claims threatening suit:
D30 “I educated one of my boys to be a doctor and the other a lawyer,” said Father
Corntassel.
“You should be very proud of them,” announced his visitors. “That seems like an
excellent arrangement.”
“I don’t know about that,” replied the aged agriculturist. “It looks as though it was
going to break up the family. I got run into by a locomotive, and one of ‘em wants to
cure me, and the other wants me to go lame so he can sue for damages.”72
 Conflict: Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife 

D31 A lawyer and a doctor go golfing. On one of the holes, the doctor gets hit in the head
with a wild ball. An apologetic golfer rushes over and asks the doctor how he is. The
doctor begins to say that he’s fine when the lawyer interrupts, “He has a huge lump on
his head. We want five thousand dollars or we’ll sue.” The golfer responds, “But I yelled
fore!” At which point, the lawyer says, “We’ll take it.”73

Lawyers not only exaggerate plausible claims, they use unjustified claims to
fend off the rightful claims of others:
D32 Billy, Bobby and Joe had a spree in the fruit orchard. They tore all the fruit from the
trees, gorged themselves, then threw fruit and generally vandalized the place. When the
farmer caught them, he called the sheriff and had them taken into custody. When the
boys appeared before the judge after spending a night in jail, he asked them if they had
learned their lesson. The first boy replied, “Yes, sir. All that fruit made me sick. My dad’s
a doctor, and he told me never to do that again!” The second boy was from a military
family, “My dad told me that if I ever get in trouble with the law again, I can kiss West
Point goodbye!” The third boy told the judge, “You bet I won’t do it. My dad’s a lawyer,
and I’m gonna sue that farmer for damages to my pants that got tore jumping his
fence!”74

To the public, the lawyer is someone who promotes conflict for personal gain.
Most respondents to public opinion surveys blame lawyers for the presence of
too much litigation and specifically pinpoint the cause as lawyers’ self-interest.
Seventy percent of respondents to a  CBS/New York Times poll agreed that
“lawyers encourage too many lawsuits in order to make money for themselves.”
Only  percent preferred the response “by encouraging lawsuits, lawyers help
injured people get the compensation they deserve.”75
As in the crutches story (D), lawyers collude with their clients for mutual (and
undeserved) gain. But when their interests are not in harmony, the lawyer has no
hesitation in managing the client’s case to suit his own purposes. As a classic story,
which has flourished for a century and a half, has it:
D33 A Chancery barrister, into whose hands had fallen the lucrative practice of his father-in-
law, one morning gleefully announced to the latter that he had brought to a successful
termination a cause which had been pending in the Court of Chancery for many years,
“You blockhead,” said the legal veteran, “it was by this suit that my father was enabled
to provide for me, and I to portion your wife; and if you had exercised common
prudence, it would have furnished you with the means of providing handsomely for
your children and grandchildren.”76

A related story dispenses with the Dickensian props:

D34 A businessman was involved in a lawsuit that dragged on for years. One afternoon he
told his attorney, “Frankly, I’m getting tired of all this litigation.” The lawyer replied,
“Nonsense. I propose to fight this case down to your last nickel.”77
  T E C  I R A

Although bringing lawsuits is only a small part of what most lawyers do, liti-
gation and the threat and maneuver that accompany it are seen as defining the
lawyer’s identity. In a discerning study of the metaphors used in lawyers’ talk,
Elizabeth Thornberg detects a metaphorical fixation on adversary combat. Meta-
phors that emphasize the combative, noncooperative aspects of war, sports, and
sex are “used in dead earnest” and form “a major part . . . of public lawyer dis-
course about litigation.”78 For example, litigators may be “battle-tested” “hired
guns” who undertake “frontal assaults” or “preemptive strikes,” “play hardball,”
“go to the mat” with their opponents, and “screw them to the wall.”79
Where the lawyer as litigator challenges other persons of status and accom-
plishment, it provokes more than transient resentment. Doctors are among the
leading carriers of lawyer jokes and their animus is reflected in the joke corpus.
The lawyer’s need for medical attention provides a convenient setting for profes-
sional revenge:
D36 The doctor took one glance at his new patient. “You’ll have to call in another
physician,” said he.
“Am I as sick as all that?” gasped the patient.
“No, but you’re the lawyer who cross-examined me last March when I was called to
give expert testimony in a certain case. Now, my conscience won’t permit me to kill you,
but I’m hanged if I want to cure you, so good day.”80

After the great increase in malpractice litigation, starting in the s, the doc-
tor changes roles from expert witness to defendant, and his response becomes
more ominous.
D36 A patient on the operating table was just about to be put under. He was screaming
hysterically, “Tell me Dr. Green isn’t my surgeon! He can’t be! No, no, no!”
The operating room team had him almost under control when Dr. Green entered,
took one look at his patient and said: “Well, well, if it isn’t that nice lawyer who tried to
get me on that trumped-up malpractice suit last year!”81

A sketch by Art Buchwald elaborating this theme circulates on the Internet as

a lawyer joke:
D36 It had to happen sooner or later. Lawyer Dobbins was wheeled into the emergency
room on a stretcher, rolling his head in agony. Doctor Green came over to see him.
“Dobbins,” he said, “What an honor. The last time I saw you was in court when you
accused me of malpractice.”
“Doc. Doc. My side is on fire. The pain is right here. What could it be?”
“How would I know? You told the jury I wasn’t fit to be a doctor.”
“I was only kidding, Doc. When you represent a client you don’t know what you’re
saying. Could I be passing a kidney stone?”
“Your diagnosis is as good as mine.”
“What are you talking about?”
 Conflict: Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife 

“When you questioned me on the stand you indicated you knew everything there
was to know about the practice of medicine.”
“Doc, I’m climbing the wall. Give me something.”
“Let’s say I give you something for a kidney stone and it turns out to be a gallstone.
Who is going to pay for my court costs?”
“I’ll sign a paper that I won’t sue.”
“Can I read to you from the transcript of the trial? Lawyer Dobbins: ‘Why were you
so sure that my client had tennis elbow?’ Dr. Green: ‘I’ve treated hundreds of people
with tennis elbow and I know it when I see it.’ Dobbins: ‘It never occurred to you my
client could have an Excedrin headache?’ Green: ‘No, there were no signs of an Excedrin
headache.’ Dobbins: ‘You and your ilk make me sick.’”
“Why are you reading that to me?”
“Because, Dobbins, since the trial I’ve lost confidence in making a diagnosis. A lady
came in the other day limping . . .”
“Please, Doc, I don’t want to hear it now. Give me some Demerol.”

. Cartoon by Dave Carpenter (© , from cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.)
  T E C  I R A

“You said during the suit that I dispensed drugs like a drunken sailor. I’ve changed
my ways, Dobbins. I don’t prescribe drugs anymore.”
“Then get me another doctor.”
“There are no other doctors on duty. The reason I’m here is that after the malpractice
suit the sheriff seized everything in my office. This is the only place that I can practice.”
“If you give me something to relieve the pain I will personally appeal your case to a
higher court.”
“You know, Dobbins, I was sure that you were a prime candidate for a kidney stone.”
“You can’t tell a man is a candidate for a kidney stone just by looking at him.”
“That’s what you think, Dobbins. You had so much acid in you when you addressed
the jury I knew some of it eventually had to crystallize into stones. Remember on the
third day when you called me the ‘Butcher of Operating Room 6?’ That afternoon I said
to my wife, ‘That man is going to be in a lot of pain.’”
“Okay, Doc, you’ve had your ounce of flesh. Can I now have my ounce of Demerol?”
“I better check you out first.”
“Don’t check me out, just give the dope.”
“But in court the first question you asked me was if I had examined the patient
completely. It would be negligent of me if I didn’t do it now. Do you mind getting up
on the scale?”
“What for?”
“To find out your height. I have to be prepared in case I get sued and the lawyer asks
me if I knew how tall you were.”
“I’m not going to sue you.”
“You say that now. But how can I be sure you won’t file a writ after you pass the
kidney stone?”82

The rivalry and animosity between doctors and lawyers attract further addi-
tions to the joke corpus, some of which flourish while some fail. The following
“joke in progress,” which seems a deliberate composition that has not been
smoothed out by retelling, made a brief on-line appearance:
D37 Two doctors were discussing a case in the psych ward. The first doc asked what had
triggered such a profound depressive psychosis in the patient. The second one answered,
“He’s a lawyer. One day at home, he started to think about how much money he’d
screwed his partners and clients out of over the last few years. He laughed so hard he
defecated in his pants. When he smelled the foul odor he had created, he checked for
the source. Finding his trousers full of the stuff, he thought he was leaking. This caused
him to go into shock and faint. When he woke up, he found he had fallen on his arm,
breaking it.” The first doc asked, “He went mad because he broke an arm?” The
second medico answered, “No, he went mad because he couldn’t figure out how to
sue himself!”83

Here the lawyer’s incorrigible contentiousness is his undoing at the culmination of

a story combining themes of predation, betrayal, moral insensibility, and scatology.
 Conflict: Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife 

After its brief on-line appearance, this story sank into obscurity, possibly because
it tried to touch so many bases that it is diffuse and anticlimactic. In contrast, the
following story with its strong narrative movement and deft punch line is a suc-
cessful switch to the lawyer-doctor conflict. Obviously it can be told either way.
D38 Two attorneys boarded a flight out of Seattle. One sat in the window seat, the other
sat in the middle seat. Just before takeoff, a physician got on and took the aisle seat next
to the two attorneys. The physician kicked off his shoes, wiggled his toes, and was
settling in when the attorney in the window seat said, “I think I’ll get up and get a Coke.”
“No problem,” said the physician, “I’ll get it for you.”
While he was gone, one of the attorneys picked up the physician’s shoe and spat in
it. When he returned with the Coke, the other attorney said, “That looks good, I think I’ll
have one too.”
Again, the physician obligingly went to fetch it and while he was gone, the other
attorney picked up the other shoe and spat in it. The physician returned and they all sat
back and enjoyed the flight. As the plane was landing, the physician slipped his feet into
his shoes and knew immediately what had happened.

. Cartoon by Frank Cotham (© The New Yorker Collection , from
cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.)
  T E C  I R A

“How long must this go on?” he asked. “This fighting between our professions? This
hatred? This animosity? This spitting in shoes and pissing in Cokes?”84

T   L        H     C      
Many lawyers like to imagine themselves as champions who ride out to battle on
behalf of the oppressed and misused. Popular culture ratifies this image.85 From
Mr. Tutt to Perry Mason to John Grisham, imaginary lawyers extend themselves
to rescue the innocent.86 The emphasis on this theme in story and film has no
counterpart in the joke corpus. The few stories that reflect this theme of the
lawyer as heroic benefactor of the weak have long passed out of circulation in the
United States. Here are two extended tales that once enjoyed some currency:
D39 John Gough tells a story of a Southern planter who had got into financial difficulty.
Those were the days of the Fugitive Slave Law, when planters could hunt their fugitive
slaves over the North, and take them back. This planter, considering how he might
extricate himself from his embarrassments, got trace of one of his fugitive slaves—a
favourite girl, almost white, who had been brought up in his house, and got a good
deal of education there along with his daughters. She had made her escape to the North,
and settled in Philadelphia, where she had married a white man, a storekeeper, by whom
she had several children.
The planter went to Philadelphia, taking all necessary evidence with him, sent for the
storekeeper, and told him he had come to recover a slave of his, whom the storekeeper
had married.
The man was thunderstruck. Perhaps his wife had revealed to him her past history,
and he knew of the dreadful law; but would suppose that the planter had long since lost
all trace of the runaway girl.
The unhappy man demanded evidence, but there was no difficulty about that; the
planter laid before him incontrovertible proof that the girl was his runaway slave, and
therefore, in the eye of the law, his property.
“You are, of course, aware also,” said the planter, “that as the children follow the
condition of the mother, your children are also legally my property.”
The unfortunate storekeeper staggered as if he had been shot. He knew, the moment
the planter said it, that this was the law; but he had not at first realised its application.
The shock was so terrible that he seemed to lose the power of both thought and
utterance.
The planter said: “I do not wish to be hard upon you. I am willing to sell you both
your wife and her children; but it will cost you three thousand dollars. I am sorry to come
upon you in this way; but I have to look after my own interests, and I must either have
that money, or take your wife and children with me.”
The man entreated a night to think about it, and see if anything could be done.
The planter agreed.
The unhappy man went to a legal friend and told him the case. The lawyer said:
“There is no recourse. You must pay that three thousand dollars tomorrow.”
 Conflict: Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife 

“It is impossible,” said the man. “I haven’t three thousand dollars in the world.”
The lawyer considered. Philadelphia lawyers have a reputation for smartness; and this
one, after cross-questioning the storekeeper and going home with him and seeing his
wife, ultimately said he would undertake the case and do his best. “But,” he added, “that
three thousand dollars will have to be paid.”
Next day he went to the planter’s hotel, taking three thousand dollars with him. He
saw the planter, and said he had come to pay him the money, and get the deed of sale.
The planter was delighted—the money suited him best. The papers were duly made
out, signed, and handed over to the lawyer, who handed over the three thousand dollars
in return.
“A very handsome girl she has been,” said the lawyer referring to the storekeeper’s
wife, who had been the principal subject of the negotiation. “Intelligent; highly educated
too.”
“That’s so,” said the planter, as he put the roll of dollar bills into his pocket. “That
fact is, that girl was brought up in my house, and educated like one of my own
daughters.”
“That’s just the point I was going to refer to,” said the lawyer. “I am going to bring
an action against you for that.” The planter stared.
“Yes,” continued the lawyer, “it is a penal offence in your State, as you know, to
educate a slave, and I think this is a case where the law ought certainly to be put in
force.” The planter moved uneasily in his chair. He saw that the lawyer had him.
“And yet,” said the lawyer, “I would not like to be hard upon you. If you like to hand
back those three thousand dollars I shall let you off.”
The planter bit his lip; he knew that an action against him would involve worse
consequences than the loss of three thousand dollars; and, at last, with the best grace he
could, handed back the money.
He returned to the south a wiser and sadder man; while the lawyer carried the news
to the storekeeper and his wife, and also handed over to the grateful family the deed of
sale, which secured them against future risk.87

D39 One of the most prominent lawyers of America was walking one day through a small
village near his country home, and was attracted by the sale of the effects of a poor
widow, whose home was being sold at auction. The article that was being put up was a
sugar bowl. When it had been sold, the widow said to the purchaser:
“Wait a moment; don’t take it yet. I want to take out the sugar and put it into
something else.”
But the purchaser, who was the village skinflint, objected. He said that when he
bought the sugar bowl the contents went with it. An argument ensued. The purchaser
looked about the room, and spied the lawyer. He said:
“There’s Mr. Atterbury, our neighbor, who is a lawyer; I’ll leave it to him. Haven’t I a
right to the sugar as well as the bowl, Mr. Atterbury?”
The lawyer got up in his best court room manner and delivered a long address, citing
legal precedents and authorities, to the effect that undoubtedly the sugar must go with
  T E C  I R A

the bowl. Thereupon the old skinflint, rubbing his hands in glee, said to the widow,
“There, didn’t I tell you so?” And he grabbed the bowl.
But Mr. Atterbury had more to say. He turned to the purchaser and said:
“Wait a moment; you asked my legal advice, in the presence of all these witnesses,
and you got it. My fee, sir, is one hundred dollars. And unless you pay me on the spot,
sir, I shall bring suit against you for the full amount and costs.”
The old skinflint saw that he was caught, and paid the cash—which, of course, the
lawyer turned over immediately to the poor woman.88

A single Lincoln anecdote seems to be the major contemporary representative of

this theme:
D39 It was Abraham Lincoln’s habit to discourage unnecessary lawsuits, though it cost him a
pretty penny. One day a man stormed into his office and demanded that he bring suit
for $2.50 against a debtor. Lincoln gravely demanded ten dollars as a retainer. Half of this
he gave to the poor defendant, who immediately confessed judgment and paid the
$2.50. Thus the suit was terminated to the entire satisfaction of everyone concerned.89

Even where lawyers do not rise to these heights of beneficence, their capacity
for contention and confrontation may be seen as an asset, especially by clients

. Cartoon by Mick Stevens (© The New Yorker Collection , from cartoonbank.com.
All rights reserved.)
 Conflict: Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife 

who are inexperienced in asserting themselves or feel themselves overpowered by

a more formidable adversary. Thus lawyers may pursue remedies where parties
hesitate to envision them:
D40 Friend: “Your voice surprises me.”
Vocalist: “I studied and spent one million dollars to learn to sing.”
Friend: “I would love to have you meet my brother.”
Vocalist: “Is he a singer, too?”
Friend: “No, he’s a lawyer. He’ll get your money back.”90

And lawyers may help subordinates to confront dominant parties.

D41 The real-estate mogul was delighted by the comely new receptionist, and proceeded
to turn all of his charms upon her. Within a few weeks, however, he grew extremely
displeased at her growing tardiness. “Listen, baby,” he roared one morning, “we may
have gone to bed together a few times, but who said you could start coming in late?”
The secretary replied sweetly, “My lawyer.”91

Tales of lawyers empowering clients are still current, but plot and characters have
changed. Those empowered are less dramatically victimized than the widows and
tenants of the earlier stories; their opponents are less monstrously villainous. The
lawyer is not a beneficent patron, but a resource available to ordinary people to
deal with the troubles and disappointments of everyday life.
  

The Demography of the
World of Lawyer Jokes

T   H           P   
As we complete the first part of our tour of the classic core of joking about
lawyers, let us pause to survey the terrain over which we have traveled. The con-
tours of that terrain, we shall see, have changed very little even as new waves of
jokes have enlarged and reshaped the lawyer joke corpus.
Jokes about lawyers tend to be generic. Geographical markers are infrequent
and never essential to the story. Nor are the jokes located at specific points of time;
they exist in a timeless present. That lawyers’ practices are specialized (by field of
law and especially by type of client) goes largely unremarked in the lawyer joke
corpus. The jokes credit lawyers with the moral elasticity to represent either side
of a dispute and the agility to switch from one side to the other.1 But they ignore
that lawyers in fact frequently specialize in representing particular types of clients
and tend to develop strong attachments to rhetorical stances and policy positions
that favor that class of clients (injury victims, corporate polluters, insurers, white
collar criminals.)2 Robert Rosen observes that “doctors specialize by disease, law-
yers by side.”3 Jokes about doctors reflect the lines of specialization, frequently
revolving around comparison of surgeons, internists, psychiatrists, and so forth.
But there are no jokes at all contrasting different kinds of lawyers, and few that
are specifically aimed at particular kinds of legal specialists.
Although they are in these respects undifferentiated, the lawyers depicted in
the jokes do display definite features. In the world of lawyer jokes, lawyers are
almost without exception white males of no discernible ethnicity. There is no re-
flection of the changing composition of the increasingly diverse profession. In the
real world almost three-quarters of lawyers are in private practice. In the joke
world, virtually all lawyers have been and remain private practitioners. There are
no government lawyers (apart from judges and an occasional prosecutor), no in-
house corporate lawyers, no legal services or public interest lawyers.4


 The Demography of the World of Lawyer Jokes 

Apart from some railroad lawyers in the older jokes, the lawyers in the jokes
represent individual clients, not large impersonal corporations. In contrast, most
of what real world lawyers do is supply services to these organizational clients
rather than to individuals. In their classic study of the Chicago bar, John Heinz
and Edward Laumann estimated that in  “more than half ( percent) of
the total effort of Chicago’s bar was devoted to the corporate client sector, and a
smaller but still substantial proportion ( percent) is expended on the personal
client sector.”5 When the study was replicated twenty years later, the researchers
found that there were roughly twice as many lawyers working in Chicago, and
about  percent of the total effort of all Chicago lawyers was devoted to the
corporate client sector and only  percent to the personal/small business sector.6
The pronounced shift to servicing of organizations is not confined to Chicago,
but is quite general. Census data reveal that from  to  expenditures on
legal services by individuals increased  percent, while law firms’ income from
businesses increased by  percent.7 Business expenditures on legal services grew
at well over twice the rate of increase of individual expenditures.8
The provision of legal services to individuals and to corporate bodies is done
by different lawyers, differently organized. Lawyers in the United States nominally
form a single profession. But it is a profession that is intensely stratified. With
due allowance for exceptions, the upper strata of the bar consist mostly of large
firms whose members are recruited mainly from prestigious law schools and who
serve corporate clients; the lower strata practice as individuals or small firms, are
drawn from less prestigious schools, and service individual clients. Law practice
is a bifurcated structure, organized around different kinds of clients. Heinz and
Laumann characterized these strata as the “two hemispheres of the profession.
Most lawyers reside exclusively in one hemisphere or the other and seldom, if
ever, cross the equator.”9 In the corporate hemisphere, a wider range of services is
supplied over a longer duration, there is more specialization and coordination,
research and investigation are more elaborate, and tactics can be more innovative
and less routine.10 “Fields serving big business clients,” Heinz and Laumann
found, enjoyed the most prestige “and those serving individual clients (especially
clients from lower socioeconomic groups)” the least.11 Again differentials in pros-
perity and prestige are invisible in the world of lawyer jokes. In the jokes, there is
little discernible hierarchy among lawyers who (with few exceptions) relate to one
another as peers.
During the last twenty-five years, while lawyer jokes have multiplied and flour-
ished, the legal profession has undergone dramatic change. There are many more
lawyers. Many remain sole practitioners or work in small practices, but an ever-
greater portion practice in ever-larger large firms.12 As they have grown, these firms
have become more rationalized and businesslike, more diverse and less socially
exclusive, and more visible. The law firms that service corporations and other
organizations have multiplied, grown, and flourished, while the sectors of the pro-
fession that serve individuals have been relatively stagnant in earnings and growth.13
  T E C  I R A

With very few exceptions the practices depicted in the jokes are small prac-
tices. Although labels like “Wall Street lawyer” occasionally surface, the large cor-
porate law firm that has increasingly dominated both legal practice and the news
about law appears only rarely. Among the three hundred or so jokes recounted in
this book, I could identify only eight in which the setting was arguably a large
firm and about as many in which the client is a large organization.14 (About half
of the latter group are dropouts that are no longer in circulation.) In effect the
imagery is that of the personal service hemisphere. The corporate hemisphere of
the legal profession is not absent, but it is seen dimly through the prism of the
world of personal service. Only in the small (but growing) number of jokes that
address the tension between partners and junior lawyers do we sense the presence
of the rationalized, hierarchic, market-oriented world of large firm practice.
The jokes’ portrayal of what lawyers do reflects this individual client vantage
point. There is little preventative or planning work (apart from preparing wills).
Lawyers’ work is reactive; they are engaged to respond to various emergencies and
predicaments that fracture the rhythm of everyday life. The jokes favor litigation,
especially criminal cases. In real life, only a small portion of lawyers’ effort is devoted
to litigation, but it looms larger in the jokes. Of the jokes in which we can identify
the work the lawyer is engaged in, something like a quarter involve litigation, far
larger than the portion of their efforts that actual lawyers spend on such work. In
the real world, all criminal work absorbs something like a tenth of the efforts of the
entire bar.15 About one-third of jokes involving litigation refer to criminal proceed-
ings, but this is considerably more balanced than the depiction of lawyers in tele-
vision and movies where they are overwhelmingly concerned with criminal law.16

W       C    
Few lawyer jokes target or even mention women lawyers. The great stock of
lawyer jokes was formed at a time when women lawyers were rare.17 As recently
as  women made up only  percent of the legal profession. Twenty years later
they were  percent of a much-expanded profession and a much larger portion
of younger lawyers.18 These changes are only dimly reflected in the general body
of lawyer jokes. In some recent published collections, a few he s have been changed
to she s, but it is not clear that very many of them are told that way. Sources that
are more indicative of how these jokes are told register little integration of women.
For example, in a set of over  items found on the Internet at the beginning of
September , only one identified the lawyer as a woman (a joke about female
prosecutors, which was also the only prosecutor joke).
There are a few jokes specifically about women lawyers in which the gender of
the lawyer is connected to the point of the joke. Of those few, most focus on the
issue of combativeness:

E1 How can you tell the difference between a woman lawyer and a pit bull?
Lip gloss.19
 The Demography of the World of Lawyer Jokes 

E2 Question: What’s the difference between female prosecutors and terrorists?

Answer: You can negotiate with terrorists.20

The threatening character of the woman lawyer was registered almost as soon as
the first women lawyers appeared.
E3 “Would you marry a woman lawyer?”
“No, indeed. The ordinary woman can cross-examine quite well enough.”21

The underlying message is that lawyering involves an intensification of aggressive,

combative, intrusive traits that are out of place in a woman and that these traits
are manifested in even more exaggerated form when the lawyer is a woman.22

. Cartoon by Michael Goodman (© Michael Goodman)

  T E C  I R A

These jokes reflect precisely a widely reported inclination among male lawyers
to attribute excess aggression to their female colleagues. One woman lawyer com-
plained, “You hardly ever met a man practicing law who didn’t regale you with
stories of the horrible experiences he had with ballsy, nasty, aggressive women
lawyers and how different you were.”23 Male lawyers told Cynthia Epstein that
women lawyers were “too harsh and unbending,” “more intransigent than men,”
and “less human, less compassionate, and less accommodating.”24
But this “indictment of women lawyers as ‘too tough’”25 is only one side of the
coin; at the same time, they are suspected of being insufficiently tough. Jennifer
Pierce describes this as a double bind: “Women lawyers face contradictory mes-
sages . . . When they adopt gamesmanship strategies they are criticized for ‘un-
ladylike’ and ‘shrill’ behavior, but when they are ‘nice’ or ‘pleasant’ they are judged
‘not tough enough’ to be good lawyers.”26
The paradox that binds women lawyers reflects the tensions in the relation
of lawyers to conflict. Concern about lawyers’ aggression and combativeness is
accompanied by an offsetting appreciation of their ability and willingness to fight
and some anxiety about insufficient zeal. This tension creates a tangle for women
lawyers that is summed up in this ambiguous riddle:

E4 What do you get when you cross a feminist with an attorney? A lawyer who won’t
screw you.27

On the surface this repeats the charges that feminists are antisexual and woman
lawyers deficient in female sexuality. But there is another twist here. “Screwing”
has become a shorthand expression for the aggressive and predatory activity that
is a defining characteristic of lawyers. A lawyer who won’t screw you may be
appreciated as a lawyer who would not abuse clients, opponents, or peers. But at
the same time a lawyer incapable of the damaging aggression for which lawyers
are feared (and valued) is not equipped with the full powers of the lawyer; she is,
literally, impotent.
A second and related theme surfaces in the current joke canon: the woman
lawyer is an obsessive workaholic who suppresses both romance and family for her
career.

E5 The lawyer and her husband were having a late dinner one night.
“I just don’t understand,” she said. “The law specifically states one thing, yet Judge
Asherman made a point of disallowing—”
“Honey,” said her husband, “for once—just once—why can’t we talk about something
other than the law or a case you’re working on?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “What would you like to talk about?”
“How about sex?”
“Okay,” she said. After a moment, she asked, “How often do you think Judge
Asherman has sex?”28
 The Demography of the World of Lawyer Jokes 

The obsessive workaholism of male lawyers never attracted this joke, which has
been applied to varied monomaniacs from stockbrokers to sports fans since (at
least) the s.
E6 Finally yielding to her husband’s pleas, the workaholic attorney agreed to have a
baby. During her maternity leave she decided to take the newborn to the zoo, and
made the mistake of passing too close to the gorilla cage. A hairy arm reached out and
plucked the baby out of the stroller, and the huge ape proceeded to eat the child before
her very eyes.
A policeman arrived and spent over an hour trying to calm the hysterical woman, but
nothing seemed to work. Finally he put an arm around her shoulders and reasoned,
“Lady, don’t take it so hard. You and your husband can always have another baby.”
“Like hell!” the lawyer snapped. “You think I’ve got nothing better to do than fuck
and feed gorillas?”29

These anti-sex-and-family stories again reflect a sore point in the professional

and personal identity of women lawyers. Much of the resistance to women’s
attainment of central roles in modern law practice is on the grounds that they are
less committed to their role and practice and more susceptible to having these
commitments compromised by competing responsibilities as mothers. But if she
demonstrates that she is dedicated to her work, then she admits to abandoning
her feminine nurturing qualities.30
How do hard-driving ambitious women lawyers fare in a traditionally male
professional realm?
E7 Three young women have all been working eighty-hour weeks for six straight years
in the struggle to make partner in the law firm, and the cutoff date is fast approaching.
Each one is brainy, talented, and ambitious but there’s only room for one new partner.
At a loss as to which one to pick, the senior officer finally devises a little test. One day,
while all three are out to lunch, he places an envelope containing $500 on each of
their desks.
The first woman returns the envelope to him immediately.
The second woman invests the money in the market and returns $1500 to him the
next morning.
The third woman pockets the cash.
So which one gets the promotion to partner? The one with the biggest tits!31

This is another widespread story that is a recent recruit to the lawyer joke canon.32
The theme of a hiring contest in which qualification is subverted by nepotism or
sexual attraction has been around since women entered the white-collar work-
place. Earlier versions typically depicted the boss selecting a secretary.33 The law
firm version is distinctive in that the women are competing for a position that
potentially involves a relationship of professional equality with their male bosses.
But the joke asserts or concedes or celebrates (depending on how it is told) that
male lawyers, despite their pretensions to meritocratic objectivity, still see female
 T E C  I R A

lawyers as sexual objects and ignore their professional accomplishments. This adds
another dimension to the bind of the woman lawyer. To flaunt her physical attrac-
tions would be unprofessional, but to exhibit her professional acumen to the
exclusion of feminine charms is defined as precisely the kind of aggressiveness and
single-mindedness that is the target of the jokes above.

J       O    O       
If gender surfaces in lawyer jokes occasionally the jokes pay little heed to ethnic
identity. There are no jokes (known to me) about black or Hispanic lawyers

. Cartoon by George Jartos in S. Gross, ed., Lawyers! Lawyers! Lawyers! (© George Jartos
)
 The Demography of the World of Lawyer Jokes 

(although the older jokes are full of black clients, usually criminal defendants and
witnesses). In older versions of some jokes, lawyers were occasionally identified by
obviously Jewish or Irish surnames, but jokes in which the point turns on ethnic
identity are extremely rare.34
This is not because the presence of such ethnic outsiders in the real world of
law went unremarked or uncontested. Black lawyers, shouldering “a crippling
burden of handicaps,” were simply excluded from the higher echelons of law
practice.35 Although there was lingering prejudice against Irish (and other Cath-
olic) lawyers, Jews were the first “minority” to join the legal profession in num-
bers that elicited unease in the legal establishment.36 Warnings against “the great
flood of foreign blood . . . sweeping into the bar” and immigrants with “little in-
herited sense of fairness, justice and honor as we understand them” were followed
by sustained campaigns to stem the entry of these undesirables.37 The foremost

. Cartoon by Edward Frascino (© The New Yorker Collection , from
cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.)
 T E C  I R A

authority on legal ethics of the interwar years affirmed the necessity of protecting
the bar against the menace of “Russian Jew boys” who had “come up out of the
gutter . . . and were merely following the methods their fathers had been using in
selling shoe-strings and other merchandise.”38
The image of Jewish lawyers was two-sided. Jews figured both as heroic civil
liberties lawyers in Progressive fiction and as the archetypal shyster in Samuel B.
Ornitz’s Haunch, Paunch and Jowl ().39 Although excluded from the higher
echelons of the profession, Jews became a major section of lawyers in many larger
cities. In New York Jews comprised half of the bar by the s, although Fortune
reassured its readers that
 per cent of New York lawyers does not mean  per cent of New York’s lawyer
power. The most important office law business in America such as the law business
incidental to banking, insurance, trust-company operation, investment work, rail-
roading, patents, admiralty, and large corporation matters in general is in the hands
of non-Jewish firms. Jewish legal activity will be found most commonly in litigation.
In other words, Jews are largely to be found in those branches of law which do not
interest non-Jewish lawyers. . . . [who] tend to prefer the fat fees and regular hours
and routine, solicitor-like labors of their office to the active, combative professional
service of the law courts.40
Barriers to Jewish entry into elite law firms began to give way in the s. By the
early s, exclusion had softened into concern about having “too many” Jews.41
A sociologist who conducted a detailed examination of Wall Street lawyers re-
ported in  the “tremendous lessening of discrimination—especially toward
Jews” since he had gathered data a decade earlier.42
In Chicago, Jews made up a third of the bar in , but were disproportion-
ately present in small practices and low status specialities.43 There are no data
from which to gauge the population of Jewish lawyers nationwide, but more than
one in six law students was Jewish around .44 But as law school enrollments
expanded dramatically (and Jewish population remained static), the proportion
of Jews in the profession has fallen.45 At the same time, the collapse of discrimi-
nation has increased the presence of Jews in the higher echelons of the profession.
A  survey of partners in the highest-billing law firms found that  percent
were Jewish.46
The jokes about conniving claimants proclaim that Jews are more combative,
more ready to resort to the legal system (and to invoke its protection), and even
inclined to manufacture claims (by setting fires and faking whiplash). Curiously,
although such images haunted the bar worthies who decried their entry to the
profession, these images did not spawn jokes about Jewish lawyers. Despite the
movement to exclude them, little note is taken of Jewish lawyers in the joke
corpus. The animus against Jews in the profession was projected by their rivals at
the establishment bar rather than by the wider populace who might admire or
even seek out “a smart Jewish lawyer.”
 The Demography of the World of Lawyer Jokes 

The conflicts about Jewish presence at the bar left little residue in the joke cor-
pus. I have found only three jokes that turn on the lawyer’s Jewish identity, none
of them in circulation today.
E9 A story is told at the expense of Joseph Choate, the great lawyer, now ambassador to
the Court of St. James. On a very important case, Edward Lauterbach, an eminent Jewish
attorney, was associated with him. They won their case and when it came to deciding
upon the fee, Mr. Choate, the Christian, asked Mr. Lauterbach, the Jew, what he thought
they ought to charge. Mr. Lauterbach said he thought $5,000 would be a fair charge.
Mr. Choate replied that it shouldn’t be less than $15,000. Said Mr. Lauterbach: “Almost
thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”47

The mocking reference to the Jew tempted to abandon his religion to enjoy the
greater fees of a Christian lawyer is obvious, but the Jewish lawyer’s response is
ironic—as if to say you guys say we are out for a buck and drive a hard bargain,
but behind your cloak of respectability you outdo us. And note that the editor
read the joke contemporaneously as “at the expense of . . . Choate.”48
From the Jewish side comes the suggestion that Jewish lawyers may be more
proficient and that their efforts may be “carrying” their Gentile colleagues:
E11 Jackson, Waybrook, Buchanan, and Isaacs was one of the finest law firms in the city.
One day a friend of Eli Isaacs asked, “Why does your name appear last, Eli? Everyone
knows that Jackson is ga-ga. Waybrook spends most of his time in the country, and
Buchanan never won a case in court. Your name should be first!”
“You forget something,” Isaacs smiled.
“What’s that?”
“My clients read from right to left.”49

Apart from these ironic comments on the relations of Jewish lawyers and the
legal establishment, the joke corpus contains almost nothing on Jewish lawyers—
and for that matter about lawyers of any ethnic flavor. A single story that appears
only once, as part of a famous  “underground” collection, is worth noting:
E10 Cohen and Murphy had been partners for twenty years when suddenly Cohen got it
into his head that he wanted to be in business by himself.
“I don’t know, Murph,” he said. “I ain’t got nottin’ against you, but I’d like to try for
myself. So I made up my mind we should split.”
Murphy accepted his decision gracefully.
“Of course,” he said, “we’ll part friends.”
“Positively the best,” said Cohen. “And now let’s call in Feldman, our lawyer, and
have him draw up the dissolution papers.”
Feldman, when he heard the news, was grief-stricken. “After twenty years,” he
moaned. “Of course, I’m getting paid for doing this, but nothing hurts me so much as to
have to draw up these papers breaking up this fine partnership. But, Cohen, since you
made up your mind, as the Latin phrase has it, yens de goy [screw the gentile].”50
  T E C  I R A

Although it admits of various readings, one that is close to the surface is the clas-
sical canard about Jews as clannish outsiders who will betray others and favor their
own. Realizing the worst nightmares of those elite lawyers who scorned Jews as
incapable of disinterested professionalism, the lawyer here subverts professional
norms in favor of narrow ethnic loyalty. We don’t know who told this joke or with
what intent. All we know is that it did not survive and was not replaced by other
jokes about “clannish” Jewish lawyers.
Of course it is possible that the animus against Jewish lawyers is codified in
stories about “shysters”51 and “ambulance chasers.” Dornstein shows how much
the campaigns against the evils of ambulance chasing were dominated by “concern
about names” and often focused on exposing Jewish attorneys as the chief perpe-
trators of unethical practices.52 There is hardly a trace of this in contemporary
“ambulance” jokes,53 but some “Jewish” jokes use the ambulance-chasing script:
E11 What’s a Jewish Nativity scene?
Seven lawyers surrounding a car crash.54

The current campaigns to delegitimize “trial lawyers” and “contingency fee law-
yers” never invoke the ethnic motif, but it is possible that many in the audience
find sufficient cues to awaken the older stereotypes.
Other minorities do not appear at all. There are no visible jokes about Irish,
Polish, black, Hispanic, or Asian lawyers. Although ethnic characters appear in
jokes about clients, defendants, and witnesses, the stories about lawyers are eth-
nically undifferentiated. It is the traits of the lawyer, not the differences among
lawyers, that engage the tellers and listeners. The only primordial characteristic
that shows up in the joke corpus is gender—and such jokes are few and appear
infrequently. At the same time the world of lawyer jokes has expanded by absorb-
ing jokes that were earlier told about ethnics. Certain categories of lawyer jokes
involve heavy borrowing from jokes about Jews. There are also numerous switches
from jokes about groups that are stereotyped as dumb (Irish, Poles) or undesirable
(Mexicans, blacks), as well as from politicians, spouses, and mothers-in-law. That
ethnicity is not displayed in lawyer jokes may be due in part to contemporary
political correctness which makes ethnic jokes unacceptable in certain settings.

S  J

One demographic characteristic that seems to be emerging into greater promi-
nence in lawyer jokes is age. Stories about seniors instructing and exploiting
young lawyers and about juniors turning the tables on their senior colleagues have
been around for a long while.55 But recent developments in the profession have
given them a new prominence. Since  the profession has grown rapidly; as
larger new cohorts of lawyers arrived, the profession became younger (and, as
noted earlier, more female).56 At the same time, law firms were growing larger,
more hierarchic, more diverse, and more competitive and businesslike. Partners no
longer enjoyed the secure tenure that had once marked the world of large firms.
 The Demography of the World of Lawyer Jokes 

The tensions between striving associates and established (and increasingly inse-
cure) partners are reflected in stories that circulate largely within the world of law
practice.
An “underground” publication aimed at associates includes the following story:
E13 Thomas Dewey was the former New York governor who, according to press
accounts, defeated Harry S. Truman for president in 1948. He was also a founder of the
law firm Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood.
One Saturday, Attorney Dewey called the office in an effort to find an associate to do
some work for him. After getting a young associate on the phone, Mr. Dewey explained
what he needed and then emphasized that it had to be done immediately. The associate
responded that he couldn’t possibly take on more work because he already expected to
be at the office all weekend completing a project that was due on Monday.
Attorney Dewey, not believing what he was hearing from the associate, asked, “Do
you know who this is?” When the associate replied that he did not, he was told, “This is
Thomas Dewey.” After a short pause, the associate asked, “Do you know who this is?”
When Mr. Dewey said that he didn’t, the associate hung up the phone.57

E14 A young associate was invited to a party at the home of an august senior partner at his
firm. The associate wandered awestruck through the house, especially amazed at the
original artworks by Picasso, Matisse, and others adorning the walls. As the associate
stood gazing at one Picasso, the senior partner approached, and put his arm around the
associate’s shoulder. “Yes,” he said, “if you work long and hard, day in and day out, six,
seven days a week, ten, twelve hours a day . . . I could buy another one!”58

Perhaps the best of these is the newest variant of the balloon joke (A), which
displays not only the junior-senior gap but also the gender tension that often over-
lies it. Earlier, we saw how the original story shifted from the uselessness of parlia-
mentary discourse to the unhelpfulness of legal advice and then to the fecklessness
of clients. Now it is further transformed into a weapon in the war within the firm.
A42 A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost so he reduced altitude and spotted
a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, “Excuse me, can you help me?
I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”
The woman below replied, “You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately
thirty feet above the ground. You are between forty and forty-one degrees north latitude
and between fifty-nine and sixty degrees west longitude.”
“You must be a second-year associate,” said the balloonist.
“I am,” replied the woman, “How did you know?”
“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I
have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is, I am still lost. Frankly,
you’ve not been much help so far.”
The woman below responded, “You must be a partner!”
“I am,” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?”
“Well,” said the woman, “you don’t know where you are or where you are going.
 T E C  I R A

You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made promises
which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problems. The
fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now,
somehow, it’s my fault.”59

The current body of jokes about lawyers is not a picture of the profession but
a screen on which people project their feelings about lawyers. The images on that
screen depart quite sharply from a factual portrait of contemporary lawyering:
lawyers are undifferentiated by specialty, large firms and corporate clients are rari-
ties, minorities are absent, and women are only marginally present. It is a distinctly
old-fashioned image of generalist sole practitioners and small partnerships repre-
senting individual clients, an image that differs sharply from the depiction of the
law in other media. It is not the glamorous world of L.A. Law’s litigators or the
gritty world of Law and Order ’s prosecutors and defense attorneys, nor the tense
hierarchy and testing of John Grisham’s The Firm. It is perhaps most reminiscent
of The Defenders or Mr. Tutt.60 Images from the world of Saturday Evening Post
covers are used to talk about discontents with the abundance of law and lawyers
in a very different age.
  


T N T
  

Betrayers of Trust

Our examination of the various clusters of jokes that make up the classic core of
joking about lawyers has revealed many features of lawyers that might induce
wariness in those who deal with them—their ability to double-talk, their recourse
to clever stratagems, their greed, pursuit of self-interest, combativeness. If lawyers
are equipped with these attributes, those who rely upon lawyers—clients, profes-
sional associates, kin—may wonder whether these powers will be employed on
their behalf or will be turned against them. Can lawyers be trusted or need we fear
that they will betray us? This is the subject of a new set of lawyer jokes that have
flourished in the new era.

L          W       D        T    
Trust is widely acclaimed as a public good that enhances civic life, generates social
capital, and lubricates the economy.1 There is widespread agreement that trust
(at least some forms) has declined dramatically in the United States over the past
thirty or forty years. Positive responses to the question “Most people can be
trusted” fell from  percent in  to  percent in .2 Confidence in almost
all political and social institutions has experienced a corresponding decline.3 The
portion of Americans who responded that “the government in Washington” can
be trusted “to do what is right” most of the time or just about always fell from .
percent in  to . percent in .4
The trust that is measured by the “most people can be trusted” question does
not exhaust the range of trust relationships that play a role in our lives. A number
of observers have introduced a useful distinction between the personal, particu-
larized, or thick trust characteristic of communal societies with their intense and
constant interaction among the same people, and the impersonal, generalized,
abstract, or thin trust that grows up alongside it in modern societies with their
proliferation of loose, distant, and secondary relations. In the world we inhabit,


 T N T

our thick trust in the loyalty of kin and friends is complemented by our reliance
on such people as airline pilots, restaurant staff, hospital personnel, and other
drivers on the road. Notwithstanding the decline in personal trust, our faith that
we can count on things to work and on people to do their jobs is constantly
replenished. Kenneth Newton characterizes this as a shift in social trust “from the
thick towards the thin. . . . [P]ersonal trust between known individuals has been
supplemented by impersonal or abstract trust, taught by education, enforced and
monitored by public rules and agencies, and (perhaps) by the mass media.”5
Lawyers are implicated in the decline/change in trust in various ways. In an
expansive flourish, a Democratic ex-cabinet secretary blames lawyers for “perpe-
trat[ing] loss of trust between doctor and patient,” “slipp[ing] the cruel poison of
distrust into society’s most basic unit: the family,” and “render[ing] . . . obsolete”
the “sacred obligation” that “institutions once felt . . . to stand by their contracts.”6
Critics of the legal profession untiringly point out that lawyers induce mistrust
and suspicion in their clients, deflecting candid and humane responses into
socially destructive gaming. Lawyers “encourage their clients to think with selfish
defensiveness, to imagine and prepare for the worst from everyone else”7 and they
“add suspicion and unnatural caution to all our relationships, whether personal
or professional.”8 It is indeed the lawyer’s stock in trade to point out to clients
the many things that can go wrong, the hidden contingencies, the frailty of un-
supported promises, and the need for external guarantees. The lawyer also proffers
a cure for the fragility of “natural” trust: the legal system’s array of devices for stim-
ulating what we might call “artificial” trust—the contract, the lease, the license,
whose provisions will be enforced (so we like to believe) by the lawsuit or the
policeman. Like the provider of artificial hormones that supplement the dimin-
ished supply coursing through the body, the lawyer contrives enforceability to sup-
plement the failing supply of reciprocity, moral obligation, and fellow-feeling.
As our economy and society generate ever more dealings among those bound
by thinning webs of reciprocities or reputational controls, we become more reliant
on the law’s channeling and on its enforcement (and especially the threat of it) to
induce compliance, discourage defection, and inspire confidence. Criminal penal-
ties and civil remedies (and the expense and obloquy that attend them) increase
the cost of opportunistic violation of agreements or public standards of care. By
raising the cost of defection from justified expectations, law lowers the risk of re-
liance on others.
Lawyers contrive to provide “artificial trust” in a number of ways, including
inventing security devices, devising lower transaction cost regimes, channeling
transactions, and bonding their clients.9 Although much of the world’s business
involves reliance on a strong admixture of nonlegal controls, these are increasingly
interwoven with legal controls.10 Because lawyers are producers and vendors of
impersonal “thin” trust, they are beneficiaries of the decline of its low-cost rival,
thick personal trust. As the demand for their product increases, lawyers prosper at
the same time that they themselves are increasingly distrusted.
 Betrayers of Trust 

The wariness of lawyers revealed in the falling public estimations of lawyers’

ethics is evident when the inquiry is specifically about trustworthiness. When (in
) a national sample was asked to volunteer “what profession or type of worker
do you trust the least,” lawyers were far and away the most frequent response.
Almost as many ( percent) spontaneously volunteered lawyers as the next two
categories (car salesman,  percent; politicians,  percent) combined.11
But other survey evidence suggests that these expressions of lack of trust in
lawyers should not be taken at face value. In a  survey in which majorities
of a national sample of adults expressed their views that lawyers charge unreason-
able fees ( percent) and recommend more legal work than is actually required
( percent), some  percent agreed that “lawyers generally work very hard to
protect the interests of their clients” ( percent disagreed) and  percent agreed
that “lawyers generally follow very high ethical standards in their work for their
clients” ( percent disagreed).12 What we see is not unqualified condemnation of
lawyers, but deep distrust combined with approval of lawyers’ care for their clients.
In a  survey, people thought lawyers were smart, knowledgeable, and good
at problem-solving, but greedy, overpaid, and lacking in ethics and compassion.
But when asked whether lawyers put their clients’ interest first, the same respon-
dents were sharply divided:  percent said this described lawyers;  percent said
it did not; and  percent were undecided.13

. Lawyer and Client.  etching by English anti-lawyer crusader Percy E. Hurst.
  T N T

T   B       J    C     
In the world of jokes much is made of lawyers’ lying, trickiness, cleverness (though
often not so clever as they think), contentiousness, and unremitting economic
exactions, but until recently the joke corpus had little to say directly about the
trustworthiness of lawyers. Opponents might be tricked and clients fleeced, but
no jokes specifically branded lawyers as betrayers of trust. But in the last twenty
years a whole set of jokes have appeared that focus on the lawyer’s proclivity to
betray those who trust and rely upon him—clients, partners, friends, and family.
The lawyer’s duplicity may be manifested in connection with the expectations
of trust and reciprocity generated in casual encounters between strangers:
F1 A doctor and a lawyer in two cars collided on a country road. The lawyer, seeing that the
doctor was a little shaken up, helped him from the car and offered him a drink from his
hip flask. The doctor accepted and handed the flask back to the lawyer, who closed it
and put it away. “Aren’t you going to have a drink yourself?” asked the doctor. “Sure,
after the police leave,” replied the attorney.14

Here the lawyer, in the guise of making a compassionate gesture, is bettering his
position by acting strategically. What appears to be a magnanimous gesture of
fellowship is really part of a strategy to fasten responsibility on the other motorist
(whose identity as a doctor introduces the familiar theme of professional rivalry).
The lawyer remains cool and calculating in adverse circumstances and bests his
rival professional by superior guile.
This story started out (between the arrival of the automobile and ) as a
simple celebration of the gamesmanship of the clever driver.15 It later became
a joke about the sturdy rustic or prole outwitting the arrogant “smart” tourist,
preppy, or ethnic outsider or about the Irish layman outwitting the priest.16 For
the past twenty years the principal protagonists have been lawyers and rabbis (out-
witting priests) as the joke has reverted to its earlier “crafty guy wins” theme.17
F2 A lawyer named Sam and his accountant are backpacking in the woods. Suddenly, they
spot a cougar twenty yards away. They stand there for a moment, then Sam starts
removing his pack. His accountant whispers, “What are you doing?” “I’m going to run
for it.” “But you can’t outrun a cougar!” “I don’t have to,” Sam says. “I just have to
outrun you.”18

This story, first spotted in print in , has been a favorite of speech-making exec-
utives seeking to dramatize the exigencies of competition.19 It surfaced as a lawyer
joke in . There is a “two lawyers” version as well as the professional rivalry
version given here.20 In both, fellowship quickly dissolves into single-minded self-
preservation and indifference to the other. The lawyer displays not only selfishness
but also superior resourcefulness. Penetrating beyond the apparent hopelessness
of the situation, he comes up with a strategy for escaping from a tight spot by
reconceiving the situation to discern a way out—as it happens at the expense of
 Betrayers of Trust 

his companion. Although the lawyer may violate the canons of fraternity, he is a
winner who reassures us that we may justifiably pursue our claims, even if the
rightness of our cause is only relative, for, if someone has to lose, it might as well
be the other guy.
The lawyer may also be involved in less momentous guilt-free loss shifting:
F3 Two lawyers are in a bank, when, suddenly, armed robbers burst in. While several of the
robbers take the money from the tellers, others line the customers, including the lawyers,
up against a wall, and proceed to take their wallets, watches, etc. While this is going on
lawyer number one jams something in lawyer number two’s hand. Without looking
down, lawyer number two whispers, “What is this?” to which lawyer number one replies,
“it’s that $50 I owe you.”21

From its earliest appearance in , this was a joke about friends, usually Jewish.22
The appearance of the two lawyers version above in  was preceded by a client
pays the lawyer version in .23
F4 An ancient, nearly blind old woman retained the local lawyer to draft her last will and
testament, for which he charged her two hundred dollars. As she rose to leave, she took
the money out of her purse and handed it over, enclosing a third hundred-dollar bill by
mistake. Immediately the attorney realized he was faced with a crushing ethical question:
Should he tell his partner?24

This widely circulated story depicts the lawyer’s unhesitating victimization of the
trusting client, here one specified as particularly vulnerable, an old, nearly blind
woman. The neat twist is that he completely misses the ethical violation against
the client while sensing an ethical problem in concealing this rip-off from his part-
ner—implying that the latter, as a fellow vulture, would happily share these ill-
gotten gains.
This became a lawyer joke only in  after a long career as a joke about the
merchant (usually Jewish) instructing his son in business ethics.25 But where the
merchant’s advice was hypothetical (i.e., suppose a customer overpaid) the lawyer
joke from the start has been a narrative of past events; what is depicted is not just
a larcenous inclination but a history of betrayal of the vulnerable.
As the extra $ bill joke suggests, it is touch and go whether the bonds of
partnership can restrain the lawyer’s proclivity to take advantage of the vulnera-
ble. Once this trait is acknowledged, fellowship is tinged with suspicion:
F5 The two partners in a law firm were having lunch when suddenly one of them jumped
up and said, “I have to go back to the office—I forgot to lock the safe!” The other
partner replied, “What are you worried about? We’re both here.”26

Again, this is an old joke, recorded as early as , about business partners (usu-
ally Jewish) that first appears as a lawyer joke in .27
Even where there is generosity and sharing, it cannot withstand the imperative
of self-interest:
. Councellor Double-Fee (BM . ). Lawyer takes fees from opposing
parties in a lawsuit. His speech balloon says “Open to all parties” and his hands are
inscribed “open to all.” On his desk are briefs for plaintiff and defendant in the same
case. The accompanying text identified him as “Sir Bullface Double-fee.”
 Betrayers of Trust 

F6 John and Joe had been law partners for many years, sharing everything, most especially
the affections of their libidinous secretary, Rose. One morning, an agitated John came to
Joe with the bad news, “Rose is pregnant! We’re going to be a father!” Joe, the more
reserved of the two, calmed his partner and reminded him that things could be much
worse. They were both well-off, and could easily afford the costs of raising the child. Rose
would have the best care available, her child would attend only the finest schools, and
neither would want for anything. The child would have the benefit of having two fathers,
both of which were caring and well-educated. Gradually, John got used to the idea of
fatherhood. When the big day came, both were at the hospital awaiting the news of their
offspring’s birth. Finally, John could take no more and went outside to take a walk. When
he returned an hour later, Joe had the news. “We had twins,” said Joe, “and mine died.”28

This first appears as a lawyer joke in  after at least sixty years as a story about
business partners (once again often Jewish).29 This version is distinctive in its
buildup of the generosity and sharing of the lawyers which is rudely punctured
by the individualistic shift from “we” to “mine.” The bonds of partnership and
intimacy fail to constrain the lawyer’s selfishness and opportunism.
F7 One morning at the law office, one attorney looked at the other and said, “Wow, you
look really terrible this morning.” The other lawyer replied, “Yeah, I woke up with a
headache this morning and, no matter what I try, I can’t seem to get rid of it.” The
first lawyer told him, “Whenever I get a headache like that, I take a few hours off during
the day, go home, and make love to my wife. Works every time for me.” Later that
afternoon, the two lawyers met again. The first told the second, “You know, you look
100 percent better.” The second replied, “Yeah, that was great advice you gave me.
You’ve got a beautiful house, too.”30

From early in the century through its first appearance as a lawyer joke in  to
the present, this was a “dumb” joke about the fellow worker who misunderstood
the helpful advice and asked, “Is your wife home now?” or “What’s your address?”31
The lawyer in the  version given here is the first protagonist to actually betray
his benefactor rather than just contemplate it. Others quickly followed.32
Another story of benevolence repaid has made a few print appearances as a
lawyer joke:
F8 A young lawyer in a swank Beverly Hills restaurant spotted J. Paul Getty, the billionaire
oil man. The lawyer went over to his table and said, “Mr. Getty, please forgive me for
interrupting your lunch, but please. Mr. Getty, I’m expecting two of my clients to come
in and I would consider it an enormous favor if sometime during our lunch, you could
stop by my table and say, ‘Hello, Bernie.’ You don’t know what it would mean to me. . . .”
The lawyer returned to his table, where his clients joined him.
Getty and his guest were finished and were on their way out of the restaurant when
Getty remembered the young lawyer’s request. He went back to the lawyer’s table and,
tapping him on the shoulder, said, “Hello, Bernie.”
The lawyer said, “Not now, Getty, I’m eating.”33
  T N T

Since at least , a host of protagonists including Newfoundlanders, Ole the

Norwegian, Paddy the Irishman, and ambitious young salesmen, executives, and
advertising men have enlisted the help of super-celebrity politicians, tycoons, and
entertainers and then rebuffed them.34 That only two lawyers have joined this
band suggests that this flourishing joke did not resonate enough with perceptions
of lawyers to be firmly lodged in the lawyer joke corpus. It is impossible to know
why this joke didn’t “take” as a lawyer joke, but a couple of possible explanations
come to mind. First, the joke is about a young man—and for the most part the
lawyer is seen as seasoned and mature, not a novice. Second, the young man is
bold and resourceful, but his stratagem of sacrificing the (illusory) friendship of a
powerful patron for the merest increment of momentary advantage may just seem
too heedless and crude to be convincingly lawyerlike.
F9 There once was a mobster who established a corps of loyal and dedicated employees,
chief among whom were a deaf-and-dumb accountant and his brother, a lawyer. Both of
them served the mobster for a number of years, and everything was fine until the chief
decided to double check the books. Finding himself some two million dollars short, the
boss flew into a rage and sent out a couple of thugs to round up the accountant and his
brother, who could speak sign language and serve as interpreter.”You tell this son-of-a-
bitch I want to know where my two million is!” he yelled. After a quick exchange with
his brother, the lawyer reported that his brother had no idea what his employer was
talking about. The mobster jumped to his feet, held a gun to the accountant’s temple,
and screamed, “You tell this bastard that if he doesn’t sing, pronto, I’m going to blow
his brains out—after I have a couple of my boys work him over!” This was duly
translated to the quaking accountant, who explained to his brother in frantic sign
language that the bills were hidden in three shoeboxes in his closet. “So whaddid he
say?” interrupted the gangster. The lawyer turned back to him with a shrug. “He says
you haven’t got the balls.”35

In this Betrayal tale the lawyer is not only engaged in dirty business to start with,
but he proceeds to take advantage of the dependence of his client and his brother
to betray both. The story is resonant with clients’ anxieties over whether lawyers
are really doing what they say they are doing. Here the lawyer rips off both antag-
onists by exploiting his monopoly on the channels of communication to falsify
messages and aggravate conflict for his own economic advantage.36 Betrayal here
is coupled with Economic Predation. It is also a tale about the lawyer’s moral
obtuseness and lack of ordinary human attachments. This shows up as a lawyer
joke in , over a dozen years after its appearance as a story about the faithless
translator.37
F10 Pete and Jerry had been law partners for many years. One day, Pete fell ill, and grew
progressively worse. Medical specialists were called in from the world over, but no one
could diagnose Pete’s illness. The only thing that seemed certain was that Pete’s death
was imminent. As Pete lay in his last hours, he felt obligated to reveal a few secrets to
 Betrayers of Trust 

Jerry. “You know that million dollar settlement we got from Morgan last year? I never
told you this, but it was really three million. I kept the other two million, and eventually
gambled it away. Can you forgive me?” Jerry said that he would, without question. Pete
then told him, “Well, you remember when your wife divorced you and got the big
alimony judgement? It was me that gave her the inside information on your finances.
I had been screwing her for years. How can you forgive me?” Jerry told his friend, once
again, that it was forgotten. After Pete had told of several other transgressions, all of
which Jerry forgave, Pete began to look at Jerry as saintly. “How can you be so forgiving,
after the way I have cheated and lied to you for so many years?” Jerry answered, “For
two reasons, Pete. First, because you will soon be dead, and there’s no reason to hate
you in the grave. And, secondly, because I poisoned you.”38

This popular story has been told about spouses since before 39 and about
partners (often Jewish) since .40 The first lawyer poisoner appeared in 
(preceded by a client poisoning his lawyer in ). Since , vengeance has been
wreaked in the print record by six lawyers, five business partners, ten husbands,
and two wives. No other new protagonists have appeared. Like his predecessors,
the lawyer appears long-suffering and forgiving; he “turns the other cheek,” but
it is only appearance. Behind the scenes he responds forcefully and lethally to
punish those who injure him. He feigns forgiveness while silently doing in his
partner just as the partner feigned loyalty and exploited him. Tit for tat, what they
share is treacherous infliction of ruinous damage.
In many of these stories the lawyer’s betrayal has a phallic component: the
lawyer has literally screwed someone he shouldn’t have (the secretary or the part-
ner’s wife) or metaphorically screwed his partner or his client. The conflation of
economic and sexual predation, which we saw earlier in the new “sexual” Economic
Predation jokes, is condensed in the following riddle:
F11 Q: How does a lawyer say, “Screw you?”
A: “Trust me.”41

In more mundane ways, the lawyer has no compunction about using his power
over others to forward his own interests:
F12 A paralegal, an associate and a partner of a prestigious N.Y. law firm are walking
though Central Park on their way to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub
it and a Genie comes out in a puff of smoke.
The Genie says, “I usually only grant three wishes, so I’ll give each of you just one.”
“Me first! Me first!” says the paralegal. “I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a
speedboat, without a care in the world.”
Poof. He’s gone.
In astonishment, “Me next! Me next!” says the associate. “I want to be in Hawaii,
relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of piña coladas and
the love of my life.”
Poof. She’s gone.
  T N T

“You’re next,” the Genie says to the partner.

The partner says, “I want those two back in the library after lunch.”42

This is one of the few jokes that is set in the world of modern large firm practice.
Like beautiful house (F), this was (and remains) a dumb joke, here about the stu-
pid guy who undoes his mates’ escape from a desert island.43 A lawyer instance
appears in print in .44 In  the more instrumentalist workaholic version in
the text above was circulating, apparently modeled on an earlier variant involving
a movie producer who wants his director and writer on the set.45

B          V    
Is the lawyer’s treachery and proclivity to defect entirely negative? The earliest
Betrayal joke to be switched to lawyers, and one of the most popular, portrays the
lawyer’s trickiness as not entirely without redeeming qualities:
F13 A very wealthy man, old and desperately ill, summons to his bedside his three closest
advisors: his doctor, his priest, and his lawyer. “I know,” he says, “they say ‘you can’t
take it with you.’ But who knows? Suppose they’re mistaken. I’d like to have something,
just in case. So I am giving each of you an envelope containing one hundred thousand
dollars and I would be grateful if at my funeral you would put the envelope in my coffin,
so that if it turns out that it’s useful, I’ll have something.” They each agree to carry out
his wish.
Sure enough, after just a few weeks, the old man passes away. At his funeral, each of
the three advisors can be seen slipping something into the coffin. After the burial, as the
three are walking away together, the doctor turns to the other two and says, “Friends, I
have a confession to make. As you know, at the hospital we are desperate because of the
cutbacks in funding. Our CAT scan machine broke down and we haven’t been able to
get a new one. So, I took $20,000 of our friend’s money for a new CAT scan and put the
rest of it in the coffin as he asked.”
At this the priest says, “I, too, have a confession to make. As you know, our church is
simply overwhelmed by the problem of the homeless. The needs keep increasing and we
have nowhere to turn. So I took $50,000 from the envelope for our homeless fund and
put the rest in the coffin as our friend requested.”
Fixing the other two in his gaze, the lawyer says, “I am astonished and deeply
disappointed that you would treat so casually our solemn undertaking to our friend.
I want you to know that I placed in his coffin my personal check for the full one
hundred thousand dollars.”46

The check in the coffin in something like this form has been circulating for
more than a hundred years, often but not exclusively as a joke about Jews.47 The
first lawyer, who appeared in , is the lawyer son of a testator who requires that
his coffin contain $,; the son removed the cash and substituted his check.48
For the first time the joke figure is a lawyer and for the first time the money for
deposit is supplied by the deceased. With the next lawyer protagonist in , the
 Betrayers of Trust 

joke is reconfigured into its now canonical form: the deceased is attended by a
triad of friends or advisors, of different professions or ethnicities. There is an esca-
lating diversion of funds for altruistic reasons, but the earlier deposits are not
removed; and the joke figure reproaches the others.49 In its several versions this has
become one of the most widespread of the longer narrative jokes about lawyers.
In this take it with you version the lawyer combines greed, formalism, manipula-
tion and betrayal. He is a too-clever deceiver who betrays his client and outdoes his
friends by a kind of crazy literalness. The betrayal is done in good form, but form
is employed to undermine substance. On the surface the lawyer complies fully
with the request. But his compliance is achieved by a daring extension of the con-
ventional equation of check with cash that sabotages the intent of the promise—
at the same time that it extends the zany logic of the deceased, for why should an
afterlife where U.S. dollars are honored lack facilities for negotiating a check?
The lawyer’s abysmal performance as a trustee is combined with adroit games-
manship and moral pretension. The doctor and the priest divert part of the
money for unimpeachably good causes, but they are guilt-stricken and apologetic.
The lawyer appropriates it all, and for himself rather than for charitable purposes,
and he makes no apologies—in fact he reproaches them for betrayal and presents
himself as the one who faithfully honored the old man’s trust. Ironically, the arch
deviant uses his formal compliance to claim the most complete fulfillment of duty.
Still, I think this joke is permeated by admiration for the lawyer. The doctor
and the priest are hesitant, inhibited do-gooders who end up wasting a lot of
human treasure. If they believe the deceased’s crazy premise, they are perpetrating
an awful betrayal. If they don’t believe it, they are foolish, wasteful, crippled by
their conscientiousness. In contrast with their hesitant virtue, we have the lawyer’s
clear, decisive assertion of self-interest. He doesn’t believe it and he is free of the
inhibiting sentimentality of the others. They really don’t believe it either, but
they can’t face up to the virtue of betrayal. It is the lawyer’s unblinking ration-
ality, beneath the guise of compliance, that stuns us. Recall David Riesman’s
observation that lawyers “are feared and disliked—but needed—because of their
matter-of-factness, their sense of relevance, their refusal to be impressed by mag-
ical ‘solutions’ to people’s problems.”50
So, the lawyer deviates where the others should have. He is at once a disastrous
failure as a trustee, an adroit con artist—and a model of how to deal with irra-
tional demands, in contrast to the megalomania of the deceased and the senti-
mental paralysis of the other advisors.51 The deceased by denying death would
destroy resources that should be left to the living. Where the doctor and the priest
“balance” the claims of the deceased and of the living, the lawyer embraces the
claims of the living. But ironically his unabashed assertion of the claims of the liv-
ing benefits only himself, while the hesitant assertions of the doctor and the priest
do benefit deserving others.
The verdict on the lawyer here is complex: it is the lawyer that has the wit to
see through sham, the courage to ignore it, and the resourcefulness to figure a way
. The Triple Plea (BM . c.). The classical triad of professions
so familiar today in jokes—doctor, lawyer, and priest—was then
depicted as representing three threats of dependence and exploitation.
The verse reads: “Law, Physick, and Divinity, / Contend which shall
Superior be. / The Lawyer pleads He is your Friend, / And will your
Rights & Cause defend. / The Doctor swears (deny’t who will) / That
Life and Health are in his Pills. / The grave Divine, with Look demure,
/ To Penitents will Heaven assure. / But mark these friends of ours &
see / Where ends their great Civility. / Without a Fee, the Lawyer’s
Dumb; / Without a Fee, the Doctor Mum; / The Rev’rence says,
without his Dues, / You must the Joys of Heaven lose. / Then be
advis’d: in none, confide; / But take Sound Reason for your Guide.”
. The Triple Plea (BM . John Collett c.). Another rendition of the professional
triad, summed up in the oval picture of “Harpies” and the open book on the table at left
which reads: “Behold these Three, too oft by Fate design’d: / To poison, plunder and delude
Mankind.”
  T N T

to do it adroitly. At the same time, he lacks a saving common sentimentality,

ignores obligations to others, and acts solely to his own advantage. The lawyer
is someone with qualities we would want on our side. He is a very desirable ally,
but the betrayal jokes remind us that he is one with a dangerous propensity to
abandon those who rely upon him.
I regard the take it with you version of check in the coffin as the most complex
and sophisticated of current jokes about lawyers. Driven by the dying man’s heroic
denial of death, it has a basic premise that is engaging and immediately recogniz-
able, has a long historic pedigree, and, at some level, tempts us into wishing there
was something to it. The other friends’ diversion of some of the funds to altruis-
tic uses introduces the possibility that there may be some virtue in betrayal. The
lawyer then outdoes them in diversion but makes no attempt to match their
rationale of an offsetting obligation. The theme of escalating altruistic diversion
provides the perfect foil for the depiction of the lawyer as supplied with an excess
of penetrating rationality and a deficiency of fellow feeling. We are presented with
two competing but incomplete forms of exemplary deviance: the friends act on a
vision of higher uses for the treasure, but stumble because they are sentimental;
the lawyer fully surmounts the irrationality of the deceased and the sentimental-
ity of the friends, but disappoints because his clear-sighted rationality is entirely
devoid of the benevolence that makes the friends endearing. We are shown a world
in which the components of an exemplary response to the megalomania of the
deceased—rationality and benevolence—are separately embodied in flawed carri-
ers. All the needed pieces are present, but an optimum solution eludes us because
of the deformation attendant to each specialized virtue. The lawyer embodies part
of what we want, but he brings it to us fused with a self-centeredness we disdain
and embrace.
This take it with you story is the most widespread of the several distinct lines
of check in the coffin jokes.52 Two of the other variants are also told about lawyers.53
In one, the deposit of the money is explained not as part of the deceased’s plan for
financing in the next world, but as a respectful gesture by the mourners, inspired
by family tradition or cross-cultural experience.

F13 An anthropologist had been studying an obscure Thai hill tribe when he contracted a
particularly virulent case of jungle rot and was dead in a week. His heartbroken widow
accompanied the casket back to Milwaukee, where she invited his three best friends to
attend an intimate funeral. When the brief service was over, she asked each of the friends
to place an offering in the casket, as had been the custom of the tribe he had been
living with.”It would mean a great deal to Harry,” she whispered, then broke down
into racking sobs. Moved to tears himself, the first friend, a doctor, gently deposited a
hundred dollars in the coffin. Dabbing his cheeks, the second friend, a stockbroker,
laid a hundred and fifty dollars on the deceased Harry’s pillow. The third friend, a
lawyer, scribbled a check for four hundred and fifty dollars, put it in the casket, and
pocketed the cash.54
 Betrayers of Trust 

The basic figure is the same as take it with you: a dead man and three friends of
different professions who are obliged to place money in his coffin. But beyond
that, everything changes: the money to be deposited is the mourners’ rather than
the dead man’s; the amount is a token rather than an immense sum; the first two
friends comply fully rather than partially, and they are just tearfully sentimen-
tal, not purposefully altruistic. The lawyer perfects the gamesmanship aspect by
not only using a check for his own contribution but gratuitously increasing the
amount to cover the friends’ contributions, which he then pockets as change.
Instead of sabotaging the megalomaniacal and self-serving plans of the deceased,
the lawyer’s extractive behavior violates the dead man’s heartfelt wish, exploits the
generous impulses of his friends, and adds insult to injury by a pretense of mag-
nanimity. By subverting the sentimental gesture that warms and unites the widow
and mourning friends, he announces his inability to subordinate his self-serving
to even a momentary salute to fellowship.
Take it with you appears as a lawyer story in , before the emergence of the
jaundiced view of the legal system and before the great boom in lawyer jokes sent
jokesters looking for plausible switches. The respectful gesture version, after a long
history as a joke about groups that are cheap and canny, appears as a lawyer joke
in  when the great wave of lawyer jokes is flowing swiftly.55 Another check in
the coffin lawyer story arrived on that wave, but seems to have vanished:
F13 A lawyer confided to his partner that years ago he had cheated one of his clients out of
$10,000. That client had just died. “I made amends,” said the lawyer. “I went to his
funeral and wrote a check for $10,000 and put it in his coffin.”56

Here, the trio of professionals is eliminated. The comparison with specific others
is replaced by comparison with an implicit generalized other and the moral con-
demnation is intensified. As in the take it with you version, it is a client that the
lawyer betrays. Here, the betrayal took place long ago. Now the lawyer, recogniz-
ing that breach, purports to repair his moral stature by making amends. But his
attempt to do so involves yet another deceit, further compounded by the gap
between the seriousness of his intention and the emptiness of his gesture. We are
left to wonder whether his account is insincere (and so he is incapable of honesty
even with his partner) or whether his deceitfulness is so ingrained that he is inca-
pable of appreciating the absurdity and hollowness of his gesture. Either way, he
is incapable of repentance. We move from crafty self-seeking to moral incorrigi-
bility. While the take it with you story is very widespread and the respectful gesture
is also popular, this make amends story surfaced in print only twice and does not
seem to be in circulation.57

W    D     J     T   U ?
This set of jokes is one of several newcomer categories that have recently swollen
the already ample corpus of lawyer jokes. None of these betrayal jokes is originally
or exclusively a lawyer joke. This category does not contain a single joke that is
 T N T

“indigenous” to law in the sense that it arises from or depends upon distinctive
features of the legal setting and is told originally, only, or mainly about lawyers.
Every one has been switched from a story about some other kind of protagon-
ist. One or two generations ago almost all of these jokes were in circulation, but
they were not connected to lawyers. They were jokes about friends, companions,
spouses, or business partners.
These betrayal jokes have been refashioned as lawyer jokes and repeated
because they contain characterizations that tellers and listeners wanted to attach
to lawyers. The jokes are not a direct reflection of people’s experience with lawyers,
but a screen on which they project their feelings and judgments and anxieties
about lawyers and law in a world in which lawyers are increasingly prominent and
increasingly inescapable. Like iron filings that reveal the presence of an unseen
magnetic force, these jokes enable us to locate a powerful current of unease about
lawyers in which appreciation of their cleverness, potency, and resourcefulness
accentuates anxiety about their trustworthiness and loyalty.
A large portion of the jokes in the Betrayal cluster are adapted from jokes that
were predominantly told about Jews.58 Lawyers have joined (or displaced) Jews as
objects of these stories about clever, tricky, greedy, and untrustworthy operators
who do not hesitate to betray intimates, dependents, and benefactors.59 The
lawyer, like the Jew, is a liminal figure, who is defined as proficient at self-serving
and deficient in loyalty, especially to outsiders. In the lawyer setting, the question
arises of what is included in the self-interest that is being served? Are lawyers going
to exercise their cleverness on behalf of their partners and clients? Are these in-
timates exempt from the lawyer’s proclivity for betrayal? Or are they likely to be
targets of the lawyer’s treachery?
These switches are recent: lawyer versions of the check in the coffin and collision
and flask surfaced in print only rarely until they were joined by the others noted
here in the late s and the s. Assuming that there is some lag between the
time a joke circulates in the oral tradition and its appearance in print, we might
estimate the arrival of this cluster as at most a few years earlier. But we are talking
about the late s.
Why did this cluster of jokes emerge at this time? Before we embark on
explaining the lawyer-betrayal joke connection, we may want additional assurance
that such a connection in fact exists. We have to deal with an alternative hypoth-
esis: could it be that with the general decline of trust, Betrayal jokes are spreading
to many kinds of protagonists and lawyers are just one of many targets? If so, the
jokes would reflect only the general lack of trust rather than something specific to
law and lawyers. To test whether the spread of these jokes has been general and
therefore cannot be taken as specifically registering perceptions of lawyers, I have
examined the publication history of each of the Betrayal jokes noted in this chap-
ter. Lawyers have become the principal protagonists of these stories in some cases
and important protagonists in others; jokes about the original protagonists usually
continue, but the appearance of other new protagonists like doctors, businessmen,
 Betrayers of Trust 

or politicians is infrequent and sporadic. Of course it is possible that there is

another set of Betrayal jokes that have attached themselves to members of other
groups. All I can say is that as an observer of the joke scene I have never encoun-
tered them.
The s, when these Betrayal jokes arrived as a small part of a great tide of
lawyer jokes, was a time of falling trust and of declining confidence in institutions,
including the legal system. Less trusting of others and increasingly involved in
transactions with strangers, people had more need to rely on lawyers for the assur-
ance that the legal system can provide. It was a time of great expansion of the legal
profession. There was increasing resort to lawyers and they were increasingly vis-
ible in public life, an exposure that was magnified by a proliferation of imaginary
lawyers in the media. Public estimation of the honesty and ethical standards of
lawyers fell. The jokes were accompanied and overshadowed by a mounting tide
of “serious” criticism of lawyers and the legal system for unraveling public moral-
ity and depressing the national economy.
The combination of evidence that lawyers are highly distrusted with the
appearance of a new set of jokes about lawyers as betrayers of trust led me initially
to assume that this reflected a heightening of anxiety among clients and potential
clients about whether lawyers could be relied upon to be loyal to them. How-
ever, reexamination of the jokes themselves suggests that there is both more and
less involved than fear of unfaithfulness to clients. Who is the lawyer betraying in
these jokes? Of the thirteen jokes discussed in this chapter, we can discern the rela-
tion of the figures in twelve. In two (collision and flask [F] and celebrity greeting
spurned [F]) they are strangers (often rival professionals); in eight they are part-
ners (safe unlocked [F], payment during robbery [F], beautiful house [F], mine
died [F], poisoned you [F) or other professionals involved in the same enterprise
(partner undoes wishes [F], sign language [F], outrun bear [F]).60 The only jokes
in which the primary victim is the lawyer’s client are extra $ bill (F) and two
of the versions of check in the coffin (F).
In extra $ bill, the client is an inadvertent victim, but it is the lawyer’s
partner who he contemplates intentionally cheating. Also, the treachery has no
connection with the lawyer’s service to the client; it is in connection with the
fee, joining the older and larger pool of stories about the lawyer overcharging,
taking everything the client has, and so forth, reviewed in chapter . Check in the
coffin is more complex: in the respectful gesture variant, the transaction is remote
from representation of a client, as the lawyer is typically described as one of the
deceased’s closest friends.61 In the making amends variant, there is a clear but
unspecified betrayal of the client. But this variant, we noted, has never achieved
any popularity. That leaves the most popular variant, take it with you. Here the
lawyer is usually identified as “his [the deceased’s] lawyer.”62 So we can think of
the deceased as a trusting and vulnerable client, although the service requested is
personal rather than specifically professional and strains the bounds of loyalty even
for devoted and unselfish friends. Indeed, the lawyer’s disloyalty there, although
 T N T

discredited by his unabashed self-serving, wavers toward the laudable. Never-

theless this story is the only joke in the entire lawyer joke corpus that depicts
the lawyer thwarting the client’s goals (as distinguished from fleecing the client or
refusing to serve the impecunious client).63
Even in the few jokes that depict faithlessness to clients, there is also “betrayal”
of professional peers, including the lawyer’s partner not receiving a share of the ill-
gotten extra $ bill and the conscientious and altruistic doctor and priest out-
done by the lawyer in the take it with you version of check in the coffin. This is even
more clear in the respectful gesture version where the lawyer rips off the offerings
of the generous fellow professionals.64 Overall, the prime target of the lawyer’s
treachery is his partner or professional peer. And the damage wreaked on these
tends to be far more serious as professional intimacy increases. Where the client
can ill afford to lose the $ bill, the lawyers (or other professionals) in outrun
bear, poisoned you, and sign language are exposed to mortal danger. To the great
fund of stories about lawyers’ economic exploitation of their clients, Betrayal jokes
make a quite minor addition, but they add to the joke corpus a theme almost
entirely new in joking about lawyers: the propensity to betray partners and other
professionals who are not opponents, but on the “same side.” I conclude then that
these jokes point less to the anxieties of clients dealing with professionals than to
the anxieties of professionals dealing with one another in an increasingly compet-
itive environment.
It is not surprising that such concern should appear at a moment when the
legal profession, and in particular its upper reaches, was undergoing a massive
transformation. During the s, the number of lawyers increased dramatically.
The world of staid clubby law firms—a world of assured tenure and little lateral
movement, shrouded in confidentiality, cocooned by retainers from loyal long-
term clients—dissolved. It was replaced by a world of rapid growth, increased
competition for clients, mergers and breakups, movement from firm to firm, fear
of defection, and pervasive insecurity.65 Collegiality was replaced by wariness.
Increasingly, lawyers were competitive not only with lawyers in other firms but
“with their own partners and even associates coming up the ladder.”66 Established
partners might be “pushed off the iceberg” by their colleagues. No longer
shrouded in confidentiality, a new intrusive legal journalism exposed the strata-
gems of lawyers and the operations of law firms. Lawyers lamented the loss of col-
legiality within firms and the decline of civility at the bar. An outpouring of books
and articles bemoaned the descent of the profession from civic virtue to com-
mercialism.67 These Betrayal jokes reflect tensions within the profession at least as
much as the anxieties of its customers.
To confirm this it would be helpful to know who tells these jokes. We know
that a very significant part of the telling of lawyer jokes is done by lawyers them-
selves. Professor A. W. B. Simpson even asserts that “although other people get into
the act too, it is principally lawyers who tell jokes against lawyers.”68 Although
Simpson offers no support for this observation, a scatter of evidence suggests that
 Betrayers of Trust 

there is more than a little truth to it. Some lawyers profess outrage at lawyer jokes,
but the press coverage of the lawyer joke phenomenon contains numerous refer-
ences to the interest of lawyers in lawyer jokes. The proprietor of Nolo Press,
which operates one of the longest-running and best-known Web sites for lawyer
jokes, reports “most of the jokes come from lawyers.”69 The embrace of lawyer
jokes includes law firms using them in brochures, newsletters, and Web sites and
law schools using them in alumni promotions.70
Lawyers are not unique in consuming and producing jokes about themselves.
There is abundant evidence that “minorities” (including Jews, African Americans,
Polish Americans, the Irish in England) are important producers and consumers
of jokes about their own groups.71 One explanation of this phenomenon involves
intragroup differentiation. In this view “the ‘better’ members of the ridiculed
group” enjoy jokes that display the inferiority of their less educated, less eman-
cipated, less assimilated, less respectable cousins.72 Thus, the point of dialect sto-
ries told by second-generation American Jews “is precisely that the subject does
not stand for all Jews. Rather than being anti-Semitic it is anti-greenhorn, anti-
immigrant, anti-Old-World, and possibly anti-poor.” That is, such jokes reflect
the situation of the uneasy “second generation American Jew . . . who wished to
separate himself sharply from the unassimilated immigrant, whose ways he viewed
not only as old fashioned and irrelevant, but, most important, as an obstacle to
his own efforts toward acceptance by the majority culture.”73 Another student of
Jewish jokes takes this as exploding the notion that Jewish humor is self-mocking
or masochistic, arguing that “invariably the object of ridicule is a group with
which the raconteur disassociates himself. Joke-telling is a verbal expression which
manifests social differentiation.”74
This has a ready applicability to lawyers. The more diverse and internally
conflictful the lawyer category, the more occasion for lawyers to employ jokes to
disassociate themselves from others. My small stock of direct information here
points in this direction. I interviewed a lawyer whose four-person California firm
distributed handouts of lawyer jokes with its newsletters and at meetings of poten-
tial clients. Convinced that “a big percentage of the profession are a bunch of
schmucks . . . trying to take advantage of clients,” he reported that he personally
uses lawyer jokes in presentations and conversations with clients to disarm the
endemic suspicion of lawyers: “by telling jokes about lawyers you show that
you are not one of those crooks, but one of the good guys.”75 Differentiation is
similarly stressed at the outset in a beautifully illustrated brochure entitled, “We
Are Not the Enemy,” distributed by a large multicity firm based in New York that
depicts a series of lawyer jokes:

Lawyer jokes. Why are they so popular? We have a theory. Too many clients today
do not get the representation they want and deserve. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Anderson Kill Olick & Oshinsky is different. Since our founding in , we have
never wavered from our principal objective—being responsive to clients’ needs.
 T N T

Every lawyer at Anderson Kill Olick & Oshinsky is committed to ensuring client
satisfaction. We take that responsibility seriously—and that’s no joke.76

Jokes are used by lawyers to tell clients they are the good guys. I suspect that they
are told among lawyers themselves to similar effect, identifying those present as
above the antics and shenanigans of the lawyers in the jokes.77
But differentiation does not exhaust the function of lawyer jokes for lawyers.
Gershon Legman observed that telling jokes acts to “absorb and control, even to
slough off, by means of jocular presentation and laughter, the great anxiety that
both teller and listener feel in connection with certain culturally determined
themes.”78 Stanley Brandes, applying this to the case of Jewish dialect jokes, finds
them an expression of “the collective Jewish-American uncertainty about its eth-
nic identity, and its fear of committing cultural suicide.”79 Similarly, lawyers’
engagement with lawyer jokes can be imagined as an expression of anxiety about
the fragility of their professional identity, threatened both by massive structural
changes and by unrelenting attacks from other high-status groups. Hoist by the
increasing legalization of society into an uneasy ascendency, lawyers wonder
whether they can retain the privileges of professionalism along with the rewards
of affluence. Jokes lend themselves to this exercise because, in Davies’s words, they
“are ambiguous comic utterances without a single clear meaning, and their relation
to aggression or fear is variable and problematic. . . . Tendentiousness is not a
quality of a joke as such but a quality of the teller. It is the teller who decides by
choice of tone and context whether he or she is playing at or with aggression
and whether the play is rough or friendly.” Jokes enable us “to construct safe mock
versions of real fears both to amuse [ourselves] and others. . . . Depending on
context, one and the same joke can either inflame fears or else domesticate and
master them.”80
Although they attack lawyers, many lawyer jokes are infused with the sense
that lawyers are clever, powerful, and important. Lawyer jokes offer a particularly
appealing way of displaying these things because of a curious glitch in the culture
that directs joking up the status scale rather than down. It has frequently been
observed that lawyers are one of the groups that can be attacked without worry
about offending norms of political correctness. The Economist observed that “the
level of hostile humour” directed at lawyers “has increased noticeably since racist
jokes went out of fashion. The sorts of jokes which, in less enlightened time, were
directed at ethnic groups are now more commonly aimed at lawyers, particularly
in America.”81 But this realignment has a curious effect.”Those who are fair
game for . . . ridicule” are those at high end of the status ladder: “men, WASPs,
vocationally successful, physically slim, beautiful women and handsome men.”82
Since it is “incorrect” to ridicule down, being singled out as an acceptable target
of jokes is a sign of high status and has the ultimate effect of boosting rather than
lowering status. So lawyers’ affable self-disparagement in turn translates into an
assertion of status: we have so much status we can endure a firestorm of jokes.
 Betrayers of Trust 

A. W. B. Simpson observes that “all these jokes and criticisms make indirect
reference to the supposed ideals of the legal profession. They presuppose these
ideals; indeed they are indirect statements of them, coupled with the claim that
lawyers in reality do not live up to them.”83 This observation fits many sorts of
lawyer jokes, including those discussed in this chapter. I am less certain that it can
be extended to other kinds of lawyer jokes, such as the Objects of Scorn and Death
Wish jokes discussed in the following chapters. The “ideals” in question in our
Betrayal jokes are the collegiality and faithfulness of lawyers in their dealings
among themselves, a matter of low visibility and salience to others. This doesn’t
mean that these jokes are told by or appreciated only or mostly by lawyers. For
others, these stories augment their sense of the quirks and transgressions of law-
yers. One message that could be extracted is that these are guys you have to watch
out for, for they have no compunction about doing in their own. If lawyers
are such tricky and unprincipled guys, with a proclivity to turn on those close to
them, a certain wariness may be justified. But it strikes me as significant that when
imagination ranges freely, it envisions lawyers betraying other professionals rather
than clients. Hearers may be amused and appalled at this portrait of ruthless
instrumentalism, but it is less clear that they are threatened by it.

A  E        L      ?
The check in the coffin should remind us that faithfulness to clients is a respectable
virtue, but not necessarily the ultimate good. Students of legal ethics engage in
intense debate about the extent and boundaries of the lawyer’s obligation of loy-
alty to the client.84 In a discussion of the contemporary wave of lawyer jokes,
Roger Cramton suggests that in the eyes of the public the profession’s problem
is not disloyalty to clients, but excessive loyalty. Although he views public antipa-
thy as unavoidable because it is the lawyer’s role to be bearer of the bad news of
“society’s internal dissonance and division,”85 he assigns part of the blame for the
current upsurge of hostility to the ethos of the profession: “The dominant pro-
fessional view has a normative structure that gives highest priority to loyalty
to client and abhors betrayal of clients.”86 Cramton thinks that the bar’s “self-
centered and immoral position” against disclosure of client fraud is “at variance
with general morality” and leads to “problems of overrepresentation and excessive
zeal that properly concern the public.”87 Is the public actually exercised about this
problem? The jokes that Cramton discusses do not raise the issue, and the joke
corpus as a whole supplies only faint evidence of concern. There is a long line of
jokes ridiculing the lawyer’s eager and easy embrace of the client and his cause, the
tendency of the lawyer to go “over the top” for the client and to be carried away
by the momentum of his own argument.88 But such jokes have been a placid back-
water hardly disturbed by the great flood of contemporary joking about lawyers.
The notion that public animus against lawyers stems from their unqualified
devotion to clients might seem to gain support from the  film The Devil’s
Advocate, which updates the image of the lawyer as a confederate of the devil by
 T N T

promoting that worthy to managing partner of a Wall Street firm. What is it

about lawyers that makes them so devilish? The film’s answer is clear: greed is sub-
sidiary; the distinctive sin of the lawyer is the love of winning which leads him to
defeat justice by placing his preternatural cleverness in the service of the guilty.
Lawyers’ indiscriminate embrace of clients’ unjust causes to feed their passion
for winning is the sin of vanity. Pursuing victory for the loathsome client leads
the brilliant young lawyer into the embrace of the devil, who is also, it turns out,
his father.89 (The way out of his grasp is unclear, for the ambiguous ending of the
film suggests that the young lawyer’s dramatic abandonment of the detestable
client may be a more subtle pursuit of vanity, equally pleasing to the devil.)
On another screen at the local multiplex in  was John Grisham’s The Rain-
maker () in which a novice lawyer working out of a sleazy office develops
an intense familial intimacy with his poor, vulnerable, and misused clients and
becomes their guardian angel.90 The lawyer’s heroic role is built not on his untried
and uneven skills, but on the intensity and purity of his identification with his
clients. Utterly loyal to them, he is willing to lie, cheat, and steal where necessary
to vindicate their rights, overcoming the fierce opposition of (equally unscrupu-
lous) lawyers knowingly abetting a cruel and avaricious insurance swindle.91
It is no easier to extract an unambiguous message from a film than from a joke,
and it is at least equally questionable how adequately it represents public opinion.
Nevertheless, let me venture that the two films, taken together, seem to say that it
is commendable for lawyers to go “over the top” for clients who are genuinely
deserving victims, but abominable to do so for bad guys. Survey evidence shows
that people are aware that villains are entitled to lawyers and that “somebody
phas to do it,” but many have reservations about the zeal of such representation.92
People are distressed about lawyers’ willingness to defend the guilty, but they are
reluctant to condemn lawyers for going all out for their clients, even sleazy ones.93
These movies concur with the survey evidence that the characteristic of lawyers
that most engages Americans is lawyers’ loyalty, zeal, and commitment to the
client. But public estimation of the level of commitment that is present and that
is desirable depends at least in part on the characteristics of the client.94 As we shall
see, the problem of the lawyer’s level of engagement shades into the problems of
disparities in the distribution of legal services.
  

The Lawyer as
Morally Deficient

The lawyer’s problematic moral standing was long ago codified in terms of an
association with the devil. Since the s, this line of jokes has been renewed and
expanded, as detailed in chapter . This period has seen an even greater growth in
jokes about the moral deficiencies of lawyers that are phrased in a more secular
idiom.

A S      P        
Although lawyers enjoy high professional status, the nagging suspicions surround-
ing their moral standing that were manifested in the association with the devil and
sin did not pass with the waning of belief in postmortem reckoning. Instead,
doubts about the moral condition of lawyers have been restated in secular terms:
G1 Judge W—, who had been for many years a worthy occupant of the Federal bench in
Michigan, fell into conversation a few days since in a barber’s shop, with a plain,
substantial looking, and rather aged stranger, from the neighborhood of Tecumseh. The
judge being formerly well acquainted in that vicinity, took occasion to ask after certain of
its citizens. “You know Mr. B. do you?” said the judge. “Very well!” was the reply. “He is
well, is he?” “Quite well!” was the answer. Judge W. then remarked: “Mr. B. is a very fine
man!” “Y-e-s!” said the old man,” rather cautiously; “a fine man for a lawyer—you know
we don’t expect a great deal from them!”1

That beneath their exalted professional status lawyers are really indistinguish-
able from their most despised clients is implied by the popular play on the term
“criminal lawyer.” The classic is the exchange:
G3 Have you a criminal lawyer in this burg?
We think so but we haven’t been able to prove it on him.2

Other versions simplify the response to an epithet:


  T N T

G3 “My uncle is a criminal lawyer.”

“Aren’t they all?”3

Or simply
G3 “criminal lawyer” is redundant.4

Others add a New Age twist:

G3 What do you call an attorney who describes himself as a criminal lawyer?
Self-aware.5

The convergence may be appreciated even by those who are empathic rather
than hostile:
G3 “I understand your son, John, is an attorney?”
“Yes, he is out west, and he’s got lots of business,” she answered with a mother’s
pride.
“Is he a criminal lawyer?”
“No, not yet,” she said, as a shadow fell upon her wrinkled face. “Leastwise he ain’t
told me. But I’m afraid he will be. The law is so dreadfully tempting.”6

Another common deflation of the lawyer’s claim to status and respect is compar-
ison with the “oldest profession.” Such an equation is suggested in the following
story, more frequently told of doctors:
G5 A young lawyer, walking along the street with his wife on his arm, was greeted by a
beautiful young lady. The jealous young wife asked him who his girl friend was. “Can’t
remember her name,” he said. “Just a girl I met professionally.”
“Whose profession, dear, yours or hers?”7

Although this story predates the current surge of antilawyer sentiment, the com-
parison with prostitution seems to have initially arrived in the United States soon
after World War Two. It is tenacious because it resonates with three separate
themes. First, the lawyer, eager for fortune and fame and bolstered by the maxim
that even the most dastardly wrongdoer deserves zealous representation, is not
fastidious about the clients he embraces. Chicago lawyer Don Reuben used to
delight in telling law students: “A good lawyer is like a good prostitute. If the price
is right you warm up to your client.”8 Others are less enthused by the parallel. An
idealistic lawyer reported her frustration: “I was taught that a good lawyer can
advocate any position; only a poor lawyer chooses her side. . . . But if that is so,
then a good lawyer must be like a prostitute, who works well for anyone who pays
her.”9 Second, the lawyer is seen as pliable and complaisant—a hired gun directed
not by an inner compass but the dictates of the client. Finally, both prostitute and
lawyer are seen as victimizing their clients.
The lawyer-prostitute equation is occasionally elaborated in extended lists. The
polemic of an early twentieth-century Indian reformer compares the operations of
 The Lawyer as Morally Deficient 

“dancing girls” to those of vakils (attorneys) (table ). Many of the items in his
“serious” list are echoed in the “humorous” list circulating among contemporary
American law firm associates (table ).
Comparison of lawyers and prostitutes, to the disadvantage of the former,
occurs in narrative jokes as well as a whole set of riddles:
G6 A lawyer had scheduled a business trip to New York, and a colleague has suggested
he call on Miss Agatha Jane Foote while in town. “It’ll be an unforgettable experience,”
the colleague promised. “She’s no ordinary trollop, I assure you.”
The first night of his New York stay, the lawyer took a cab and got out in front of one
of the finest brownstones on Fifth Avenue. He rang the bell, and a maid ushered him in.
After presenting his card, he was led into an elegantly furnished drawing room and
invited to make himself comfortable. Miss Foote would be down shortly.
While waiting, the lawyer stepped over to a huge floor-to-ceiling bookcase and
examined the gilt-bound works. Among the many tomes was a twenty-volume set of
Corpus Jurus [sic].
A few moments later, Miss Foote stepped down the curved staircase in a most
elegant evening gown. The lawyer stood stunned. She was indeed gorgeous!
But he was further stunned to find Miss Foote’s conversation urbane, charming, and
witty. He turned to the bookcase and remarked, “Miss Foote, I notice a set of Corpus
Jurus [sic] on your shelves. Did you ever study law?”
“Yes,” she replied, “I’m a graduate of the Columbia Law School.”
“Is that so?” the lawyer continued. “Then how did you ever get into this business?”
“Oh!” Miss Foote shrugged, “I must have been very lucky.”10

G7 What’s the difference between a prostitute and a lawyer?

Nothing. You pay them both to screw you.11

Or
G8 A prostitute stops screwing you after you die.12

Or
G9 A prostitute doesn’t pretend to care.13

The lawyer’s pliability was an asset if not a virtue in two plus two (A) where the
lawyer responded, “How much do you want it to be?” But it can also signify the
lawyer’s utter lack of principle:
G10 What is the difference between a successful lawyer and a down-and-out-hooker?
There are some things a hooker just WILL NOT do for money.14

The prostitute, even though “down and out,” preserves some remnant of natural
virtue while the lawyer, despite being insulated by success, is unresisting in his
abandonment of principle.15 The comparison faintly echoes the trope of the pros-
titute with a heart of gold, the roots of which go back at least as far as the New
 T N T

 . A Comparison between the Vakils and the Dancing-girls [India, ].
1. Both insist on prepayment of less invariably and will never do business on Credit.
2. The Vakils sell their conscience for money. 2. The Dancing-girls sell their chastity for
money.
3. The Vakils really care little for the interests 3. The dancing-girls have no true love for their
of their clients. customers.
4. The Vakils engage touts and brokers in their 4. The dancing-girls engage go-betweens to
service. run their trade in flesh.
5. Though retained wholesale by one for all his 5. Though engaged by one man, they would
cases, yet would they take up cases from secretly welcome others.
another.
6. Being always selfish, they will not care for the 6. Caring only for their own gains, they have
hardships and inconveniences of their clients. little regard for the difficulties and anxieties
of their customers.
7. The litigant world places implicit trust in 7. The merry lovers place implicit faith in the
Vakils. dancing-girls.
8. Both never realize other’s difficulties and wants. The greater the acquaintance with them, the
greater the danger from them. They will boldly seize opportunities to grab the riches of others and
convert them into beggars. Of course, there are rare exceptions among both classes. Just as there
are honest men among Vakils, so there are honest women among the dancing-girls.
9. Both pile up their riches by causing ruin to families and hence their wealth does not last long.
10. Neither has any scruples whatever regarding the blood-relationship of those with whom they deal.
Father and son may resort to one and the same Vakil or dancing-girl.
11. Vakils make a pompous display of their Law- 11. Dancing-girls parade their jewels and skills
books and Law Reports in courts. in festivals and entertainments.
12. Vakils plead in proportion to their fees. 12. Dancing-girls love in proportion to the
money paid them.
13. The pomp of Vakils consists in their big Law- 13. The pomp of Dancing-girls lies in their
Books and Reports beautifully arranged in drawing rooms furnished with velvet
glass almirahs. spring-Cots, Sofas, Pictures and the like.
14. Vakils are cordial and beam with smiles to 14. Dancing-girls deceive customers with an
their clients till they knock out their fees, but overflow of love during the first moments of
afterwards grow cold and contemptuous. their engagement, but afterwards turn them
out without mercy.
15. Clients are taken in by the false hopes of 15. Dancing-girls hide their defects and rotten
success given by Vakils and stake their all diseases under Silk petti coats and Saries
in the protection of a case to spite their and fleece their customers of their last pie by
enemies. flatteries and false love.
16. Vakils breed crime and litigation by rousing 16. Dancing-girls kindle jealousies and passions
hatred and passion by their professional by their curtain lectures and create
advice. Murders, riots, forgeries and family dissensions in families and between friends
quarrels are mainly due to Vakils. resulting in murder, suicide, etc.
      : Mani : chap. .
 The Lawyer as Morally Deficient 

Testament. It also resonates with a broader reproach, whose literary apotheosis is

found in George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession (). The argument, as
Shaw tells us in the preface, is that “we have great prostitute classes of men: for
instance, dramatists and journalists, to whom I myself belong, not to mention the
legions of lawyers, doctors, clergymen and platform politicians who are daily
using their highest faculties to belie their real sentiments: a sin compared to which
that of a woman who sells the use of her person for a few hours is too venial to be
worth mentioning; for rich men without convictions are more dangerous in mod-
ern society than poor women without chastity.”16 A century later, law professor
Paul Campos suggests that “lawyers are often compelled by their professional obli-
gations to become something akin to emotional prostitutes; that is, to be persons
whose public personae require the simulation of inauthentic affective states as a
condition of their compensation. In . . . litigation the most common of these sim-
ulated emotions is outrage.”17 The lawyer’s readiness to take up causes that “belie

 . E-mail Circulating among Law Firm Associates (U.S., ).

Are you a prostitute or are you an associate at a law firm?
1. You work very odd hours.
2. You are paid a lot of money to keep your client happy.
3. You are paid well but your pimp gets most of the money.
4. You spend a majority of your time in a hotel room.
5. You charge by the hour but your time can be extended.
6. You are not proud of what you do.
7. Creating fantasies for your clients is rewarded.
8. It’s difficult to have a family.
9. You have no job satisfaction.
10. If a client beats you up, the pimp just sends you to another client.
11. You are embarrassed to tell people what you do for a living.
12. People ask you, “What do you do?” and you can’t explain it.
13. Your client pays for your hotel room plus your hourly rate.
14. Your client always wants to know how much you charge and what they get for the money.
15. Your pimp drives nice cars like Mercedes or Jaguars.
16. Your pimp encourages drinking and you become addicted to drugs to ease the pain of it all.
17. You know the pimp is charging more than you are worth but if the client is foolish enough to pay
it’s not your problem.
18. When you leave to go to see a client, you look great, but return looking like hell (compare your
appearance on Monday .. to Friday ..).
19. You are rated on your “performance” in an excruciating ordeal.
20. Even though you get paid the big bucks, it’s the client who walks away smiling.
21. The client always thinks your “cut” of your billing rate is higher than it actually is, and in turn,
expects miracles from you.
22. When you deduct your “take” from your billing rate, you constantly wonder if you could get a
better deal with another pump.
      : Laura Macaulay, e-mail message to author, June , .
  T N T

[his] real sentiments” depreciates the currency of speech just as the prostitute
depreciates the external signs of love. Devotion that flows from contrivance rather
than conviction arouses contempt, as expressed in a comparison that assesses the
lawyer’s expertise:
J15 A lawyer is an expert on justice like a prostitute is an expert on love.18

At the bottom of the prostitute analogy is the accusation of betrayal of justice. As

one outspoken critic put it at the high point of New Left attacks on the legal sys-
tem: “The system of justice, and most especially the legal profession, is a whore-
house serving those best able to afford the luxuries of justice offered to preferred
customers. The lawyer, in these terms, is analogous to the prostitute. The differ-
ence between the two is simple. The prostitute is honest—the buck is her aim.
The lawyer is dishonest—he claims that justice, service to mankind, is his primary
purpose.”19
The response to this is to cut back the claims of lawyering from serving jus-
tice by direct pursuit to serving it through acting as advocate, “special friend,”
and confidant of the client in an adversary system in which justice emerges from
the clash of loyal partisans.20 But critics point out that lawyers “do what they do
not, like friends, for ineffable reasons but coolly for cold cash. . . . Most people do
find some critical moral distinction lurking in the difference between the motives
of the lover and those of the whore.”21 The response to this in turn, less often
essayed, is to redefine prostitution as a high calling, worthy of at least metaphoric
embrace. Charles Curtis, in his essay that scandalized ethical pillars of the pro-
fession by conceding that lawyers sometimes lie for their clients, extols law as a
career that offers the greatest opportunity “for both the enjoyment of virtue and
the exercise of vice, or, if you please, the exercise of virtue and the enjoyment of
vice, except possibly the ancient rituals which were performed in some temples by
vestal virgins, in others by sacred prostitutes.”22

L       O     N     O  
In their everyday profane activities, lawyers are portrayed as being acquisitive and
grasping:
G12 Smithfield said to his wife, “It is about time we found out what Matthew wants to be
when he grows up. Watch this.”
He put a $10 bill on the table and explained, “That represents a banker.”
Next to it he put a brand new Bible. “This represents a minister.”
Beside that he placed a bottle of whiskey. “That represents a bum!”
The two of them then hid where they could watch the table without being seen.
Pretty soon Matthew walked into the room, whistling, and noticed the three things on
the table. He looked around to check that he was alone. Not seeing anyone, he picked
up the money, held it to the light, then put it back down. He then thumbed through the
Bible, and put that down. Then he quickly uncorked the bottle and smelled its contents.
 The Lawyer as Morally Deficient 

In one quick motion, he stuffed the money into his pocket, put the Bible under his arm,
chugged down the contents of the bottle, and walked out of the room, still whistling.
The father turned to his wife and whispered, “How about that? He’s going to be a
lawyer!”23

This was exclusively a joke about politicians from at least , but since  it
has been a lawyer joke, perhaps marking the advent of an image of lawyers as
people of unrestrained and voracious appetite.24 It is one of a set of jokes that have
been switched from politicians to lawyers.25
If the lawyer is grasping, his reach is for the superficial and materialistic, traits
commonly associated with yuppies.
G13 The ambulance rushed to the scene of the accident where a lawyer lay amid the
wreckage.
“Stay calm,” said the paramedic, working frantically. “You’ve had a serious crackup.”
“Oh, my Jag . . .” he moaned. “My poor, poor car.”
“Look,” said the paramedic. “I wouldn’t worry about your car. Your left arm’s been
ripped off!”
The lawyer groaned, “Oh, my Rolex! My poor, poor Rollie!”26

This story was told about lawyers and other yuppies by .27
Lawyers are depicted as single-mindedly self-serving, indifferent to their obli-
gations to others, and willing to sacrifice others to achieve their ends.
G14 Two law partners were fanatically competitive golfers, letting absolutely nothing get
in the way of their Saturday game. One Saturday Mrs. Jones grew increasingly anxious as
dusk fell with no sign of her husband. As dinnertime came and went, she paced before
the window, frantic with worry. Finally she heard the car pull into the driveway and
rushed out. “Where’ve you been?” she cried. “I’ve been worried sick!”
“Harry had a heart attack on the third hole,” her husband explained.
“Oh my God! That’s terrible!” she gasped.
“You’re telling me,” agreed Jones. “All afternoon it was hit the ball, drag Harry, hit
the ball, drag Harry. . . .”28

This is a well-known joke about fanatical golfers that is found all over the English-
speaking world.29 When told of golfers, it depicts an obsession that eclipses the
normal reaction of aiding a fallen friend. When the golfers are identified as law-
yers, the lapse expresses a broader moral insensibility (nicely contrasted here with
the concern and sympathy of the wife).
Not surprisingly, the lawyer is capable of lethal indifference to strangers, even
famously virtuous ones.
G15 A corporate lawyer and Mother Theresa get stranded in a desert. Two weeks later, a
rescue plane lands. The pilot finds Mother Theresa dead, while the lawyer is calmly
resting with his hands under his head.
“This is awful,” the pilot says. “Mother Theresa dead!”
  T N T

“Yeah.”
“Tell me, how come you survived and she didn’t?”
The lawyer shrugs. “She never found the water hole.”30

In contrast with Mother Theresa, who exemplifies selflessness, the lawyer is greedy,
competitive, and lacking any sense of fellowship or generosity of spirit. This story
of the lawyer’s unwillingness to share information vital to survival mirrors (or
mocks?) the lawyer’s professional obligation to maintain the confidences of the
client heedless of the social costs. The joke echoes the moral disapproval of the
lawyer who claims he can’t inform the police about the location of bodies because
of his obligation to his client.31
His old friend the devil is enlisted to dramatize the lawyer’s willingness to sac-
rifice others for his own aggrandizement:
G16 A lawyer is working late at night on a difficult case when in a puff of smoke the devil
appears to him. The devil offers to make him the most powerful, wealthiest lawyer in the
history of the world.
“I’ll bet,” says the lawyer, “and all I have to do is give you my soul.”
“No,” says the devil, “I only ask the right to damn to eternal suffering the souls of
your wife and two young children!”
The man is dumbstruck, thinks for a moment, then looks at the devil. “All right,” he
says, “but what’s the catch?”32

This joke is told mostly about lawyers, but occasionally about agents and others.33
As a lawyer joke, this story has passed through two phases. When it first appeared
in , the devil proposed a straightforward Faustian bargain in which the lawyer
would enjoy worldly success in exchange for his soul.34 In this Faustian version,
the lawyer’s “what’s the catch?” confirms his affinity for the devil. But starting in
, renditions like the one above emerged, in which horrors are visited on wives,
children, and other innocents while the lawyer emerges unscathed. The new ver-
sion shifts the focus from being the devil’s playmate to the lawyer’s horrifying
indifference to those closest to him.35

N  R         S      V   
The unwillingness of the lawyer to extend himself for others betrays a deficient
grasp of shared moral understandings about desert and obligation:
G19 The lawyer is standing at the gate to Heaven and St. Peter is listing his sins:
(1) Defending a large corporation in a pollution suit where he knew they were
guilty.
(2) Defending an obviously guilty murderer because the fee was high.
(3) Overcharging fees to many clients.
(4) Prosecuting an innocent woman because a scapegoat was needed in a
controversial case.
And the list goes on for quite a while.
 The Lawyer as Morally Deficient 

The lawyer objects and begins to argue his case. He admits all these things, but
argues, “Wait, I’ve done some charity in my life also.”
St. Peter looks in his book and says, “Yes, I see. Once you gave a dime to a
panhandler and once you gave an extra nickel to the shoeshine boy, correct?” The
lawyer gets a smug look on his face and replies, “Yes.”
St. Peter turns to the angel next to him and says, “Give this guy fifteen cents and
tell him to go to hell.”36

This is an old and widespread story about a miserly rich man whose refusal to take
up his obligations to others is matched by St. Peter’s refusal to accept the suffi-
ciency of his token acts of charity.37 It appeared as a lawyer joke in , when a
major part of the legal profession was enjoying unprecedented prosperity. Lawyers
in the upper echelons of the profession, who had always been comfortable, could
aspire to be rich. Although in the UK, Australia, and India this joke remains a
story about a rich man, in the United States it has become predominantly a joke
about lawyers.
G20 Mr. Wilson was the chairman of the United Way, which had never received a donation
from the most successful lawyer in town. He called on the attorney in an attempt to
make him mend his ways. “Our research shows that you made a profit of over $600,000
last year, and yet you have not given a dime to the community charities! What do you
have to say for yourself?” The lawyer replied, “Do you know that my mother is dying of
a long illness, and has medical bills that are several times her annual income? Do you
know about my brother, the disabled veteran, who is blind and in a wheelchair? Do you
know about my sister, whose husband died in a traffic accident, leaving her with three
children?” The charity solicitor admitted that he had no knowledge of any of this. “Well,
since I don’t give any money to them, why should I give any to you?”38

This is an even more recent switch, appearing as a lawyer joke in , after a
career as a Jewish joke in which it migrated from its old country setting, under-
went Americanization, and finally had the Jewish element effaced entirely.39 The
switch to lawyers occurred in the s, when lawyers (or at least the upper ech-
elons of the profession) were increasingly affluent—a condition displeasing to the
public.40
In the following version the joke is re-Judaized: 41
G20 A local Jewish Federation office realized that it had never received a donation from
the town’s most successful lawyer. The campaign director called the lawyer to persuade
him to contribute: “Our research shows that out of a yearly income of at least $500,000,
you give not a penny to tzedaka [charity]. Wouldn’t you like to give back to the
community in some way?”
The lawyer mulled this over for a moment and replied: “First, did your research also
show that my mother is dying after a long illness, and has medical bills that are several
times her annual income?”
Embarrassed, the Federation person mumbled, “Um . . . No.”
 T N T

The lawyer continued: “Or that my brother, a disabled veteran, is blind and confined
to a wheelchair?”
The stricken Federation worker began to stammer out an apology.
The lawyer interrupted her apology, saying: “or that my sister’s husband died in a
traffic accident,” the lawyer’s voice rising in indignation, “Leaving her penniless with
three children?!”
The humiliated Campaign director, completely beaten, said simply, “I had no
idea. . . .”
On a roll, the lawyer cut her off once again: “So, if I don’t give any money to them,
why should I give any money to you?”42

The lawyer reveals his appalling indifference to family, but this is less an accusa-
tion that lawyers neglect their families than a convenient conventional measure of
moral callousness.43 The story also affords a showcase for the lawyer to display his
rhetorical skill and turn the tables on the intrusive fundraiser.

. St Dunstan Triumphant or The Big Wigs Defeated (BM . Williams ). Lawyers’
lack of charity is depicted in this struggle between a monk (St. Dunstan) and parishioners
seeking to collect the parish poor rates from the Serjeants Inn. The lawyers, aided by
the Devil, seek to uphold their claim that their establishment was exempt from parish
poor-rates. The engraving was inspired by a newspaper report of the upholding of the
lawyers’ claims.
 The Lawyer as Morally Deficient 

Even when he attempts to be charitable, the lawyer can’t rise above self-interest.

G21 One afternoon, a wealthy lawyer was riding in the back of his limousine when he saw
two men eating grass by the road side. He ordered his driver to stop and he got out to
investigate. “Why are you eating grass?” he asked one man.
“We don’t have any money for food,” the poor man replied.
“Oh come along with me then.”
“But sir, I have a wife with two children!”
“Bring them along! And you, come with us too,” he said to the other man.
“But sir, I have a wife with six children!”
“Bring them as well!”
They all climbed into the car, which was no easy task, even for a car as large as the
limo. Once underway, one of the poor fellows says, “Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for
taking all of us with you.”
The lawyer replied, “No problem, the grass at my home is about two feet tall.”44

Most of these moral obtuseness stories portray the lawyer as deficient in com-
mon moral understandings rather than as the proponent of an alternative vision.
But consider the following:

G22 One lovely spring morning a doctor, a priest and a lawyer are on the third hole at the
Country Club and are fuming with impatience at the slow foursome just ahead of them.
When they complain to a club official who happens by, he explains that the players
ahead are the first blind golfers to play the course. The doctor, expressing his admiration
for their determination, sheepishly says he’s sorry for his impatience. The priest asks
forgiveness for his failure to appreciate their special needs. The lawyer, however, is
unappeased: “It’s wonderful that they can play,” he tells the official, “but why don’t
you make them play at night?”45

On the surface this is a moral obtuseness joke. The lawyer lacks the empathy and
magnanimity that induces the others to tolerate a minor inconvenience to allow
the disabled to share in the pleasures of golf. Unlike them, he refuses to write off
an increment of well-being or advantage and proposes a more “efficient” solution
that uses otherwise idle resources. But his solution is efficient at the expense of
demeaning the recipients. It is rational, but not infused with empathy, fellow feel-
ing, or generosity. So although the lawyer here is not exclusively self-regarding
(like the lawyer in the check in the coffin [F] story), he displays some of the same
excessive rationality.
Play at night, like check in the coffin, portrays the lawyer as pursuing “rational”
solutions impervious to the sentimental appeal of the obvious (but costly) solu-
tion. These stories are the contrary of those discourse stories that portray lawyers
as obfuscating and bombastic. Here it is lawyers’ cold rationality and lack of sen-
timent that puts us off.46
  T N T

“H J    D     ’  G  I ”
It has been argued that lawyers are morally challenged, that they do not share the
general appreciation of moral obligation that others take for granted. (Indeed it is
this that enables them to “come up with something to say” in behalf of the most
hopeless causes and most odious clients.)
G23 Templeton was a loathsome young man, but one with such an orderly mind and
clear grasp of the tax code that his year’s billings were approaching the ten-million dollar
mark, far exceeding those of any other junior partner. Yet his conduct was such that one
day the president of the firm called him in for a reprimand.
“Your behavior and moral standards are reprehensible,” the executive pointed out
sternly. “You cheat on your expense account, you miss no chance to backstab the other
junior partners, you’ve embezzled a substantial amount from the company, you get
kickbacks from half your clients, and I just found out you’ve been sleeping with my wife.
Now I’m warning you, Templeton—a few more missteps, and you’re out!”47

This item, from one of the most influential topical collections of lawyer jokes,
inadvertently provides a snapshot of switching in progress. The joke, current since
at least the s, typically about a bookkeeper, accountant, or business partner,48
was switched to lawyers in the late s. The version here musters such lawyerly
terms as billings and clients, but negligently retains “president,” “executive,” and
“company”—terms completely inappropriate in the law firm setting in which the
story is supposedly placed. Subsequent versions discarded these anomalies.
The story has a message beyond the contrast between the senior’s stern warn-
ing and the atrociously low standards demonstrated by his past toleration. One of
the constants in the various versions of this story is the element of sexual aggres-
sion: the employee has ravished the senior’s wife or daughter. By reacting so mildly
to these provocations, the senior shows a readiness to subordinate his male honor
to the bottom line. The switch of this story to lawyers has simply not “taken.”
Lawyers are regarded as devious and unfeeling, but lack of “balls” or insufficiency
of aggression is not a point that supports jokes about lawyers.
G24 “Tell me,” said the personnel director of a large corporation, “are you an honest
attorney?”
“Honest?” the lawyer replied. “Let me tell you something. My father lent me ten
thousand dollars for my education, and I paid him back in full after my very first case.”
“I’m impressed,” he said. “And what case was that?”
The attorney squirmed slightly. “He sued me for the money.”49

This story, an indigenous joke that is told only about lawyers, arrived on the scene
by  at the outset of the great boom in lawyer jokes and has flourished since.
It neatly combines the theme that the lawyer is no respecter of family obligations
with his adeptness in putting a positive spin on a discrediting story.
The following story shows a lawyer who doesn’t “get it” in another realm:
 The Lawyer as Morally Deficient 

G25 The comely redhead was thrilled to have obtained a divorce and dazzled by the skill
and virtuosity of her lawyer, not to mention his healthy income and good looks. In fact,
she realized, she had fallen head over heels in love with him, even though he was a
married man.
“Oh, Sam,” she sobbed at the conclusion of the trial, “isn’t there some way we can
be together, the way we were meant to be?”
Shaking her by the shoulders, Sam proceeded to scold her roundly for her lack of
discretion and good judgment. “Snatched drinks in grimy bars on the edge of town,
lying on the phone, hurried meetings in sordid motel rooms—is that really what you
want for us?”
“No . . . no . . .” she sobbed, heartsick.
“Oh,” said the lawyer. “Well, it was just a suggestion.”50

. Cartoon by Boris Drucker in S. Gross, ed., Lawyers! Lawyers! Lawyers! (© Boris Drucker
)
  T N T

I  L
The single most prevalent of all current lawyer jokes is a story that sprawls across
our categories:
G26 Why have research laboratories started using lawyers instead of rats in their experiments?
There are three reasons: first, there are more of them; second, the lab assistants don’t get
attached to them; and third, there are some things a rat just won’t do.51

The rats joke is a genuine innovation. The first printed version that I have found
appeared in Tom Blair’s column in the San Diego Union-Tribune, October , :
G26 M. J. Crowley contends lawyers are replacing laboratory rats in popularity among
scientific researchers. “There are more of them,” says Crowley, “and you don’t get so
attached to them.”

The preexisting item “some things a rat (or pig or prostitute) just won’t do”52 was
soon added, and the joke in its canonical form—setup (a question in riddle ver-
sions) and three-part response—first appears in print in .53 This addition
raises the critical ante. Stuart Taylor, a well-known commentator on the profes-
sion, asks: “So what is it that a white rat won’t do, but many lawyers will do? . . .
The joke rings true to a lot of people because of what many lawyers in this
country—including many at the top of the profession—do for their clients: bend,
distort, conceal, cover up, obfuscate, or misrepresent the facts, in ways that are
simultaneously () regarded by ordinary people as just plain dishonest, and ()
defended by many lawyers and legal experts as embodying the finest traditions of
the bar, and of legal ethics in our adversary system.”54
The joke has been considerably elaborated, adding many invidious compar-
isons: rats are smarter, better looking, have feelings, and more dignity; lawyers
are cheaper, more expendable, less missed, more harmful to society, arouse less
compassion, and so forth. Starting in the early s, some versions added a won-
derful coda:
G26 One problem, though, is that no one has been able to extrapolate the test results to
human beings.55

So many new elements were added that the  Lawyer Joke-a-Day Calendar fea-
tured the rats joke in ten separate items.56 In other media, the joke has metastasized
into a comic list. Two examples provide an anthology of antilawyer sentiments:
G26 Why do behavioral scientists prefer lawyers to rats for their experiments?
(1) There are more of the lawyers to work with; (2) lawyers are more expendable;
(3) lawyers do more harm to society than rats; (4) lab assistants are less likely to develop
a bond or feel sympathy for them; (5) rats arouse more feelings of compassion and
humanity; (6) they multiply faster; (7) rats have an innate right to life and liberty;
(8) animal rights groups will not object to their torture; (9) rats have more dignity; and
(10) there are some things even a rat won’t do.
. An illustration of the Laboratory Rats joke in a law firm brochure depicts the caged
lawyer with briefcase and Yuppie amenities including brie, Perrier, and a Rolex watch.
(Illustration by Mark A. Frederickson for Anderson Kill Olick & Oshinsky brochure)
  T N T

What is the only disadvantage to using lawyers instead of rats in laboratory

experiments?
It’s harder to extrapolate the test results to human beings.57

G26 TOP TEN REASONS WHY LAWYERS SHOULD REPLACE LAB RATS
10. There is an endless supply.
9. Lab assistants don’t get attached to them.
8. It’s more fun to shave and stick needles in lawyers.
7. There are some things rats just won’t do.
6. It’s fun to dispose of them when you’re through.
5. It’s not “inhumane” treatment, when it comes to lawyers.
4. No one cares when a lawyer squeals.
3. We’ve seen what happens when they are allowed to breed freely.
2. Lawyers belong in cages.
And the #1 reason lawyers should replace lab rats:
1. Animal rights activists don’t care if you torture them.58

Laboratory rats is frequently told by public speakers, often by lawyers them-

selves. It was one of the jokes most frequently recorded by researcher Jennifer
Pierce in her – interviews of secretaries, paralegals, and lawyers in the San
Francisco Bay Area.59 It has gained currency all over the English-speaking world.60
In many of these foreign tellings, especially in Britain, it is presented as a report of
developments in the United States, sparing (and perhaps warning) local lawyers.
The equation with rats is hardly confined to this story. Under the nom de
plume of “The Rodent,” a West Coast lawyer has satirized the profession in books
and columns in legal newspapers.61 An article in the New York Times reported that
“the Internet is swarming with lawyer-rat animations.”62 When the new premises
of a prominent Washington law firm were overrun with rats, a client, playing off
another emblematic lawyer joke (B), quipped: “You’d think . . . that the rats
would only show up after business hours—as a professional courtesy.”63
Although it has occasionally been directed at Mexicans, Poles, politicians, gui-
tarists, and hockey players, this joke is overwhelmingly told about lawyers. Of the
seventy versions I have collected, only eight are about nonlawyers.64 Rats offers a
convenient vehicle for voicing a number of interrelated points about lawyers in
a wonderfully condensed fashion. The association with rats suggests both moral
deficiency and betrayal; the response of the lab assistants depicts the low public
regard for lawyers; their abundance suggests the need for something to be done
about “too many lawyers”; “some things rats won’t do” points to their moral defi-
ciency. The setting reminds us that this is the revenge of the laboratory classes:
scientists and doctors who preside in laboratories get to cut up the lawyers (who
sue them and cut them up on cross-examination). Lawyers who obstruct finally
make a positive contribution when reduced to experimental animals. The joke
relishes the fantasy of the diminishment of lawyers and their wholesale removal
from social life.
 The Lawyer as Morally Deficient 

The laboratory rats joke provides a map of the themes of the new territories:
lawyers are unreliable and traitorous, deficient in morality, universally scorned,
and in such abundant supply that their removal is desirable. Rats are, after all, the
prototypical pest that needs to be exterminated. We are left to imagine how this
is to be accomplished, but we can assume that laboratory animals are not put out
to pasture.
  

Lawyers as
Objects of Scorn

The fifteenth-century Facetiae of the Mensa Philosophica, literally jokes of the phi-
losophers’ table, tells of the
H1 two rustics [who] rescue a lawyer from the mud, but throw him back in when they learn
he is a lawyer.1

Half a millennium later an American novelist imagines a young lawyer’s response

to the “gunn[ing] down of fourteen lawyers and clients”:
When people heard about the massacre, they at first were appalled, but then very
quickly, seeking as one does cosmic explanations for tragedy on this scale, explained
it to themselves by saying, with the radiance of sudden comprehension, “Ah, but they
were lawyers.”
“In the same tone as they would say, ‘after all, they were only dogs,’” Roger said.
He had never thought of himself as a member of an undesirable social category.2
Unlike jokes about Betrayal and Moral deficiency, many jokes about lawyers
do not refer to specific traits of lawyers or to specific grievances about lawyers,
but instead assume and celebrate a more general and widely shared contempt for
lawyers. Thus, in laboratory rats (G), one of the standard reasons for the sub-
stitution of lawyers is that “lab assistants don’t become attached to them.” The
humor plays off the already codified animus against lawyers and takes satisfaction
in envisioning the antilawyer consensus. The identification of lawyers as objects
of universal scorn itself becomes further reason to despise them.

C  C  S

H2 Q: What’s the difference between a dead snake lying in the road and a dead lawyer
lying in the road?
A: There are skid marks in front of the snake.3


 Lawyers as Objects of Scorn 

One of the best known jokes about lawyers, this seems to have originated or at
least been popularized as a lawyer joke and has been switched to other victims
only infrequently.4 It combines the satisfaction of contemplating the death of a
lawyer with the additional satisfaction of confirming that contempt for lawyers
and the impulse to eliminate them is widely shared. This consensus is verified by
the fact that the sense of fellow feeling for a snake, itself a symbol of deviousness
and treachery, is at a higher level than that for lawyers.
That lawyers are a negative whose absence is to be celebrated is expressed in
the following switch on an old story that appeared at the time of the run-up to
the Gulf War:
H3 Did you hear that Sadam [sic] Hussain took a hundred lawyers hostage and said that if
his demands aren’t met he’ll start releasing them one by one?5

The direct ancestor of this joke concerned a threat to kidnap or kill the re-
cipient’s wife, husband, or mother-in-law unless a certain sum was delivered, as in
the following:

. Solicitor Waiting for a Client.  etching by English anti-lawyer crusader Percy E. Hurst.
  T N T

H3 My mother-in-law was kidnapped last week. The kidnappers said if we didn’t send
twenty-four thousand dollars quick we would have to take my mother-in law back.6

The lawyer version quickly entered the published jokebooks and was soon ab-
stracted from the specific Gulf War setting.7
H3 A cruise ship with 1,500 passengers, including 650 lawyers on board for a tax-free bar
association meeting, is suddenly hijacked soon after leaving port. The hijackers read a
detailed list of demands to the Coast Guard, threatening, “If our demands are not met
by 5 P.M., we will release one lawyer every fifteen minutes, until they are.”8

The consensus that lawyers are despised and avoided extends beyond tyrants
and criminals.
H4 A lawyer, a Jew, and a Hindu are traveling together and they are caught in a terrible
snowstorm. They make their way to a farmhouse. The farmer says, “I’ll let you stay here,
but one of you will have to sleep in the barn.”
First the Hindu goes out to the barn, and in a few minutes, there is a knock on the
farmhouse door. The Hindu says, “In my country, cows are a sacred animal. It would be a
terrible sin for me to sleep in the same place as a cow.”
Then the Jew heads for the barn. In no time, there is a knock at the farmhouse door.
The Jew says, “I’d stay in the barn, but my religion forbids me from sleeping with a pig.”
The lawyer has no choice and he heads for the barn. A few minutes later, there is a
knock on the farmhouse door and there stand the pig and the cow.9

This goes beyond skid marks because not only are unattractive animals regarded
more highly than lawyers, but the animals themselves hold lawyers in such low
regard that they refuse to share a barn with one. After more than a decade of serv-
ice as a Polish joke,10 this was switched to lawyers by . It has occasionally been
applied to national groups or other problematic professionals, such as politicians,
but it flourishes mainly as a joke about lawyers.11
A joke borrowed from a very different source takes up the theme of widespread
(or universal?) contempt:
H5 Did you hear about the post office having to cancel its commemorative issue honoring
lawyers? It seems that it was too confusing—people didn’t know which side of the stamp
to spit on.12

For more than a generation this circled the world as a story about various ruthless
tyrants, including Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin.13 Since becoming a lawyer joke
(by ), it has been retired from active political service and reduced to register-
ing that lawyers are widely despised. In its earlier incarnation, the joke always
pointed at a specific abominable and menacing individual against whom it was
imprudent to express hostility openly. The joke seems somewhat enfeebled by the
switch to lawyers who tyrannize over us only collectively and metaphorically and
who lack the power to retaliate for abusive attacks. Thus deflated it is now applied
to such figures as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.
 Lawyers as Objects of Scorn 

The theme of commemoration displaced by contempt reappears in this item,

which surfaced briefly as a lawyer joke:
H6 Young Tad was walking along the deserted lake when he heard a cry for help.
Spotting a capsized boat in the water with a man flailing his arms nearby, he ran to the
pier, threw another rowboat in the water, and rushed toward the helpless figure. After
pulling him in, Tad began rowing back to shore. When the panting man could finally
speak, he said, “Young fellow, I’m attorney Jerry Goldsmith, and I’m one of the richest
men in town. For saving my life, I want to get you something . . . anything you want.”
The boy thought for a moment, then said, “I’d like a nice funeral, if you please.”
“A funeral?” gasped the lawyer. “You can’t be more than twelve years old! Why are
you thinking about dying?”
“Because when my dad finds out I saved a lawyer from drowning, he’s gonna kill
me.”14

This joke, which seems to be older than the preceding item, originated as a story
about a soldier or sailor saving an officer, but after World War II, it traveled the
world and was attached to a much wider variety of political leaders, including not
only dictators but also a number of highly polarizing democratic leaders (Bobby
Kennedy, Nixon, Margaret Thatcher, Paul Keating, Clinton) and less frequently
to lawyers.15 Apart from those early military officers, both of these jokes were
aimed at dominating public figures; only lawyers have joined this charmed circle
as a group rather than as individuals.

S           D    
Unlike these recent “switches,” the following story is old and “indigenous”—that
is, set in a distinctively legal setting. It is part of the wider set of stories of the wit-
ness turning the tables on the aggressive cross-examiner.16
H7 Mr. Plowden, the well-known London magistrate, on his retirement from the bench
was fond of relating the following as one of the choicest bits of his legal experience. In
the course of a certain case he had to cross-examine the wife of a notorious burglar.
“You are the wife of this man?” he asked.
“I am,” she replied.
“And you knew he was a burglar when you married him?”
“I did,” she admitted.
“But, how could you possibly marry such a man?” he demanded.
“Well, it was like this,” the witness explained confidentially. “I was getting old, and
two chaps wanted to marry me, and it wasn’t easy to choose between ‘em, but in the
end I married Bill there. The other chap was a lawyer, same as you, sir.”17

In another version, the witness proudly compares his humble occupation (minstrel,
laborer) with that of his father.18 The point is that, despite its pretensions, lawyer-
ing is actually lower in the scale of worthy work than various menial, deviant, or
even criminal occupations.
  T N T

H8 Miss Gibson said to her third grade class, “I’m going to ask each of you what your
father does for a living. Bobby, you’re first. “
Bobby stood up and said, “My father runs the bank.”
“Madeline?”
“My dad is a chef.”
“Matthew?”
“My father plays piano in a whorehouse. “
Miss Gibson changed the subject to arithmetic.
After school, the teacher went to Matthew’s house and rang the bell. Mathew’s father
opened the door.
“Your son, Matthew, is in my class,” said the teacher. “He says you play piano in a
whorehouse for a living?”
“No,” said the father. “Actually, I’m an attorney, but you can’t tell that to an eight-
year-old kid.”19

Before this appeared as a lawyer joke in , it was directed at a secret police
major in Hungary and a philosophy professor in Australia.20 It has been princi-
pally a joke about lawyers but occasionally applied to politicians, bond salesman,
and record company executives.21
H9 A fanatic fly fisherman, Bosman the big-city lawyer spent each vacation in search of
the perfect trout stream. He finally came across an idyllic spot in the Wyoming foothills,
one of its attractions being the sweet young thing who worked at the rundown motel
down the highway. Each year Bosman returned in pursuit of both the fish and the girl,
and he finally had his way with her.
When his Alfa Romeo pulled up in front of the motel the next year, Bosman was
flabbergasted. There behind the desk sat the sweet young thing—with a baby on her lap.
“Why, honey, Why didn’t you tell me?” he stammered, “Why, I would have done right
by you, fetched you and married you. . . .”
“My folks may not have much money or much schooling, but they’ve got their
pride,” replied the young mother. “When they found out about my condition we talked
it over, and everyone allowed as how it was better to have a bastard in the family than
a lawyer.”22

This has been predominantly or exclusively a lawyer joke since the mid-s, but
half a century ago the protagonist was the “light-skinned colored boy” who im-
pregnated his white college sweetheart.23
A more extreme example of the “even lower than x” trope is this adaptation of
the “no lawyers in heaven” theme:
H10 A very good man dies, and as a reward for a life well-spent, goes to heaven. When he
arrives, St. Peter meets him at the gate. “Welcome,” says St. Peter, “since you were such
a good person in life, you may enter heaven.” “Thank you,” said the man. “But before I
come in, could you tell me what kind of other people are here?”
“Well, all kinds,” replied St. Peter.
 Lawyers as Objects of Scorn 

“Are there any convicted criminals in heaven?” asked the man.

“Yes, some,” said St. Peter.
“Are there any communists in heaven?” asked the man. “Yes, there are,” replied St.
Peter.
“Are there any Nazis in heaven?” asked the man.
“Just a few,” said St. Peter.
“Well, are there any lawyers in heaven?” asked the man.
St. Peter replied, “What, and ruin it for everyone else?”24

This “even lower than x” trope is codified in a riddle that also introduces the
notion that lawyers are scorned not only as individuals but in the aggregate, as a
class.
H11 Why does California have the most lawyers and New Jersey the most toxic waste
dumps?
New Jersey had first choice.25

Told earlier about various ethnic and occupational groups,26 this riddle first sur-
faced in print as a lawyer joke in , when Senator James Exon got in trouble

. Villagers Shooting out their Rubbish (BM . G. Cruikshank, ). The professional
triad—parson, apothecary, and lawyer—are summarily expelled by villagers.
  T N T

by telling a version in which lawyers were less desirable than queers. (It was not
the lawyers who protested.) What is striking is how uniform is the pairing with
toxic waste dumps.27 These facilities are a perfect example of something that is a
deadweight loss with no redeeming social value (and of course they are not sensi-
tive to having jokes told about them).
H12 A man died and was taken to his place of eternal torment by the devil. As he passed
sulfurous pits and shrieking sinners, he saw a man he recognized as a lawyer snuggling
up to a beautiful woman.
“That’s unfair!” he cried. “I have to roast for all eternity, and that lawyer gets to
spend it with a beautiful woman.”
“Shut up,” barked the devil, jabbing him with his pitchfork. “Who are you to
question that woman’s punishment?”28

Before (and since) the switch to lawyers in , this story has been directed at
sages, political figures, and clergy.29

I  S

Another batch of Scorn jokes turns not on low social status but on association with
low and disgusting creatures, substances, or body parts. The similarity that inspires
these subhuman comparisons is sometimes spelled out, but in other cases the
jokes refer to specific accusations against lawyers that are coded in the reference
to these creatures: sharks (devouring predation), rats (betrayal, pestilence), snakes
(cunning, deceit), vultures (scavenging), ticks (parasitic exploitation).
This type of joke has a long lineage. Seventeenth-century English polemicists
compared lawyers to vipers, vermin, and caterpillars.30 Perhaps the earliest narrative
development of the comparison is in a long-forgotten anecdote about Sir William
Jones (–), linguistic genius and jurist:
H13 One day, upon removing some books at the chambers of . . . [Sir William Jones], a large
spider dropped upon the floor, upon which Sir William, with some warmth said, “Kill that
spider, Day; kill that spider!” “No, (said Mr. [Thomas] Day, with coolness,) I will not kill
that spider, Jones; I do not know that I have a right to kill that spider. Suppose, when you
are going in your coach to Westminster Hall, a superior Being, who perhaps may have as
much power over you, as you have over this insect, should say to his companion, ‘Kill
that lawyer; kill that lawyer!’ how should you like that, Jones? and I am sure, to most
people, a lawyer is a more noxious animal than a spider.”31

In the jokes about Economic Predation in chapter , contemporary comparisons of

lawyers were made with ticks, leeches, and vampires. These turn on the superior
powers of extraction attributed to lawyers, not just on the relative public estima-
tion of lawyers, as in the spider story.
A scatter of recent items liken lawyers to snakes.32 None has attained the pop-
ularity of this fully elaborated narrative joke:
 Lawyers as Objects of Scorn 

H15 A blind rabbit and a blind snake met one another in the woods, hit it off pretty well and
began to meet everyday after that. One day the snake said, “We’ve known each other for
a long time now and I don’t even know what you look like. Would you mind if I felt
you?” The rabbit said fine. “Goodness,” said the snake, “You are soft and warm and furry
and you have big ears. Are you, by any chance, a rabbit?” “Yes, I am,” said the rabbit.
“And you—you are cold, slimy, have fangs and are squeezing the life out of me. Could it
be that you are a lawyer?”33

Although it contains no reference to any legal actor, content, or setting, this story
seems to have arisen in the late s in reference to lawyers and is told almost
exclusively about them.34 The lawyer element is locked in not by reference to any
legal features, but by the resonance of the physical features of the snake and their
conventionally coded moral counterparts. In the version above, the snake is cold,
slimy, and fanged, and squeezing the life out of the bunny. In other versions it is
“scaly and slimy, and . . . [has] a forked tongue and no balls” or “slimy . . . [with]
beady eyes . . . slither[ing], and . . . no balls.” Lawyers are correspondingly por-
trayed as unsympathetic, cold-hearted, sneaky, dangerous, predatory, lying, cow-
ardly, traitorous, and so forth.
The several punch lines of a popular riddle emphasize that lawyers’ numbers
far exceed their usefulness.
H16 What do lawyers and sperm have in common?
Only one in three million does any real work.35

Or
There’s always more than you’d ever need.36

Or
Each has a one-in-a-million chance of becoming a human being.37

These arrived on the scene in the early s, as the concern about too many
lawyers was reaching a crescendo.38
Another “lower than x” arrival from this period seems to be exclusively a
lawyer joke.
H17 What is the difference between a catfish and a lawyer? One is a scum-sucking,
bottom-feeding scavenger. The other is a fish!39

Unsurprisingly, the lawyer is identified with the male organ:

H18 Q: What happens when a lawyer takes Viagra?
A: He gets really, really tall.40

H19 A fellow walks into a bar with a ten-inch, scowling man on his shoulder. He orders a
drink. The little man jumps off the shoulder, drinks a third of the drink and climbs back
up. The fellow then orders a sandwich. The little man likewise devours a third of the
  T N T

sandwich. After this goes on for two more drinks, the bartender says, “Hey buddy, I don’t
usually pry into customers’ private affairs, but what the heck is it with that little guy?”
The customer replies, “Well, I found a bottle on the beach. When I uncorked it, out
popped a genie. He gave me one wish. I asked for a ten-inch prick, and the genie shrunk
my lawyer!”41

This is an extension of an older story based on wordplay in which the genie,

asked for a “ten-inch penis,” instead provides a ten-inch pianist.42 Here the genie
not only labels the lawyer as a prick, but deftly portrays the miniature lawyer as
an economic predator (the contingency fee lawyer taking his one-third cut). At
the same time that he is equated with a potent powerful phallus the joke gives play
to a glorious fantasy of reducing the lawyer to a position in which he is depen-
dent and controllable. It suggests that cutting lawyers down to size and controlling
their power is a theme that runs through many of these Scorn jokes.

T A C

The equation of lawyers with some inferior substance or subhuman creature cul-
minates in a line of jokes that equates lawyers with the ultimate polluting and
despised substance, shit. Both riddles and narratives on this theme arrived in the
late s:
H20 Why don’t lawyers go to the beach?
The cats keep trying to bury them.43

A narrative, featuring a caring, reassuring, and knowledgeable doctor, incorpo-

rates a vein of professional rivalry:
H21 A woman went to her doctor for advice. She told the physician that her husband had
developed a penchant for anal sex, and she was not sure that it was such a good idea.
The doctor asked, “Do you enjoy it?” She said that she did. He asked, “Does it hurt
you?” She said that it didn’t. The doctor then told her, “Well, then, there’s no reason
that you shouldn’t practice anal sex, if that’s what you like, so long as you take care
not to get pregnant.” The woman was mystified. She asked, “You can get pregnant
from anal sex?” The doctor replied, “Of course. Where do you think attorneys come
from?”44

Earlier the joke was told about bartenders and others, but since the late s it
has been principally a lawyer joke.45
H22 Did you hear about the lawyer from Texas who was so big when he died that they
couldn’t find a coffin big enough to hold the body?
They gave him an enema and buried him in a shoebox.46

Like the ten-inch penis, this joke features a diminishment theme. The expansive-
ness of the lawyer is a function of bombast and waste; his substance is actually
small. This item also reveals something about the mechanics of the switching and
 Lawyers as Objects of Scorn 

transmission of jokes. This story, dating from no later than the early twentieth
century, is about the Irishman or Texan who (in a less explicit era) was described
as having the devil or hot air squeezed out of him.47 Gershon Legman, a great col-
lector of dirty jokes, reports the enema version about a Texan in . Blanche
Knott, a stalwart joke editor and master switcher, printed the enema story in 
about “the Texan who was so big . . .” and in  printed it in an Irishman ver-
sion. In , she conferred a law degree on the Texan and published that version
in a topical collection of lawyer jokes, but reverted to the lay Texan in a general
collection the following year.48 In , another topical book of lawyer jokes gives
a different version, omitting the Texas connection.49 The Knott-Texan version
shows up on the Internet, in a lawyer-joke calendar, and (minus the Texas con-
nection) in an Australian collection.50
Two less venerable items on the same theme were switched to lawyers in the
early s:
H23 Q: What is the difference between a lawyer and a bucket of shit?
A: The bucket!51

Women lawyers are not exempted from the fecal equation.

H24 A lawyer went on vacation to a western dude ranch. Awed by the scenery, she went
for a twilight stroll among the cattle. Suddenly, the stepped in something soft.
“Honey!” she shouted to her husband. “I’m melting.”52

The next item combines the shit theme with the “even lower than x” trope:
H25 The scene is a dark jungle in Africa. Two tigers are stalking through the brush when
the one to the rear reaches out with his tongue and licks the ass of the tiger in front.
The startled tiger turns around and says, “Hey! Cut it out, all right!”
The rear tiger says, “sorry,” and they continue. After about another five minutes,
the rear tiger again reaches out with his tongue and licks the ass of the tiger in front.
The front tiger turns around and cuffs the rear tiger and says, “I said stop it.”
The rear tiger says, “sorry,” and they continue. After about another five minutes, the
rear tiger once more licks the ass of the tiger in front. The front tiger turns around and
asks the rear tiger, “What is it with you, anyway?”
The rear tiger replies, “Well, I just ate a lawyer and I’m trying to get the taste out of
my mouth!”53

Lawyers are the only occupational group that has broken into the select circle
of ethnic and national groups that have offended the tiger’s palate in renditions
of this joke.54 The joke seems to be an adaptation of a story about a dog with a
grudge against a college dean. After biting the dean, the dog bites a member of his
staff “jest to git the taste out’n his mouth.”55
Not all the “anal” stories are so gross and obvious. A recent switch on a well-
known story provides an example of an elaborate “adapted” joke:
  T N T

H26 It seems that there were two brothers; one went to business school and became a
banker, the other went to law school and became a lawyer. As will happen in some
families, they drifted apart. So much so, that they completely lost touch with each other;
neither knew the address or phone number of the other.
The banker did very well. He became vice president of a large eastern bank,
which had many, many branches. One day, the banker realized that they were soon
approaching the lawyer’s fiftieth birthday and he really ought to try to locate his brother.
He set about this methodically, got a letter off to various bar associations, until finally
his efforts were rewarded. He received a letter that his brother was vice president and
general counsel for a small circus in an out-of-the-way place in Kansas. No phone
number given. Directory assistance was of no help; the circus did not have a telephone.
So the banker flew to Kansas City and then took a bus to Topeka. At the bus station
in Topeka, he asked a cab driver for help, and the latter allowed that for just $20, he
could take the banker to the circus. And he did. He drove the banker to the outskirts of
town and then to a smaller town, and then to a little village and at the far end of the

. Boss’s Lawyers is part of a  book of savage drawings by Bill Berger and Ricardo
Martinez entitled What to Do with a Dead Lawyer. This one clearly links the Scorn and
Death Wish themes. (© Bill Berger and Ricardo Martinez, Ten Speed Press, . Reprinted
with permission.)
 Lawyers as Objects of Scorn 

village was the circus. A sad sight. Covered with Kansas dust. All the trucks and trailers
needed a paint job. Sad. Not second rate, not even third rate . . . And there he found his
brother’s trailer, with the brother’s name on the door, followed by “Vice President and
General Counsel.”
The banker knocked on the door. The lawyer opened the door. They tearfully
embraced, and each told the other what he had been doing the last twenty-five years.
After about thirty minutes of this, the lawyer looked at his watch, and said, “Time to give
the elephant an enema.”
“WHAT?” asked the banker, as the lawyer dressed himself in a yellow rain slicker.
“Time to give the elephant his enema,” repeated the lawyer.
“What ARE you talking about?” asked the banker.
“Come with me,” said the lawyer. “You see, the circus has fallen on hard times. We
didn’t have the money for liability insurance. Last year, after the circus had its parade
through a small town, an old man slipped on a ‘deposit’ the elephant left on the street.
The old man broke his leg. We were sued; no insurance, and the large judgment which
resulted all but wiped us out. We just couldn’t afford another claim like that. It would put
us out of business. And there is a parade this afternoon.”
With that the lawyer walked outside, dressed in his rain slicker, grabbed a fire hose,
inserted the nozzle into the elephant’s rectum and turned on the hydrant. Almost
immediately, the elephant had a most normal reaction; he sprayed the hapless lawyer
from head to toe with fecal matter.
The banker stood there, out of range, and watched these proceedings in utter
disbelief. First, he couldn’t speak at all; then he said to his brother, “Please! You don’t
have to do that! Come back east with me. I have a good position with the bank. I can
get you a CLEAN job as teller, maybe even as loan officer.”
And the lawyer, wiping his face, answers, shouting, “WHAT?!! AND GIVE UP THE
PRACTICE OF LAW???”56

This is the first lawyer version of a much-recorded joke in which the protagonist
exclaims “What, give up show business?”57 It is also one of the few jokes in the
whole joke corpus in which the lawyer is identified as an in-house corporate coun-
sel—possibly the only one in current circulation. But this attribution reflects the
exigencies of plot rather than an interest in portraying anything specific regarding
this kind of law practice.58 This equation of law practice with being drenched in
shit accentuates the contrast between the mundane traffic of practice and the aspi-
ration or pretension to engage in noble work.

T   U     S    
Like the jokes about lawyers as betrayers of trust and as morally deficient, the
Scorn cycle contains few older jokes and relatively few items that are indigenous
to the legal setting. The few older jokes have been overwhelmed by a vast growth
from the mid-s, consisting mostly of switches, but with a minority of new in-
digenous jokes (skid marks, blind rabbit, catfish). Although these are in turn readily
 T N T

switchable, they serve almost exclusively as lawyer jokes. The sources of these
stories are mostly from different groups—Texans, tyrants, mothers-in-law, Poles,
and blacks, rather than from Jews or politicians or other professionals. Unlike the
older core categories of lawyer jokes discussed in chapters –, Scorn jokes refer in
a summary way to the generic identity of lawyers, not to any particular behavior
or to any specific set of lawyers. The indictment is general and unqualified. As a
newsweekly put it: “Lawyers have become symbols of everything crass and dis-
honorable in American public life.”59
This category is distinctly American, with some spillover to Australia and very
recently to Britain. Where the jokes in the enduring core are found throughout
the English-speaking world, Scorn jokes seem to be much less of a presence in the
United Kingdom, Canada, and India. Scorn jokes arrived on the American scene
as public opinion about lawyers was falling and public comment about their
shortcomings and excesses was becoming respectable and modish. As the animus
against lawyers became a visible feature of the social landscape, this was recorded
and celebrated by the Scorn jokes.

. Cartoon by Lee Lorenz (© The New Yorker Collection , from cartoonbank.com.
All rights reserved.)
 Lawyers as Objects of Scorn 

Moral entrepreneurs grasped the opportunity to exploit the recoil against

lawyers to advance various agendas. Thus, Frank Luntz, a prominent Republican
political consultant, advised his charges to use scorn for lawyers as a political asset:
Unlike most complex issues, the problems in our civil justice system come with a
ready made villain: the lawyer. Few classes of Americans are more reviled by the gen-
eral public than attorneys, and you should tap into people’s anger and frustration with
practitioners of the law.
Attacking lawyers is admittedly a cheap applause line (right up there with
announcing your birthday, anniversary, wedding, etc.), but it works. It’s almost impos-
sible to go too far when it comes to demonizing lawyers. . . .
Make the lawyer your villain by contrasting him with the “little guy,” the innocent,
hard-working American who he takes to the cleaners. Describe the plight of the poor
accident victim exploited by the ambulance-chasers and the charlatans—individuals
who live off the misfortunes of others. . . .
Don’t forget that trial lawyers and their ilk tend to take themselves very seriously.
Make fun of them mercilessly, and they will not know how to respond. They truly are
one group in American society that you can attack with near impunity.
If you are an attorney yourself, make a joke out of it. Be self-deprecating, even
make a mock apology to your audience and you will surely endear yourself to them.60
In the same spirit, in  Thomas J. Donohue, the new president of the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, launched a campaign against “class action suits and
ambulance chasing trial lawyers, who suck billions of dollars out of consumers
and companies.”61 The choice of a target, he explained, was that “the single, uni-
versal thing I get a positive response on—from small companies and big compa-
nies, from individual proprietors and multinationals—is that something has gone
seriously wrong with our legal system, that we’ve become a society where there
always must be someone who’s wrong and there always must be someone to sue.”62
It is unsurprising that Scorn jokes are directly related to currents of public
opinion, for they are about public opinion rather than about lawyers. What mes-
sages do the currents of public opinion carry about lawyers? To explore this, we
turn to the most prominent and most distinctive set of new jokes about lawyers.
  

“A Good Start!”
Death Wish Jokes

P
Death Wish jokes are relatively new. Only a few are to be found in the published
joke collections that predate the “modern” literature that begins in . The
major exception is a much-published British story, expressing judicial rather than
public exasperation with lawyers.
I1 A lawyer died in penniless circumstances and his friends decided to get up a
subscription in order to give him a decent burial. One of them approached the Lord
Chief Justice, explained the situation and asked for a shilling.
“A shilling to bury a lawyer!” exclaimed the Lord Chief Justice.
“Here’s a guinea—bury twenty-one of them.”1

This story, often attributed to an early nineteenth-century Dublin judge2 has

flourished as a lawyer joke since the mid-nineteenth century.3 Through the years,
it has been switched to a variety of undesirables, especially politicians and un-
welcome immigrants, who are encouraged to take many of their fellows on their
return journey.4 The theme is removal: the departure of unwanted outsiders is
equivalent to the burial of the annoying professional.
There were a few other stories about the death of lawyers, but none proved as
robust. An extended tale told by nineteenth-century humorist Eli Perkins about
the virtue of eliminating lawyers seems to have disappeared without a trace.
I2 In Akron, Ohio, where they have the personal damage temperance law . . . [a]
rumseller, whom I will call Hi Church, because he was “high” most of the time, . . . had
been sued several times for damage done by his rum on citizens of the town. One man
came out drunk and smashed in a big glass window. He was too poor to pay for it, and
the owner came against Church. A boy about sixteen got drunk and let a horse run
away, breaking his arm. His father made Church pay the damage. A mechanic got drunk


 “A Good Start!” Death Wish Jokes 

and was killed on the railroad track, and his wife sued Church for $2,000 and got it.
A farmer got drunk and was burned in his barn on the hay. His son sued Church and
recovered $1,800. Church got sick of paying out so much money for personal and
property damages. It ate up all the rumseller’s profits.
Still he acknowledged the law to be a statute, and that it held him responsible for all
the damage done by his rum. He used to argue, also, that sometimes his rum did people
good, and then he said he ought to receive something back.
One day lawyer Thompson got to drinking. Thompson was mean, like most all
lawyers, and when he died of the delirium tremens there wasn’t much mourning in
Akron. There wasn’t anybody who cared enough for Thompson to sue for damage done.
So, one day, Church, went before the Court himself.
“What does Mr. Church want?” asked the Justice.
“I tell yer what, Jedge,” commenced the rumseller, “when my rum kill that thar
mechanic Johnson and farmer Mason, I cum down like a man. I paid the damage and
squared up like a Christian—now, didn’t I, Jedge?”
“Yes, you paid the damage, Mr. Church; but what then?”
“Well, Jedge, my rum did a good deal to’ards killin’ lawyer Thompson, now, and it
‘pears ter me when I kill a lawyer, I kinder oughter get a rebate!”5

An ancient and widespread Death Wish story was occasionally extended to

lawyers in the United States.
I3 A blacksmith of a village in Spain murdered a man, and was condemned to be hanged.
The chief peasants of the place joined together then begged the Alcade [sic] that the
blacksmith might not suffer, because he was necessary to the place, which could not do
without a blacksmith to shoe horses, mend wheels and such offices. But the Alcade said,
“How then can I carry out the law?” A laborer answered, “Sir, there are two lawyers in
the village, and for so small a place one is enough, you may hang the other.”6

The old tale about the indispensable smith had appeared in an American collec-
tion in  in virtually identical language, except that the surplus was of weavers
rather than lawyers.7 The version above, neatly switched to lawyers, appeared in
an  topical book of lawyer jokes and recurred, fully domesticated, a century
later in the following form:
I3 One of the most famous cases in Texas history involved a blacksmith charged with mur-
der. When the jury returned a guilty verdict and ordered the man hung, the town had a
problem—they only had one blacksmith and a lot of horses that needed shoeing. The
city leaders finally resolved the issue by hanging the man’s lawyer since they had plenty
of lawyers.8
The last story from the prehistory of contemporary Death Wish jokes concerns
an office-seeking lawyer.
I4 A lawyer called the governor’s mansion at 3:30 A.M., insisting that he must speak to
the chief executive on a matter of extreme urgency. Eventually an aide decided to awake
the governor.
  T N T

“Well, what is it?” demanded the governor.

“Well, Governor,” said the caller, “Judge Parker just died, and I want to take his
place.”
The response came immediately: “It’s all right with me, if it’s all right with the
undertaker.”9

This story, usually told about a generic office-seeker, first surfaced in .10 Begin-
ning in , it is sometimes specified to lawyers seeking to replace deceased
judges, as in the version above.11 Another version, which omits the contemplated
demise of the applicant, sometimes involves lawyers:
I4 A persistent party member once appeared before President Lincoln and demanded
appointment to a judgeship as reward for some campaigning he’d done in Illinois. The
President, aware of the man’s lack of judicial attributes, told him it was impossible,
“There simply are no vacancies at the present time,” Mr. Lincoln said.

. Cartoon by George Booth (© The New Yorker Collection , from cartoonbank.com.
All rights reserved.)
 “A Good Start!” Death Wish Jokes 

The man left. Early the next morning he was walking along the Potomac when he
saw a drowned man pulled from the river and immediately recognized him as a federal
judge. Without a moment of hesitation he presented himself to Mr. Lincoln while the
President was eating breakfast, told him what he has seen, and demanded an immediate
appointment to the vacancy.
Lincoln shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but you came too late,” said the President.
“I have already appointed the lawyer who saw him fall in.”12

Although each of these stories involves the demise of a single lawyer, the idea
of a superfluity of lawyers is present in bury twenty-one and in hang the lawyer
instead. The disparagement is delivered by insiders—the judge, the governor
being importuned, the townspeople threatened with loss. In none, does the story
express a generalized public attack on lawyers.
In , the connection between lawyers and Death Wish jokes was almost
nonexistent. Of the four we identified, the rebate story seems not to have survived;
hang the lawyer instead had last been published in ; and bury twenty-one, by
far the most widely circulated of the three, had not appeared in print since .
Lawyers had begun to appear in the check with undertaker joke, but lawyer iden-
tity there added a plausible detail rather than providing a platform for expressing
feelings about lawyers in general.

T  C            O        
In the course of a decade, Death Wish jokes became the most frequently cited and
most emblematic components of the current round of lawyer bashing. Among
the best known examples are a set of riddles, which became lawyer jokes over the
course of the s.
I5 What do you need when you have three lawyers up to their necks in cement? More
cement.13

Although occasionally switched to other targets (IRS auditors, accountants, con-

ductors, banjo players, Robert Maxwell, and Howard Cosell)14 it was first and
mostly told about lawyers.
I6 What do you call six thousand lawyers at the bottom of the sea?
A good start.15

This joke appeared in the early s aimed at feminists, blacks, Iranians, and Jew-
ish American Princesses as well as lawyers.16 By , the lawyer version achieved
wide popularity.17 Although occasionally told about others, it is predominantly a
lawyer joke and the emphasis is on the large numbers of lawyers.18
I7 Did you hear the good news and the bad news? The good news is that a bus load of
lawyers just ran off the cliff. The bad news is that there were three empty seats on the
bus.19
  T N T

This joke, which has a longer prelawyer history, has flourished as a lawyer joke
since its appearance in .20
Other Death Wish jokes are elaborated in narrative form:
I8 A client phones his lawyer. “I’m terribly sorry,” the secretary says, “but Mr. Forsythe
died this morning.”
The next day, the client calls again. Patiently, the secretary reminds him the lawyer is
dead. Day after day, the client keeps calling, and each time, the secretary tells him the
same thing. Finally, she can’t stand it anymore. “Why do you keep calling? I’ve told you
a thousand times, Mr. Forsythe is dead!”
“I know,” the client says. “I just love hearing it!”21

The client’s pleasure here echoes a long tradition of enjoyment of the death or
departure of leaders, found in the constituent who requests copies of the Congres-
sional Record because “there is nothing I enjoy reading more” than the eulogies
of dead members of Congress.22 Absence is celebrated in the story of the emigré
who never tires of hearing that communist periodicals are unavailable in Paris,
the Israeli who calls repeatedly for news of Begin’s resignation (and Begin who
calls for repetition of the news that Ben-Gurion is no longer prime minister), and
the ex-husband who enjoys hearing his ex-wife tell him they are no longer mar-
ried.23 Death enters as the cause of the agreeable absence with the demise of Stalin
and later of East German dictator Walter Ulbricht.24 In , it was switched to
lawyers, who remain the most frequent subject, but it has been extended to bank
managers, stockbrokers, conductors and band leaders, agents, and ex-wives.25
In another variant, clients may seek more than verbal assurance of the lawyer’s
death:
I9 Smith practiced law for sixty years. Finally, he drops dead. At the funeral, hundreds of
people show up. A bystander turns to one and says, “What a turn-out.”
The mourner says, “We were all clients of his.”
“No kidding! All clients! And you all showed up to pay your respects!”
“Hell, no. We came to make sure he was dead!”26

The satisfaction may come from telling rather than hearing of the lawyer’s death:
I10 A lawyer goes to the doctor because he is not feeling well. After examining him,
the physician says to the lawyer, “Before I tell you anything, I would like for you to be
examined by my colleague in the next office, just to get a second opinion.” The lawyer
is introduced to the other doctor, then goes through another complete physical
examination. When it is over, the physician tells him to sit in the waiting room until the
first doctor calls him back into his office.
A few minutes later he is brought in, and as the lawyer takes a seat across from the
doctor’s desk, he begins to feel a bit nervous. Both doctors are sitting there behind the
desk, with very serious looks on their faces. The first doctor says to the lawyer, “My
colleague and I have examined you and we have come to the same conclusion: You have
 “A Good Start!” Death Wish Jokes 

a very rare and incurable disease. You will die in two weeks, and it will be a very slow and
painful death.”
The other doctor suddenly turns toward the first doctor, looking very surprised. “Why
did you tell him that?”
“Well,” replies the first doctor, “I felt that he had the right to know.”
“Yeah,” whines the other doctor, “but I wanted to be the one to tell him.”27

Satisfaction with the demise of lawyers appears in this riddle which appeared
in  and has been predominantly about lawyers, although it has recently been
switched to various other subjects as well: 28
I11 Q: Why are lawyers buried twenty-five feet under ground?
A: Cause down deep they’re really nice guys.29

Another instance of satisfaction in the death of lawyers is a switch from a well-

known story about a death-bed conversion intended to diminish an enemy group
instead of one’s own.30 A lawyer version has circulated on the Internet since :
I12 The old man was critically ill. Feeling that death was near, he called his lawyer.
“I want to become a lawyer. How much is it for that express degree you told me
about?”
“It’s $50,000,” the lawyer said, “But why? You’ll be dead soon, why do you want to
become a lawyer?”
“That’s my business! Get me the course!”
Four days later, the old man got his law degree. His lawyer was at his bedside making
sure his bill would be paid.
Suddenly the old man was racked with fits of coughing, and it was clear that this
would be the end. Still curious, the lawyer leaned over and said, “Please, before it’s too
late, tell me why you wanted to get a law degree so badly before you died?”
In a faint whisper, as he breathed his last, the old man said: “One less lawyer.”31

L   ’  K    A      L     
The oft-cited “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” is uttered by the
thuggish Dick the Butcher and endorsed by Jack Cade, demagogue and leader
of the rebellious mob, in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II (–).32 Despite its
ignominious source, this passage has become an emblematic expression of hostil-
ity to lawyers, not only embodied as a familiar saying but inscribed on T-shirts
and coffee mugs, and now the ur-text of a flourishing genre of Death Wish jokes
about lawyers.
The stories in the previous section involve appreciation and commendation
of bad things happening to lawyers. But the lawyer’s demise may be actively pro-
moted as well as passively enjoyed. The skid marks joke (H), suggests that such
aggression is normal and acceptable, and it is celebrated directly in a number of
jokes newly switched to lawyers:
  T N T

I13 A stranger arrived in a town just as a funeral procession was passing by.
Behind the hearse marched a man who held on a leash a large, snarling dog with
dagger-like fangs. And behind the man and dog followed seventy people, in single file.
“What’s the story?” asked the stranger.
“That’s my lawyer, in the hearse,” said the man. “This is the dog that bit him to
death.”
Pause.
“Uh,” whispered the stranger. “Could I borrow that dog?”
“Sure,” said the dog owner. “Get in line. . . .”33

This is a switch from an older and still popular joke about the dog or mule (or
other beast) that bit, kicked, or ate the subject’s mother-in-law or wife or both.34
Spouses and mothers-in-law were traditionally the major subjects of Death Wish
jokes. The dog/mule story itself has roots in Renaissance Italy:
I13 A Sicilian, hearing a friend mourning because his wife had hanged herself on a fig-tree,
said to him: Give me, I beg you, a little cutting from that tree, so that I may plant it.35

The next two items, each switched from other sorts of undesirables in the early
s, move away from revenge on one’s own lawyer to aggression against lawyers
in general.36
I14 Q: What’s black and brown and looks terrific on a lawyer?
A: A Doberman.37

I15 A man walked into a bar with his alligator and asked the bartender, “Do you serve
lawyers here?”
“Sure do,” replied the bartender.
“Good,” said the man, “give me a beer and my ‘gator will have a lawyer.”38

This theme of generalized attack is pursued in a number of recent switches of

elaborate narrative jokes:
I16 A man walking along the beach found a bottle. When he rubbed it, lo and behold, a
genie appeared.
“I will grant you three wishes,” announced the genie. “But there is one condition.
I am a lawyer’s genie. That means that for every wish you make, every lawyer in the
world gets the wish as well—only double.”
The man thought about this for a while. “For my first wish, I would like ten million
dollars,” he announced.
Instantly the genie gave him a Swiss bank account number and assured the man that
$10,000,000 had been deposited, “But every lawyer in the world has just received
$20,000,000,” the genie said.
“I’ve always wanted a Ferrari,” the man said. “That’s my second wish.”
Instantly a Ferrari appeared. “But every lawyer in the world has just received two
Ferraris,” the genie said. “And now what is your last wish?”
“Well,” said the man, “I’ve always wanted to donate a kidney for transplant.”39
 “A Good Start!” Death Wish Jokes 

This is an ancient and widespread tale of the envious man who is granted any wish
on condition that his rival shall receive double.40
I17 A truck driver used to amuse himself by running over lawyers he would see walking
down the side of the road. Every time he would see a lawyer walking along the road, he
would swerve to hit him, and there would be a loud “THUMP,” and then he would
swerve back onto the road. This pastime was immensely enjoyable to the truck driver.
One day, as the truck driver was driving along, he saw a priest hitchhiking, so he
thought he would do a good turn by offering the priest a lift. He pulled the truck over
and asked the priest, “Where are you going, Father?”
“I’m going to the church five miles down the road!” replied the priest.
“No problem, Father! I’ll give you a lift. Climb in the truck.”
With that, the happy priest climbed into the passenger seat, and the truck driver
continued down the road.
Suddenly, the truck driver saw a lawyer walking down the road, and instinctively he
swerved to hit him. But then he remembered there was a priest in the truck with him, so
at the last minute he swerved back to the road, narrowly missing the lawyer. However,
even though he was certain he missed the lawyer, he still heard a loud “THUD.”
Not understanding where the noise came from he glanced in his mirrors, and when
he didn’t see anything, he turned to the priest and said, “I’m sorry, Father. I almost hit
that lawyer.”
“That’s okay,” replied the priest. “I got him with the door!”41

In an earlier incarnation the truck driver was a Klansman and the target
blacks.42 The enthusiastic participation of the priest tells us that notwithstanding
conventional disapproval of bigoted aggression, when directed against lawyers it
is really meritorious.
I18 A truck driver is passing through New York City and stops at a bar for a couple of
beers. Shortly thereafter another man enters the bar, wearing a suit, bowler hat and
bowtie, and carrying a briefcase. The bartender asks, “Are you a lawyer by any chance?
You sure look like one.” “Why yes, as a matter of fact I am,” the man replies. Without
another word the bartender pulls out a shotgun from under the bar and blows the
lawyer away. The truck driver is stunned and asks the bartender for an explanation.
“You must be from out of town, pal. It’s lawyer season in New York City this time of year.
You don’t even need a license.” “Sounds like a great idea to me,” agrees the truck driver,
who has recently lost his shirt in a nasty divorce and is nursing a serious grudge against
the legal profession.
Upon leaving the bar, the truck driver doesn’t get more than a mile down the street
when he hits a pothole, blows a tire, and crashes his truck into a light pole. While trying
to extricate himself from the cab of his truck, he sees a growing crowd of men and
women in expensive suits surrounding his wrecked truck, thrusting their arms in through
the broken windshield and waving their business cards in his face, all the while screaming
at him not to move until an ambulance arrives. The truck driver reaches into his glove
  T N T

compartment, pulls out his handgun, leaps from the cab of his truck and opens fire on
the now-scattering flock of attorneys, winging several of them in the process. As he
pauses to reload, a policeman arrives on the scene and orders him to drop his weapon.
He complies, whereupon the officer promptly handcuffs him and informs him that he is
under arrest. “But they’re in season, aren’t they?” the truck driver protests. “Well, sure,
but you can’t bait them.”43

This narrative may have been inspired by the humorous lists of “regulations for
attorney season” that have been circulating since the late s.44 These lists, based
on the conceit of lawyers as game to be hunted, contain such items as:
I18 4. It shall be unlawful to shout “whiplash,” “ambulance”, or “free Perrier” for the
purpose of trapping attorneys.
7. It shall be unlawful to use cocaine, young boys, $100 bills, prostitutes or vehicle
accidents to attract attorneys.45

The documentation on many of these new Death Wish items is thin with only
a few versions, but the fact that so many jokes on this theme have been switched
to lawyers in a short period suggests that there is some general resonance to the
“kill the lawyers” theme.

. Cartoon by Frank Cotham (© The New Yorker Collection , from
cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.)
 “A Good Start!” Death Wish Jokes 

A P           A         
Many Death Wish jokes underscore the abundance of lawyers and the desirability
of getting rid of them by the busloads or the thousands. In the background is con-
cern about the rise of the lawyer population, marked in the quip that:
I19 By the year 2000, this country will have more lawyers than people.46

A number of very popular items outside the Death Wish category echo the themes
that lawyers are numerous (like sperm, H), their presence is a misfortune (like
toxic waste dumps, H), and their departure would be unmourned (as registered
in the absence of skid marks, H). And the laboratory rats (G) joke, the single
most prevalent of all current lawyer jokes, not only has an “elimination” theme,
but is premised on the notion that lawyers are more plentiful than rats.
That so many Death Wish jokes refer to the prevalence of lawyers directly or
indirectly by referring to lawyers in large aggregates (busloads, thousands at the
bottom of the sea) suggests that their abundance is one of the major sources of
concern about lawyers. That the United States is uniquely cursed is explicit in the
following joke that depicts the excess of lawyers as a distinctive and emblematic
national trait.
I20 A Russian, a Cuban, an American and a Lawyer are in a train. The Russian takes a bottle
of the Best Vodka out of his pack, pours some into a glass, drinks it, and says: “In Russia,
we have the best vodka of the world, nowhere in the world you can find Vodka as
good as the one we produce in Russia. And we have so much of it, that we can just
throw it away.” Saying that, he opened the window and threw the rest of the bottle
thru it. All the others are quite impressed. The Cuban takes out a pack of Havanas, takes
one of them, lights it and begins to smoke it saying: “In Cuba, we have the best cigars
of the world: Havana, nowhere in the world there is so many and so good cigars and
we have so much of them, that we can just throw them away.” Saying that, he throws
the pack of Havanas thru the window. One more time, everybody is quite impressed.
At this time, the American just stands up, opens the window, and throws the lawyer
through it.47

Although it became a joke about lawyers only recently, the story has a long
history. During the Renaissance it appeared as a joke about the passenger on a
ship in distress who, asked to throw overboard the heaviest thing that he can best
spare, throws his wife.48 During the twentieth century the ship was replaced by
an airplane that would crash unless some passengers volunteer to jump out: a
Frenchman leaps out, shouting “Vive la France,” followed by an Englishman, who
yells, “God save the queen.” Then a Texan comes forward, shouts “remember the
Alamo” and throws a Mexican out the door.49 In other renditions, Indianans throw
Kentuckians, Englishmen throw Irishmen, Greeks throw Americans, Israelis throw
Arabs, Norwegians throw Swedes, Mrs. Thatcher personally throws the Irish prime
minister, and so forth.50
  T N T

In the Renaissance version, the joke is that the wife was more dispensable since
she was less valuable than the baggage. In the modern version, it has become a
joke about sacrificing a member of a less-valued neighboring group rather than
oneself, while still claiming to be acting for a larger noble purpose. Often there is
a suggestion that the devalued group is too numerous—that we could do just as
well with fewer.
The lawyer version, which is first recorded in , shifts the point once more.
The theme is neither sacrifice nor ethnic cleansing, but superfluity. There is a
potlatch element; each nation has something that is abundant to the point that it
can be treated as disposable. There is a hint of silver lining here, for disposal in
this ceremonial form carries an implication of value—the lawyers are the best of
their kind, like the Cuban cigars, Russian vodka, and Swiss watches. The potlatch
gesture acquires its grandeur from the value of the goods destroyed as well as the
heedlessness of the destroyer.
That the lawyer is thrown out because he is superfluous rather than because he
is a scoundrel is reinforced by the publication profile of a similar joke. When
politicians in an airplane boast how many people their actions will make happy
the pilot or a bystander proposes that throwing the politicians out would make
even more people happy.51 Although this joke has circulated since , it has
never to my knowledge been switched to lawyers. Thus, of the two similar stories
about the dispatch of the unpopular figure, only one is switched to lawyers—the
one adapted to include the theme of surplus.
The following story suggests that surplus may call for a more systemic solution:

I21 A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Picking through the objects on display he discovers a detailed, life-sized bronze sculpture
of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and unique that he picks it up and asks the shop
owner what it costs. “Twelve dollars for the rat, sir,” says the shop owner, “and a
thousand dollars more for the story behind it.” “You can keep the story, old man,” he
replies, “but I’ll take the rat.”
The transaction complete, the tourist leaves the store with the bronze rat under his
arm. As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain
and fall into step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk
faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain, more rats come out and follow him.
By the time he’s walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and people
begin to point and shout. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a trot as multitudes
of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and abandoned cars. Rats by the
thousands are at his heels, and as he sees the waterfront at the bottom of the hill, he
panics and starts to run full tilt.
No matter how fast he runs, the rats keep up, squealing hideously, now not just
thousands but millions, so that by the time he comes rushing up to the water’s edge a
trail of rats twelve city blocks long is behind him. Making a mighty leap, he jumps up
onto a light post, grasping it with one arm while he hurls the bronze rat into San
 “A Good Start!” Death Wish Jokes 

Francisco Bay with the other, as far as he can heave it. Pulling his legs up and clinging
to the light post, he watches in amazement as the seething tide of rats surges over the
breakwater into the sea, where they drown.
Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique shop. “Ah, so you’ve
come back for the rest of the story,” says the owner. “No,” says the tourist, “I was
wondering if you have a bronze lawyer.”52

In this story, with its overtones of the Pied Piper, the equation of lawyers with rats
focuses on lawyers as swarming pests from whom society may experience a mirac-
ulous deliverance. The story came more directly from Communist Eastern Europe:
I21 Hordes of big brown rats have suddenly overrun the Soviet capital and the Politburo
is holding an around-the-clock session trying to figure out what to do. Finally someone
suggests a call to [President Lyndon] Johnson; those Americans can cope with any
situation. Johnson listens to Brezhnev carefully and says: “Yes, we have a sure-fire remedy.
But it will cost you one million dollars.” Brezhnev reports to his associates, and the
Politburo is outraged. “The price is too high. It is just like Americans to take advantage
of hard-pressed customers!”
But the need became greater. Finally the decision is made to accept Johnson’s
terms. On the appointed day a big package is delivered by the American envoy to the
assembled Politburo. Out of it jumps a big white rat. He runs from the room to the
Moscow streets, and at once all the big brown rats follow him. The white rat makes a
dash for the Moskva River, jumps in and drowns himself. The millions of brown rats jump
after him; all are drowned. Moscow is relieved at last. In great joy Brezhnev gets on the
hot line again, and shouts: “Mister President, it worked! Now, for ten million dollars,
send us a white Chinaman!”53

This image of lawyers as a pestilential swarm is long encoded in our culture.

In seventeenth-century England, John Lilburne urged Parliament to arrange “the
ridding of this kingdom of those vermin and caterpillars, the lawyers, the chief
bane of this poor nation.”54 A contemporary described the Inns of Court as “the
devil’s school of sophisticating and lying frauds and hypocrisies which bring forth
a generation of vipers which destroy and eat up the commonwealth, their
mother.”55 More than three centuries later a contemporary British critic warns
against “a pestilence so pervasive, rampant, and destructive of the quality of life
that it threatens to engulf us all. . . . the outbreak of lawyers.”
In the U.S., the fountainhead of modern malaise, there are already ,
lawyers  percent of the world’s total and they are expanding at the rate of ,
a year. Inevitably, the infestation has reached these shores, borne upon the same wind
that blows American junk culture into our lives. The obvious solution [to the excess
of lawyers in Britain] is a cull. What fun it would be to join the hunt, rounding up
rural notaries, small town solicitors, and fat cat barristers, whipping them into the
tumbrels, and trundling them screaming to their fate at the hands of the bloodthirsty
mob. But we are a civilized people content to express ourselves through the market.
 T N T

Lawyers, however, are a wily breed whose stock in trade is low cunning. Just as
rats develop an immunity to poisons, members of the legal profession are prone to
circumvent the rules. So it is that the lawyers who seek to prolong their existence and
maintain their numbers by side-stepping natural selection and creating fresh carrion
upon which to feed.56
Although the imagery wavers among lawyers as game to be hunted, rats to be poi-
soned, or counterrevolutionaries to be guillotined, the author is constant in his
determination to eliminate or at least diminish their presence.
Parallel imagery flourishes in the United States. Unexpectedly, its contempo-
rary revival was projected from within the legal establishment, most prominently
by the chief justice of the United States, Warren Burger, when he warned in 
that “unless we devise substitutes for courtroom processes—and do so quickly—we
may well be on our way to a society overrun by hordes of lawyers, hungry as locusts,
and brigades of judges in numbers never before contemplated.”57 For the chief
justice the hordes were a danger threatened by the excessive adversariness of our
legal system and to be prevented by reforming that system. To other imagina-
tions, the horde had already arrived and needed to be exterminated. Respectable

. Where the Carcase is, there will the Birds of Prey be gatherd together. Or Symptoms of
Term time (BM . H. Heath, ). A great swarm of predatory lawyers swoop down to
seize briefs from a pile before Westminster Hall.
 “A Good Start!” Death Wish Jokes 

mainstream voices echo the allusion to pests and measures to control them. Sur-
veying “America’s Legal Mess,” pundit David Gergen concluded, “Clearly, we need
to de-lawyer our society.”58 The chairman of the board of the National Associa-
tion of Manufacturers recounts that “like a plague of locusts, U.S. lawyers with
their clients have descended upon America and are suing the country out of
business.”59 A former chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers,
lamenting slow growth, observed that “law schools have been flooding the nation
with graduates who are suffocating the economy with a litigation epidemic of
bubonic plague proportions.”60 Ex-politico commentator Ken Adelman observes
that “America’s lawyer population is breeding like maggots.”61 Another journalist
reports, “The lawyers now swarming in Washington are picking the place clean.
(One cannot but think of maggots.)”62
For full and uninhibited development of the pestilence imagery, we must turn
to a  cartoon book entitled Final Exit for Lawyers, devoted to the theme of
lawyers as multitudinous and innately dangerous vipers:
Rumor has it that they breed under rocks in the hot deserts of California, Nevada
and Utah. From there they leave their nests and crawl their way through the under-
brush to the rest of the world. Once arriving at their final destinations, they shed their
skins, don suits and hang out shingles. They call themselves attorneys, lawyers or
advocates, but they really cannot leave their ancestry too far behind, because when
you least expect, they bare their poisonous fangs, and bite down hard.
Their ability to procreate is phenomenal. The world is crawling with an excess
of these dangerous creatures, and every year their population multiplies at a horrific
rate. . . . to stop the propagation of this species . . . we have demonstrated our solu-
tions to their overwhelming blight. Their final exit.63

T     P      L    
The great pestilential horde of lawyers that swarms and scuttles and slithers
through the jokes mirrors a remarkable and persistent modern legend that reveals
the sentiments that animate the jokes. It is widely believed that the United States
is cursed with a population of lawyers that is vastly disproportionate to any pos-
sible usefulness. This notion is given concrete “story” form in the belief that
almost all the lawyers in the world are in the United States. In theory, such an
observation might be taken as evidencing superior realization of the rule of law in
the U.S., but it is always presented as an alarming figure, suggesting a monstrous
deviation from the rest of the world and insinuating that lawyers are a kind of
cancerous excrescence on American society.
This “most of the lawyers” story achieved extraordinary prominence in August
, not long after the flowering of Death Wish jokes, when Vice President Dan
Quayle ended a speech to the American Bar Association on the wrongs of our
legal system with the rhetorical question, “Does America really need  percent
of the world’s lawyers?”64
 T N T

Counting lawyers cross-nationally is a daunting undertaking. Not only is the

data poor and spotty, but the comparison is plagued by apples and oranges prob-
lems, since the legal professions in various countries are not exact counterparts of
one another, but cousins more or less distant and bearing greater or lesser resem-
blance. However the problems are resolved, it is clear that the  percent figure
is very far from the mark. An informed guess would be something less than half
of that. Counting conservatively, American lawyers make up less than a third
and probably somewhere in the range of one quarter of the world’s lawyers, using
that term to refer to all those in the jobs that are done by lawyers in the United
States, including judges, prosecutors, government lawyers, and in-house corpo-
rate lawyers.65
Nevertheless, Quayle’s  percent figure was an immediate media triumph,
resonating with the widespread animosity to lawyers. Parroted by George H. W.
Bush and cabinet members, members of Congress, and media experts, this nugget
became a familiar factoid in the rhetoric of the  presidential campaign.66
Although it was presented without any indication of how it was arrived at, it
was not entirely without precedent.67 It was a retread of an item that had surfaced
almost a decade earlier, having no apparent terrestrial origin, that the United
States had two-thirds of the world’s lawyers.68 The two-thirds item was retailed by
Chief Justice Burger as part of his indictment of litigious America.69 It was subse-
quently used by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and others70 and became part of
the speeches of Governor Richard Lamm of Colorado about America’s descent
to doom.71 Ross Perot, blaming his lawyers for the terms of his ill-fated contract
with General Motors, complained: “As long as two-thirds of the world’s lawyers
are in this country you can expect every clause that these people will dream up.
I wish more of these lawyers would become engineers and make something.”72
The two-thirds item had never been challenged, but it never made a big splash.
Quayle’s reformulation projected it into national consciousness. Just where
Quayle’s handlers picked it up is unknown, but they certainly had reason to know
that it was a tall tale.73 If Quayle himself did not realize at the time that it was
a phony figure he surely knew by time he repeated it in his acceptance speech at
the  Republican convention, just a few weeks after an ad hominem dismissal
of those who sought to assess the accuracy of “litigation explosion” lore: “Only
those who benefit from the squandering of litigation resources are attempting to
calculate to the decimal the total costs of all lawsuits or to determine whether
Japan’s scriveners should be counted in a census of the world’s lawyers.”74
Quayle’s unwillingness to relinquish the  percent item is readily under-
standable: by his own account, it was the rhetorical high point of his public life.
Reflecting on it in his  book, he recounts: “I knew the speech—especially its
line about America’s having  percent of the world’s lawyers—would be contro-
versial.” Unexpectedly, he reports, it led to “something completely new to my vice-
presidency: an avalanche of good press, the best I would have in my four years in
office. My line about the United States having  percent of the world’s lawyers
 “A Good Start!” Death Wish Jokes 

was the sound bite of the day, and over the next week or so, editorial pages took
up the question of legal reform. . . . This was as good as anything that had come
along in two and a half years. In fact, for a politician it doesn’t get any better than
this: good press for doing something that he strongly believes in.”75
This item has shown a remarkable capacity to outlive its original rhetorical
moment. Although most serious observers quickly concluded that it was mean-
ingless or false,76 editorialists, grievance-mongers, letters-to-the editor writers, and
media pundits have kept it alive. In the media and political worlds, it is served up
without shame or challenge.77
Not only has this item survived, but it has become a piece of genuine global
folklore. In Britain, it is invoked as a marker to distinguish a Britain free of (but
threatened by) litigation madness.78 The Banker refers to “the U.S., the country
with three quarters of the world’s lawyers.”79 Correspondents in Washington con-
veyed the  percent story to readers of the Independent twice within days in March
.80 It is equally welcome in up-market and down-market publications.81 It
is accepted without question by the BBC’s chief American correspondent, who
views the United States as degraded and paralyzed by its overpopulation of law-
yers.82 In Japan an American computer executive includes “three quarters of the
world’s total” lawyers in the U.S. as one of the reasons “Why Japanese Live
Better Than Americans.”83 The Straits Times tells Singapore readers that “about
three-quarters of the world’s lawyers live in the [U.S.].”84 A house magazine in a
Spanish hotel room reports that “the United States has two-thirds of the two
million lawyers in the world.”85
If Dan Quayle’s  percent story is the “political” counterpart of the “swarm”
jokes, they also had their “scientific” champion in University of Texas economist
Steven Magee, who claimed to ascertain the optimum number of lawyers and
to prove that each of America’s many excess lawyers cost the economy one mil-
lion dollars of lost GNP annually. Again, serious research soon exploded these
claims.86
The promulgation and, in many cases, ready acceptance of these legends
about lawyers coincided with the profusion of jokes about the overabundance
and superfluity of lawyers. Both stories and jokes point to genuine public unease
about the number of lawyers and their increase. In ,  percent of the re-
spondents to a National Law Journal survey believed that there were too many
lawyers.87 When the survey was repeated in , this number had increased to 
percent.88 Generally, lawyers are thought to have too much influence and power
in society, to be principally responsible for a litigation explosion in the United
States, and to bring too many lawsuits, damaging the U.S. economy.89 This sense
of too many laws and too much litigation increased during the period when Death
Wish jokes were becoming widespread.
These sentiments are not randomly distributed. If lawyers were once derided
by ordinary people as pillars of the establishment, we have undergone something
of a historic reversal. It is now “top” people—those with more education, higher
 T N T

incomes, and more exalted jobs—who are most critical of lawyers. In , one
pollster summed up his findings:
By and large, those who see lawyers in a more favorable light than average tend to be
downscale, women, minorities, and young. . . .
Americans who are more critical than average tend to be more establishment,
upscale, and male. The higher the family income and socioeconomic status, the more
critical the adults are. Pluralities of college graduates feel unfavorably toward lawyers,
while pluralities of non-college graduates feel favorably.90
While  percent of all respondents to the  National Law Journal survey
agreed that the country had too many lawyers, this sentiment was shared by 
percent of college graduates,  percent of those earning over $, annually,
and  percent of the occupational category made up of professionals, executives,
and managers.91 Curiously, however, the members of these categories were at least
as highly satisfied with the performance of their own lawyers as were respon-
dents overall. The correspondence in time and theme of legends and jokes about
the number and superfluity of lawyers suggests these are not happenstance items
of trivia, but together proclaim the anxieties and concerns of large numbers
of Americans, particularly members of elites, about the role of lawyers in Ameri-
can life.

W   D     W    J    F      
How can we account for the appearance of these jokes about pestilential swarms
and killing lawyers, along with the folklore about the number of lawyers? What
do they tell us about public perceptions of lawyers and the legal system? As noted
earlier, the multiplication of these jokes and legends parallels increases in the
population of lawyers, the amount and pervasiveness of legal regulation, and the
visibility of both law and lawyers. It seems plausible that there is a connection,
but what is it?
Let us first put aside some theories that I think we can safely dismiss. Many
observers think lawyer jokes are a response to the public’s unhappiness in their
dealings with lawyers. In its simplest form “lawyer jokes arise from aggressive
impulses caused by concrete complaints about the legal profession. Until these
grievances are addressed in one fashion or another, lawyer jokes are not going to
go away.”92 At the conclusion of a serious study of changing conditions of large
firm practice, published in , an Atlanta practitioner observed: “The increas-
ing frequency with which truly tasteless and insulting jokes are told about lawyers
by respected speakers at business and public meetings, not to mention on tele-
vision and radio, is further evidence that the legal profession has lost status dur-
ing the last thirty-five years. The public has noticed how many lawyers behave and
the negative public reaction is affecting the entire profession.”93
This implies that Americans are so exasperated by lawyers’ bad behavior that
their grievances have escalated into homicidal fantasies.94 This seems implausible
 “A Good Start!” Death Wish Jokes 

for several reasons. First, the reports by members of the public on their own ex-
perience using lawyers do not register any significant decline in satisfaction. Well
over half of American adults have used lawyers and most of these report themselves
satisfied. In a  National Law Journal poll, almost half of American adults re-
ported professional contact with a lawyer within the preceding five years.95 Well
over half of these users reported themselves “very satisfied” with the lawyer’s per-
formance and another quarter were “somewhat satisfied.”96 By , the percentage
of respondents who reported using a lawyer had risen to  percent.97 Even with
all these novice customers, the level of dissatisfaction was only slightly higher.98 In
comparison,  percent of the respondents in the  ABA survey reported using
a lawyer in the last ten years, and about two-thirds of them were satisfied.99
Second, the various “concrete complaints” (about fees, attentiveness, honesty,
double-talk, contentiousness, and so forth) have been around for a long time. If
concrete complaints were driving the great surge of lawyer jokes, we would expect
the new additions to the lawyer joke corpus to reflect those grievances. But the
new additions, which include jokes about the death of lawyers and the scorn for
lawyers, are for the most part remote from “concrete complaints” about specific
kinds of lawyer behavior.100
A further reason for doubt about the concrete complaints scenario is that those
who are presumably best served and who have the least basis for concrete com-
plaints about lawyers are the most intensely negative about lawyers and those
most likely to have bad experiences with lawyers are the least negative. These
better-off clients may come to lawyers with higher expectations, but they seem to
report even higher levels of satisfaction.
A theory that focuses not on lawyer behavior but on changing public atti-
tudes is advanced by Stephen Trachtenberg, the president of George Washington
University. To him the stream of lawyer jokes reflects the loss of respect for and
deference to the professions that resulted from the postwar spread of education
and the increase in divorce and experience with divorce lawyers.101 It is true that
there has been a general decline in regard for almost all authorities and social insti-
tutions.102 But these shifts in opinion have not been evenly distributed. This expla-
nation fails to account for the relative increase in the number and the hostility of
jokes about lawyers compared to other professionals.103 The group whose plunge
in public regard parallels that of lawyers is neither doctors nor accountants. It is
politicians, which suggests that the source of animosity to lawyers is less their pro-
fessional status than their connection to the governmental-regulatory complex.
Other theories focus on developments specific to the world of jokes. One
theorist views the spread of increasingly cruel and violent humor throughout
the popular culture of the United States, accelerating in the s, as a reflection
of “growing anxiety about the vulnerability of the human race in the context of
global risks and dangers.”104 We might think the emergence of Death Wish jokes
about lawyers is an instance of this more cruel and violent humor. There are
several problems with this conjecture. First, the observation that jokes generally
 T N T

have become more cruel and violent in the most recent period requires consider-
able qualification, if it can be sustained at all.105 Second, the premise of a historic
increase in cruelty and violence in the world at large seems dubious. It is possible
of course that improved communications have made large numbers of people
more aware of the amount of cruelty and violence, so that the perceived level has
increased even if the absolute level has decreased or stayed the same. And with
higher expectations, much that was once the accepted order of things (e.g., slav-
ery, physical abuse of wives and children, mockery of the handicapped) is now
defined as cruelty deserving to be condemned and remedied. Third, the notion
that most Americans are subjected to a net increase of risks and dangers strikes
me as far-fetched.106 If precariousness of life is the cause of such joking, it is diffi-
cult to see why the United States—and particularly its most privileged and com-
fortable—would be in the vanguard. Again, rising expectations of protection may
lead to a perception of increased risk independently of any objective increase.
Finally, the increased cruelty theory does not address the distribution of cruel and
violent jokes: why lawyers and not doctors, bankers, or teachers?
It is frequently suggested that lawyer jokes have proliferated as a response to
the inhibition of joking about minorities, women, and the disabled. As these long-
time staples of the joking world have become taboo in many public and private
settings, especially in the United States, lawyers as the quintessential nonvictims
are the perfect surrogate for these protected categories. There may be something
in this displacement notion, but it cannot account for the focus and energy of the
across-the-board assault on lawyers. The great takeoff of hostile joking about
lawyers came at a time when ethnic joking was flourishing.107 Only a minority of
the new lawyer jokes are switched from these taboo groups.108 Also, the emergence
of the nonjoke folklore tracking the same points about lawyers (their numbers,
their cost, their destructive effects) suggests that any explanation specifically in
terms of the economy of jokes will be insufficient.
The common element in the jokes we have examined is a fantasy about lawyers
who are dead, heading in that direction, or otherwise removed from society. There
is much attention to numbers—the more the better. What is the appeal? Perhaps
it is revenge—seeing lawyers punished for their sins. But many are not specific
about lawyers’ misdeeds. And only a minority are about killing lawyers. Most don’t
portray aggression directly. Instead they contemplate with satisfaction the removal
of lawyers from society. A book of cartoons is entitled Dead Lawyers and Other
Pleasant Thoughts;109 another cartoon sequence details “Eighty Uses for Dead Law-
yers.”110 The posture is one of enjoyment and gratification, but it is largely passive.
Recall the punch line of ‘What do you call six thousand lawyers at the bottom of
the sea?”—one of the most popular of all contemporary lawyer jokes: “A good start.”
It is the removal of lawyers that is the central point, not killing them. What is
so good about their absence? We are freed from their exactions. But their absence
might mean more: it might release us from the constraints of law and permit
unbridled anarchy. That might be what Dick the Butcher and Jack Cade wanted,
 “A Good Start!” Death Wish Jokes 

but I think it is a misreading of the American temper. Americans don’t want to

be rid of law, but of “lawyers’ law”—of formal, complex, “artificial” law that
only lawyers can understand. The notion is that if we were only rid of these law-
yers we could return to a better law—simple, natural, direct, and understandable.
Lawyers are seen as obstacles interposed between us and a harmonious natural
state of social order. A distinguished English lawyer noted that the legal profession
“offended against the instinct that justice ought not to stand in need of the serv-
ices of a middleman. The lawyer is an intruder into Eden; his presence an affront
to the vision which men carry within them of a paradise lost, and hopefully to be
regained, in which lambs and lions will congregate without specialist assistance.”111
In his survey of “Antilawyer Sentiment in the Early Republic,” historian Maxwell
Bloomfield reports widespread suspicion of the lawyer as an intruder who inserts
himself into a self-regulating harmonious community, displacing substantive jus-
tice with artificial formality, self-interest, and high fees.112
As an influential antilawyer tract of the early nineteenth century put it: “God
never intended his creature, man, should be under the necessity to carry a written
book in his pocket, or a lawyer by his side, to tell him what is just and lawful;
he wrote it on his mind.”113 The dream of a world without lawyers is an endur-
ing dream of making language transparent, eliminating ambiguity and the need
for interpretation. As one seventeenth-century proponent of abolishing lawyers
asserted, “Neither [shall there be] any need to expound laws; for the bare letter of
the law shall be both judge and lawyer trying every man’s actions.”114
But the increasing volume and complexity of law has swept us far from this
idyll. The painful sense of personal violation induced by our dependence on
lawyers is captured by a contemporary philosopher.

Ours is a culture dominated by experts, experts who profess to assist the rest of us, but
who often instead make us their victims. Among those experts by whom we are often
victimized the most notable are perhaps the lawyers. If you as a plain person take
yourself to be wronged and you wish to achieve redress, or if you are falsely accused
and you wish to avoid unjust punishment, or if you need to negotiate some agreement
with others in order to launch some enterprise, you will characteristically find your-
self compelled to put yourself into the hands of lawyers—lawyers who will proceed to
represent you by words that are often not in fact yours, who will utter in your name
documents that it would never have occurred to you to utter, and you will behave
ostensibly on your behalf in ways that may well be repugnant to you, so guiding you
through processes whose complexity seems to have as a central function to make it
impossible for plain persons to do without lawyers.115

What makes the dream of a lawyer-free world so salient now? We are enchanted
by the image of a neighborly world of communal accord based on common sense
and in harmony with a divinely inspired natural order. But at the same time our
lives are woven into the highly technical, “global” world with its boundless web
 T N T

of unstable manmade complexity, specialization, indirect relations, and dependence

on remote and unknown actors, a world whose central players are not natural
human persons but artificial persons, a world whose dazzling promises of pros-
perity, excitement, and autonomy hold us in thrall. We have no intention of for-
saking that big world, but we resent and fear many things that accompany it: the
threat of economic convulsion rippling from a distant source; the need to navigate
a labyrinth of rules; the dependence on intermediaries; the need for indirection,
artifice, and formality. Lawyers seem the authors of those rules, the beneficiaries
of our reliance on intermediaries, and partisans of artifice and formality. Even if we
do not draw the easy conclusion that these vexations are an imposition by lawyers,
they seem to have such an affinity that we think that eliminating lawyers would
free us from the net of artifice in which we are ensnared and restore us to a world
of spontaneous human order.
The profusion of Death Wish jokes about lawyers can best be explained, I sub-
mit, as a response to the increasing legalization of society, manifested both in the
ubiquity of lawyers and the pervasiveness of law.116 This explanation seems to fit
with the timing of the arrival of these jokes, the distribution of targets among
lawyers and other professionals, the presence of parallel legends, and various fea-
tures internal to the jokes, namely, the relative indirection and lack of violence,
and their emphasis on elimination of large numbers. The “eliminate lawyers and
return to a world of natural harmony” interpretation of the Death Wish jokes is
bolstered by the simultaneous flowering of the Objects of Scorn joke cluster. The
chronology of the two sets of jokes is very similar: in each case less than a hand-
ful of jokes that predate  were joined by a flow of new jokes from the mid-
s.117 These Objects of Scorn jokes not only heap scorn on lawyers by equating
them with noxious substances or detested creatures, they announce and applaud
the broad agreement on this low estimate of lawyers. By declaring and celebrating
the consensus that lawyers are despised and scorned, they hint that a comradely,
neighborly, unlawyered, “natural” social life is already present beneath the incrus-
tations of legal formality.
Finally, a last item of evidence for the “legalization” theory is that Death Wish
and Scorn jokes are distinctly and overwhelmingly American in origin and preva-
lence. These jokes hardly exist outside the English-speaking common law world.
Within the common law world, the tenor of joking about lawyers in other coun-
tries is less aggressive and hostile than in the United States. In Britain, for exam-
ple, jokes about lawyers’ lying, greed, and trickiness are very much present, but
Scorn and Death Wish jokes are encountered rarely and, when they are told, are
frequently identified as American lawyer jokes.
But Death Wish and the other new categories of jokes do not stand alone.
Their proliferation has been accompanied by the flourishing and growth of older
categories of jokes about lawyers. All have prospered together—with a single
exception. We turn now to the one component of the enduring core that has not
flourished in the booming market for lawyer jokes—jokes about justice.
  


T J I 
  

Enemies of Justice

In his review of ethnic humor, Christie Davies notes that “it is the phenomenon
of the jokes that could be told but are not that calls for an explanation.”1 What is
missing from the world of lawyer jokes? Consider how rare are jokes that even
mention the subject of justice. Such jokes became scarcer during the second half
of the twentieth century, leaving less than a handful of survivors.

D J
The most prominent Justice joke that has survived is a story encountered through-
out the English-speaking common law world for more than half a century.
J1 A businessman has to leave town before a lawsuit brought against him by a competitor
was ended. So he told his lawyer to wire him the outcome as soon as it was over. Several
days later he received a telegram: “Justice has triumphed.” He hastened to wire back
immediately: “Appeal at once!”2

The joke is permeated by a feeling that law ought to be the institutionalized pur-
suit of justice. Its divergence from this proper state is the dirty little secret that the
joke reveals. This version, in which the “realistic” client delivers the deflationary
line, is the oldest and most prevalent variant.3 It was in circulation in this form
by the s. (By the s it was joined by a version that located the exchange
among lawyers, which will be taken up shortly.)
Whatever the client wants from the legal system, it is not justice. Recall the
large troop of conniving claimants who manufactured or exaggerated claims, fig-
ures who have largely departed the joke corpus leaving behind only a few strag-
glers. In the conniving claimant era, there were also jokes in which overreaching
clients pursued goals that violated the law and/or the lawyers’ sense of fitness.
Many of these “more than justice” jokes have dropped out of the joke corpus.
The oldest of these and the one with the longest run may have been a victim of


  T J I

the postwar attrition of capital punishment and has not returned in the new cap-
ital punishment world of death-qualified juries and decades of appeals.
J2 “Do you think I’ll get justice done me?” said a culprit to his counsel. “I don’t think you
will,” replied the other, “for I see two men on the jury who are opposed to hanging.”4

J3 Lawyer—“Are you aware, sir, that what you contemplate is illegal?”

Client—“Certainly. What do you suppose I came to consult you for?”5

J4 “Your legal department must be very expensive.”

“Yes,” sighed the eminent trust magnate, “it is.”
“Still, I suppose you have to maintain it?”
“Well, I don’t know. Sometimes I think it would be cheaper to obey the law.”6

None of these are currently in circulation. Nor is the following story, in spite of
being reprinted in a widely circulated  book of lawyer jokes:
J5 “All right, sir,” said the lawyer to his new client; “I’ll take the case, I feel assured that I
can get you justice.”
“Hang it all!” replied the litigant. “If that’s the best you can do I’d better get another
lawyer.”7

This joke resembles the client version of appeal at once in the client’s rejection
of justice as (he thinks) the lawyer sees it. The lawyer is celebrating or predicting
the client’s victory and calling it justice, but the client reads the lawyer’s message
as a repudiation of his claim. If the client is seeking something more or other than
justice, what about the lawyer? Is he just being pompous and grandiose? Or is the
lawyer fully invested in the justice of the client’s cause, even while the client
remains detached and cynical?
In appeal at once the joke is not only about overreaching by the client, it is
about the lawyer overreaching for the client, making such extravagant claims on
the client’s behalf that even the client disowns them or sees through them. The
lawyer confirms that he is the devoted and uncritical ally of the client. He is not
only a hired gun, but a hired gun who deludes himself that he is a devoted cham-
pion of principle. This portrait of hypocrisy/self-delusion is often located in a
specific practice setting. It is one of the very few jokes in which the lawyer is
depicted in the service of large business clients. In many tellings the client is iden-
tified as a rich or important figure involved in a large or momentous case. In mod-
ern renditions, the client is variously described as a “businessman,” a “financier,” a
“billionaire” or the firm’s “richest client.” Sometimes the client is involved in shady
dealing which has resulted in charges of fraud, tax evasion, or insider trading.
The very earliest extant version of the joke (from ) displays the original
nexus with the outsize machinations of the robber baron era:
J1 An American corporation, not so very long ago, was engaged in litigation with a
South American republic over certain concessions. One day the head office in New York
received from its agent in the country a cablegram reading:—
 Enemies of Justice 

“Courts have rendered just decision.”

An hour later there went over the wires to the South the following:—
“Appeal at once to American Minister for diplomatic intervention.”8

In retrospect, we can appreciate why this joke appears when it does, just as elite
American lawyers (or many of them) abandon the stance of independent advo-
cates and embrace the role of “client-caretakers,” subservient to their corporate
clients.9 Theron G. Strong, a New York lawyer who kept a wonderful journal
through that transition, observed in  that relations with clients had “under-
gone a complete and marvelous change. The advent of the captains of industry,
the multi-millionaires, the mighty corporations and the tremendous business
enterprises, with all the pride of wealth and luxury which have followed in their
train, have reversed their relative positions. . . . The lawyer no longer receives the
obsequious client hat in hand, but is subject to the beck and nod of the great

. Law (as accordion) from the popular U.S. magazine Judge, probably from the s or
early s, reprinted in Cornelis Veth, Der Advokat in Der Karikatur (Berlin ). My
re-translation of the caption is: “It is remarkable how one can abuse this instrument without
breaking it.”
  T J I

financial magnate, who, whenever he desires to see his lawyer, ‘sends for him.’”10
Lawyers on annual retainers to corporations, Strong thought, “become little more
than . . . paid employee[s] bound hand and foot to the service of [the corpora-
tion] . . . [The lawyer] is almost completely deprived of free moral agency and is
open to at least the inference that he is virtually owned and controlled by the client
he serves.”11 Though somewhat diluted, the lawyer’s subservience to the powerful
client resonates throughout the history of this joke. The law firm’s work displays
many features of the representation of the rich and powerful: the law firm acts in
the client’s stead, sparing him the inconvenience of attending while he goes about
his business elsewhere, and the firm puts forth Herculean efforts. It is exactly the
scenario that public opinion visualizes as the lawyer going all out to bend the law
to protect the wealthy and powerful.
In simple terms the story is: unscrupulous big shot cuts corners and gets in
trouble; lawyer goes over the top for him, diminishing justice to the client’s (and
therefore his own) advantage, and wins the case. His message misfires because the
businessman retains his judgment, whereas the lawyer’s is permanently corrupted.
Not only is the lawyer a hired gun who uses his abilities without scruple, but his
lack of independence makes him lose any appreciation of justice.
The client version of appeal at once contains echoes of the overreaching client
theme, in which the lawyer, portrayed as the representative or guardian of justice,
fairness, and moderation, rebuffs or appraises the client animated by greed or
vengeance.12 But the lawyer in appeal at once is no longer the representative of jus-
tice, and the joke does not invite us to identify with him. The viewpoint is that
of the detached observer who sees the lawyer’s cynical hypocrisy or self-delusion,
serving the client who is knowingly using the legal system to advance a discred-
itable cause. The lawyer is no longer in possession of independent judgment, but
slavishly overidentifies with the client. Conniving claimant jokes faded away when
it was no longer bizarre or surprising for the claimant to try to push the envelope.
Similarly overreaching client jokes have withered with the expectation that the
lawyer will resist or at least reprove those who seek “more than justice.” In their
stead appeal at once shows us the lawyer outdoing the client in thwarting justice
without even the redeeming cynical self-awareness.

T   L        E      J     
In other stories the lawyer is a more active and self-aware producer of injus-
tice. Nineteenth-century stories depict lawyers intimidating jurors with threats of
physical violence by their clients and intimidating opponents with threats of their
own.
J6 The following powerful, elegant, and classical appeal was made in a court of justice
somewhere in Kentucky by one of the “learned heads” of the bar:—“Gentlemen of the
jury,—Do you think my client, who lives in the pleasant valley of Kentucky, where the
lands is rich and the soil are fertile would be guilty of stealing eleven little skains of
 Enemies of Justice 

cotting? I think not, I reckon not, I calculate not. And I guess, Gentlemen of the Jury,
that you had better bring my client in not guilty, for if you convict him, he and his son
John will lick the whole of you!”13

An occasional lawyer may happily trump up a case against an innocent party:

J7 “I want to engage your services,” said an Arkansaw man to a lawyer.
“All right, sir, be seated. What is the case.”
“There’s a man in my neighborhood called Alex Hippen. I want you to prove that he
stole a saddle.”
“Did the saddle belong to you?”
“No.”
“But then you are the prosecuting witness?”
“No, I don’t propose to have anything to do with the case.”
“Then why do you want me to prove that Hippin stole the saddle?”
“You see, I stole the saddle myself, and if I can prove that Hippin stole it, I’m all right.”
“Ah, I see. We’ll fix that. Of course we can prove that he stole it.”14

Physical violence and outright fakery were surely overshadowed, in frequency at

least, by the lawyer’s willingness to help the client evade the law.
J8 “You are to give the prisoner the best advice you possibly can,” Judge Epperberger
told the court-appointed lawyer as the court recessed.
Several hours later, the court reconvened but the prisoner was nowhere to be found.
A search of the building and the grounds was made, and he still could not be located.
“Where in God’s name is he?” Epperberger demanded of the attorney.
“Well, Your Honor,” answered the lawyer calmly, “I found out he was guilty as hell,
so I told him to scram.”15

More frequently, this helpfulness is the product not of incompetence, but of

competence.
J9 “Why can’t you take my case?’
“I’m a corporation lawyer and wouldn’t know how to get you out of jail. If you’d
come to me in the first place you’d never have got in there.”16

This long-extinct story, one of the few that takes note of specialization within the
profession, echoes a wonderful  piece by Finley Peter Dunne, creator of Mr.
Dooley, in which the new style of corporate lawyer is contrasted with the court-
room orator who had previously dominated the profession:
“Th’ law to-day is not only a profissyon. It’s a business. I made a bigger honoraryum
last year consolidatin’ th’ glue inthrests that aftherwards wint into th’ hands iv a re-
ceiver, which is me, thin Dan’l Webster iver thought was in th’ goold mines iv th’
wurrld. I can’t promise to take a case f ’r ye an’ hoot me reasons f ’r thinkin’ ye’er right
into th’ ears iv a larned judge. I’m a poor speaker. But if iver ye want to do some-
thin that ye think ye oughtn’t to do, come around to me an’ I’ll show ye how to do
it,” says he.17
  T J I

Advice on evading the law can translate into high fees.

J10 The lawyer explained to the client his scale of prices:
“I charge five dollars for advising you as to just what the law permits you to do. For
giving you advice as to the way you can safely do what the law forbids, my minimum fee
is one hundred dollars.”18

Or, as a lawyer in a New Yorker cartoon matter-of-factly explains it to his client:

J10 “If you want justice, it’s two hundred dollars an hour. Obstruction of justice runs a bit
more.”19

Even more pervasively, the lawyer promotes injustice by his indifference to prin-
ciple and readiness to switch sides: 20
J11 Lawyer: “You have an excellent case, sir.”
Client: “But a friend of mine said he had an exactly similar case, and you were the
lawyer on the other side and you beat him.”
Lawyer: “Yes, I remember that; but I will see that no such game is played this time.”21

J12 The big business magnate entered the famous lawyers’s office wearing a worried frown.
“That law I spoke to you about is stopping a big deal of mine,” he said, “and I’d like to
know if you can prove it unconstitutional?” “Very easily,” declared the lawyer. “All right;
then get busy and familiarize yourself with the law,” he was instructed. “No need to,”
replied the lawyer. “It’s that same law you had me prove constitutional a couple of years
ago.”22

The joke evokes the pre- era of “substantive due process” when courts regu-
larly struck down regulatory legislation at the behest of business.23 In contrast to
the contemporary era of hourly billing, the lawyer here is uninterested in the
prospect of logging lots of hours. The picture here combines the lawyer’s total
indifference to merits or principle, his ability to manipulate the law to come to
any result, and his abject willingness to place his talent at the service of the rich
client.
Life, as it often does, takes over where art falters. Kenneth Starr, former
Solicitor General, judge, partner in a major law firm, Independent Counsel, and
sometime prophet of the lawyer’s transcendent duty to the truth, provides a con-
temporary real life version of the last story:
When Starr was Solicitor General in the Bush Justice Department, he . . . refused
to okay a White House attempt to declare . . . [the federal whistleblower] law un-
constitutional. He later boasted that saying no to the White House in this instance
had been an act of principle for him.
In June of , Starr appeared before the Supreme Court on behalf of Hughes
[Aircraft], which had been accused by a whistleblower of defrauding the Air Force. He
argued that the federal whistleblower law involved in this case should be held uncon-
stitutional. (The Court ended up ruling for Hughes on a technicality.)24
 Enemies of Justice 

Other stories emphasize the lawyer’s eagerness to serve the powerful and the
dependence of the powerful on their lawyers:
J13 Archbishop Ryan once attended a dinner given him by the citizens of Philadelphia
and a brilliant company of men was present. Among others were the president of the
Pennsylvania Railroad; ex-Attorney-General MacVeagh, counsel for the road; and other
prominent railroad men.
Mr. MacVeagh, in talking to the guest of the evening, said: “Your Grace, among
others you see here a great many railroad men. There is a peculiarity of railroad men that
even on social occasions you will find that they always take their lawyer with them. That
is why I am here. They never go anywhere without their counsel. Now they have nearly
everything that men want, but I have a suggestion to you for an exchange with us. We
can give free passes on all the railroads of the country. Now if you would only give us—
say a free pass to Paradise by way of exchange.”
“Ah, no,” said His Grace, with a merry twinkle in his eye, “that would never do. I
would not like to separate them from their counsel.”25

That the lawyers are destined for hell is here pronounced by no less than an
archbishop.26 His Grace also contemplates with apparent equanimity that, either
because of their deeds or because of their slavish dependence on their lawyers, the
“railroad men” are headed for the same destination.27 The constant attendance of
lawyers on the powerful is a sign that neither is up to good.
None of these jokes has survived into the present, and the themes that animate
them are rarely encountered directly in the contemporary canon. There is not a
single joke in the current corpus that damns the lawyer for subservience to the
rich and powerful, even though the public fully appreciates that the legal system
operates to the advantage of those with more resources.28 The lawyer’s indifference
to the merits and his accommodating elasticity are now so taken for granted that
their depiction does not in itself violate our expectations of lawyers sufficiently to
provide the surprise needed for a successful punch line.29
As with the overreaching client stories, these nefarious lawyer stories have died
out with the singular exception of another version of appeal at once, which comes
in two main variants:
J1 A lawyer went out West to try an important case and promised to let his partner in
Charleston know the outcome as soon as possible. The call came and a happy voice said,
“Justice has triumphed!” The partner replied, “File an appeal immediately.”30

Here the lawyers are peers. But in other renditions the lawyers may be senior and
junior, with the punch line uttered by a senior instructing an idealistic junior.
Here is a version that I heard in India in the late s:
J1 A fresh junior lawyer was despatched by his senior to argue his first case in a remote
mofussil [hinterland] town. At the hearing the young lawyer prevailed. He was elated and
immediately proceeded to the telegraph office and wired his senior “Justice is done.”
  T J I

Exhausted, he retired to his hotel and fell into a deep sleep. He was rudely awakened by
a pounding on the door. It was a messenger with a return telegram, which he tore open
hastily, to find the message “Appeal at once.”31

All the appeal at once stories depict the widely felt disjunction of law and
justice, but they differ in their judgment about the forces that maintain this dis-
junction. In the lawyer-lawyer stories, the response of the lawyer reveals him as
a cynical scoundrel and active perverter of the system. The lawyer peers variant
portrays the lawyers as part of a fraternity of cynical betrayers of justice. Their
devotion to justice is revealed as a pretense. In the senior-junior variant the cyni-
cism of the senior partner is contrasted with the innocence of the young aspirant,
doomed to be coarsened by experience. Indeed, we see the novices’ naive pursuit
of justice manipulated by initiates to serve the schemes of the unjust.
Another Justice joke combines the messages of the two branches of appeal at
once:
J14 The senior partner of a prestigious Pittsburgh law firm was speaking to the young
wife of the company’s newest partner.
“You know, Mrs. Baylock, your husband is an absolutely honest man. He seems
passionately concerned with the attainment of justice.”
“That’s a wonderful quality,” said his wife.
“Yes,” said the boss, “if only he wasn’t a lawyer.”32

Here the hierarchy is emphasized—it is the “senior partner” and the “newest part-
ner” of a “prestigious,” presumably large and hierarchic, firm. The younger lawyer
(represented by his wife) sees his legal work as a quest for justice; the senior lawyer
reproves her as naive and reveals his vision that the attainment of justice and the
practice of law are not only separate but antithetical. The pursuit of justice is
innocuous, even admirable, in others, he implies, but for a lawyer it is a disability.
Lawyers are presented here as priests of darkness; it is incumbent on them to devi-
ate from justice and to lack the capacity to do so is an infirmity. This leaves open
whether they depart from justice for their selfish advantage or to serve their clients.
So two quite different readings of this joke are possible: in one, justice-seeking is
a disability in the fraternity of the wicked; in the other, it is a disability to one
whose job is to suppress his moral impulses to serve the selfish interests of others.
Though this crop of jokes seems to have withered, the theme of the lawyer’s
opportunistic relation to justice is currently expressed in the spate of lawyer-
prostitute comparisons, especially
J15 A lawyer is an expert on justice as a prostitute is an expert on love.33

W    D    L   D      ?
Another line of stories focuses less on unscrupulous parties or whorish lawyers
than on the failure of legal institutions themselves to secure justice. They pick up
the theme of the disjunction between law and justice that animates appeal at once.
 Enemies of Justice 

J16 Defendant (in a loud voice): “Justice! Justice! I demand justice!”

Judge: “Silence! The defendant will please remember that he is in a courtroom.”34

That awareness of the disjunction is more trenchant among the public than among
legal professionals is suggested in an English anecdote:
J16 The great Lord Chief Justice Coleridge was in a hurry and called a cab.
“Take me as quickly as possible to the Courts of Justice.”
“Where are they?” asked the man.
“What! You, a London cabby and don’t know where the Law Courts are!”
“Oh! The Law Courts! I thought you said the Courts of Justice.”35

But it may be the judge himself who insists on the distinction, as in a story
usually told about Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes [–]
(frequently with the renowned judge Learned Hand [–] as his straight
man). Here are two current versions:
J16 When late in his career a friend parted with Holmes on the steps of the Supreme Court,
saying, “Well, Sir, Good Bye—Do justice!” Holmes replied, “that’s not my job! My job is
to play the game according to the rules.”36

. Cartoon by Danny Shanahan (© The New Yorker Collection , from
cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.)
  T J I

J16 There is a story that two of the greatest figures in our law, Justice Holmes and Judge
Learned Hand, had lunch together and afterward, as Holmes began to drive off in his
carriage, Hand, in a sudden outburst of enthusiasm, ran after him, crying, “Do justice,
sire, do justice.” Holmes stopped the carriage and reproved Hand: “That is not my job.
It is my job to apply the law.”37

Dozens of versions, going back to , have been collected by a law professor
who proceeds on the assumption that later stories are distortions, many tenden-
tious, of Holmes’s “actual words.”38 It is quite possible that Holmes said some-
thing like this, and not less likely that he did so on more than one occasion. The
anecdote is distinctive for two reasons. First, it puts the perception of the dis-
sociation of law and justice in the mouth of a much admired judge rather than a
party or observer. Second and more importantly, its contrarian embrace of the
disassociation as inevitable or commendable, rather than as a regrettable departure
from what ought to be, plays off the well known witticisms that pointed out the
lack of correspondence between justice and the administration of law by inverting
the judgment that animated them.
Contrarian commendation remains rare, at least in public avowal. Instead the
dissociation is a conventional prod to courts to align the law to the requirements
of justice.39 Jokes addressed the various features that defeated such alignment,
including the play of personal influence, the wiles of hotshot lawyers, and loop-
holes in the law.
J17 Two lawyers were conversing about a case, when one said: “We have justice on our
side.” “What we want,” said the other, “is the Chief Justice.”40

J9 A bank president was giving some fatherly advice to his son who was about to go to
another part of the country to engage in some business for himself.
“Son,” said the father, “what I want to impress upon you at the beginning of your
business career is this—Honesty is always and forever the best policy.”
“Yes, father,” agreed the youth.
“And, by the way,” added the old man, “I would advise you to read up a little on
corporation law. It will amaze you to discover how many things you can do in a business
way and still be honest.”41

J18 “Got a case in court, eh?”

“Yes; and I’ll win, too.”
“Both law and justice on your side, I suppose?”
“Um! I don’t know as to that, but I’ve got the highest priced lawyers.”42

The assumption that the most renowned and expensive lawyers carry the day in
spite of a case’s merits may lead to inferences that undermine their persuasiveness,
as in the following story about fabled New York lawyer Max Steuer.
J18 Max Steuer related that once he inquired of a prospective juror at a trial whether he
had any opinion regarding the defendant’s guilt or innocence.
 Enemies of Justice 

“I have no doubt that he is guilty” replied the juror.

“What makes you say that?” asked Steuer.
“Because,” replied the juror, “if he were innocent he would not have engaged a big
lawyer like you.”43

All of these stories dropped out of circulation well before the onset of the great
lawyer joke explosion of the s. But this does not mean that the thoughts that
animated them have been abandoned or forgotten. Many of these are summed
up in the notion that justice is rationed according to ability to pay and this has
survived the decline of Justice jokes.
J19 John Horne Tooke’s opinion upon the subject of law was admirable. “Law,” he said,
“ought to be, not a luxury for the rich, but a remedy to be easily, cheaply, and speedily
obtained by the poor.” A person observed to him, “How excellent are the English laws,
because they are impartial and our courts of justice are open to all persons without
distinction!” “And so,” said Tooke, “is the London Tavern to such as can afford to pay
for their entertainment.”44

W. Carew Hazlitt, a late nineteenth-century student of jokes, in  referred to

Tooke’s reply as a “capital observation” that “every one has heard.”45 The witticism
outlived memory of its source. In , an English judge reported:

. From “Pigmy Revels” (BM . G. Cruikshank, ). The “London Tavern” joke [J]
in “comic strip” form before any known appearance in print.
  T J I

J19 Only a few weeks ago I was asked by a correspondent where I had said that ‘The courts
are open to all—like the Ritz Hotel’ and I was compelled to answer that it had been
attributed to Mr. Justice Mathew but that thirty years ago it was attributed to Lord
Bowen and also to Lord Justice Chitty.46

Earlier we encountered a number of stories that claimed to be reports of an

actual courtroom incident. Usually these attributions are apocryphal, but in the
following text we have an approximation of an actual address to a prisoner by
an English judge, Sir William H. Maule (–) at Warwick Assizes in the
mid-s.
J20 A prisoner having been found guilty of bigamy, the following conversation took place.
Clerk of Assize: “What have you to say that judgment should not be passed upon you
according to the law?”
Prisoner: “Well, my Lord, my wife took up with a hawker and ran away five years ago:
and I have never seen her since, so I married this other woman last winter.”
Justice Maule: “Prisoner at the Bar, I will tell you what you ought to have done, and if
you say you did not know, I must tell you that the Law conclusively presumes that you
did. You ought to have instructed your attorney to bring an action against the hawker
for criminal conversation with your wife. That would have cost you about £100. When
you had recovered substantial damages against the hawker, you would have instructed
your proctor to sue in the ecclesiastical courts for a divorce a mensa atque thoro, you
would have had to appear by counsel before the House of Lords for a divorce a vinculo
matrimonii. The Bill might have been opposed in all its stages in both the Houses of
Parliament, and altogether you would have had to spend about £1,000 or £1,200. You
will probably tell me that you never had 1,000 farthings of your own in the world, but
prisoner, that makes no difference. Sitting here as a British judge, it is my duty to tell you
that this is not a country in which there is one law for the rich and another for the poor.”47

Although there is some variation among the several texts claiming to be verbatim
reports, there is no doubt about the historicity of the incident, which is credited
as the “final impetus” that “precipitated” the enactment of the  act that first
made divorce available in England’s civil courts.48
Justice Maule’s ironic demonstration of legal equality producing vastly un-
equal results raises a persisting question. If lawyers, judges, and courts allot effort
and access according to the resources commanded by the parties, what difference
does it make that some parties are better fixed to command the services of lawyers
and seize the opportunities afforded by the law? At one time there was a scatter of
jokes on the theme of the rationing of justice, but all of them have faded away,
with the exception of the following.
A well-known cartoon by J. B. Handelsman, published in the New Yorker
on December , , and reproduced in fig. , depicted a lawyer in his office
addressing his client: “You have a pretty good case, Mr. Pitkin. How much jus-
tice can you afford?” The line juxtaposing “justice” and “afford” has entered the
 Enemies of Justice 

language as an “aphorism.” The cartoon attained some renown; it was passed

around law school libraries, displayed on the walls of lawyers’ offices, remembered
and misremembered in various ways (for instance, with the client behind bars).49
The plaintiff in an age discrimination suit entitled his  memoir of the case
All the Justice I Could Afford.50 A light bulb joke (B) with “how many [lawyers]
can you afford” as the response line circulated by . By the mid-s two for-
mer presidents of the American Bar Association recollected “an old joke [that]
ends with a lawyer saying to his client, ‘Well, how much justice can you afford?’”51
A Texas lawyer described his fight against software piracy in China as recalling an
American legal joke:
J21 The litigant . . . rushes indignantly into his lawyer’s office, shouting that he wants
“justice!” The lawyer calms him down, and then says: “Tell me, exactly how much justice
can you afford?”52

His telling was repeated verbatim in an Irish newspaper a few months later in
connection with a dispute about Ireland’s blood transfusion tribunal.53 A week

. Cartoon by J. B. Handelsman (© The New Yorker Collection , from

cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.)
 T J I

later an essayist in an English paper refers to the joke, and the following year legal
aid lawyers in Scotland held a conference entitled “How Much Justice Can We
Afford?”54 It is not clear whether Handelsman’s cartoon was inspired by an older
and unrecorded joke, or whether such a joke was derived from the cartoon and
then recollected, or whether the joke was bred by mis-recollection of the cartoon.
In any case it is clear that this line hit a nerve.
Remarkably, the jokes don’t pursue this unequal justice theme, at least not
directly, despite a large portion of the public subscribing to the unequal justice
critique and holding lawyers to blame for their complicity in it. There is a wide-
spread and abiding view that the legal system is biased in favor of top people.
Twenty-five years ago  percent of a national sample agreed that “the legal system
favors the rich and powerful over everyone else.”55 In , when asked whether
“the justice system in the United States mainly favors the rich” or “treats all Amer-
icans as equally as possible,”  percent of respondents chose the “favored the rich”
response and only  percent the “equally” response.56 In a  survey conducted
by U.S. News & World Report, fully three-quarters of the respondents thought that
the American legal system affords less access to justice to “average Americans” than
to rich people—and four out of five of these thought “much less.”57 The same poll
shows the public placing responsibility for this imbalance squarely on lawyers:
Here are some things that people say about lawyers. Which one of the following
comes closest to your views?
Lawyers have an important role to play in holding wrongdoers accountable and
helping the injured
Lawyers use the legal system to protect the powerful and get rich.
Fifty-six percent affirmed the “protect the powerful and get rich” response; only
 percent the “helping” response.58 That ordinary people are denied the benefits
of the legal system is attributed to lawyers.59
Yet compared to the elaborated repertoire of jokes that recite and embroider
various grievances about lawyers, jokes that turn on the class bias of the legal sys-
tem are rare indeed. As we have seen, a number of stories with the theme of
lawyers fiddling the system on behalf of the rich have fallen out of the contem-
porary canon of lawyer jokes. Lawyers’ depredations (lying, cheating, betraying,
exploiting) in individual instances are vividly displayed, but there is little atten-
tion to their public or systematic failures and the deleterious consequences that
flow from them. Older jokes that pointedly depicted lawyers as agents of public
injustice (e.g., I, proved it constitutional) have dropped out, perhaps because
the notion of lawyers abruptly changing course or undermining the public inter-
est for private advantage no longer violates our expectations with sufficient force.
Lawyers are viewed as instruments of private will rather than as guardians of pub-
lic weal. The Scorn and Death Wish jokes that have displaced these Justice jokes do
not focus on specific misdeeds of lawyers, but take for granted a broad consensus
that their presence is unwelcome and harmful and that their removal would be
a. “Blind Justice.” Illustration by Harry Furniss for A’Beckett’s The Comic Blackstone, .
Her blindfold removed, Justice notices that the entire legal process (from the jury to the
House of Lords) is outweighed by £,.

b. Cartoon by Ken Wilkie in S. Gross, ed., Lawyers! Lawyers! Lawyers! (© Ken Wilkie )
 T J I

beneficial. Their punch lines play off the tension between the lawyer’s high status
and our customary civility on the one hand and the explosive violence of the
response to the lawyer on the other.
The jokes about lawyers’ Corruption of Discourse and Economic Predation turn
on the way that protagonists, acting in conformity with the practices of the pro-
fession, violate the expectations of fairness and justice which the profession is
supposed to institutionalize. It is more acceptable to attribute this deviance to the
failings of individuals (greed, opportunism, overreaching) than to systemic fail-
ure. It is easier to accept that society is infected with bad guys than that we have
institutions so constructed that they cannot consistently produce just results. But
the measures we take to restrain bad actors may have little to do with making our
institutions realize their highest goals. Joel Best points out that “a society which is
mobilized to keep child molesters, kidnappers and Satanists away from innocent
children is not necessarily prepared to protect children from ignorance, poverty,
and ill health.”60 Similarly it is more congenial to focus on individual villains
(greedy lawyers, overreaching clients, even ruthless prosecutors, and brutal cops)
than to address the structures that obstruct justice.
The Justice jokes are the only category that has not grown at all since 
(when the last few additions were registered). Indeed, virtually no new jokes have
been added to this category since the Great Depression. Instead, it has shrunk
over the years, with more than half of the items fallen out of circulation.61 The
corporate/wealth disparity stories are gone; perhaps because such disparities and
their influence are no longer seen as deviant or surprising. Indeed my sense is that
only three are in circulation (J, appeal at once; J, expert in justice; and J, how
much justice can you afford ). We have moved from mocking deviations from our
high expectations of legal equality to a world in which revelation of self-seeking,
gamesmanship, and social contingency are expected, or at least no longer suffi-
ciently surprising to support a punch line.
  

Only in America?

Our extended tour of the corpus of lawyer jokes has revealed dramatic changes.
The tone of joking about lawyers has moved from mockery, sometimes gentle
and sometimes caustic, to mean-spirited scorn and aggression. The core categories
of jokes have endured and, with the exception of the justice category, flourished.
The core has incorporated many new jokes; and even spawned whole new themes,
such as the sexploitation cycle of Economic Predation jokes. Beyond the core cat-
egories, the change has been truly dramatic. Where twenty-five years ago there were
only a scatter of stories, there are now large new clusters of jokes about lawyers’
treachery, moral deficiency, public obloquy, and suitability for extermination.
Whether these new categories will continue to flourish and become as estab-
lished as the core categories remains to be seen. Most of their inhabitants are jokes
that were switched to lawyers from other targets. Some have found the new soil
hospitable and appear robust; others seem likely to fall away as the demand for
lawyer jokes slackens. But even if many do fall away, the accretion of new themes
and new material, combined with new visibility as a genre, means that the contours
of joking about lawyers will be very different than they were half a century ago.
The changes in joking about lawyers accompanied a decline in public esteem
for lawyers and an increase in their presence and visibility. The number of lawyers
has multiplied as the law has expanded and become more pervasive, casting its
shadow in every corner of our lives. Patterns of joking appear to track changes in
the ubiquity and invasiveness of lawyers and law rather than a worsening of lawyer
behavior. After Vietnam and Watergate, public attitudes toward institutions and
elites became less trusting and more critical. In conjunction with growing resis-
tence to regulation, taxes, and “big government” starting in the late s, many
recoiled against what they viewed as the excessive reach and cost of the law. Some
were disappointed that law failed to deliver on its promises of remedy and protec-
tion; others, including major sections of business, governmental, and media elites,


 T J I

embraced a jaundiced view of the legal system in which the problem was “too
much law” and the perpetrators were lawyers.
Expression of the animus against lawyers through jokes was encouraged by
developments in the wider world of joking. It became incorrect in many settings
to aim jokes at ethnic minorities, women, the disabled, and other “victim” groups.
Lawyers, however, remained fair game. Rather than victims, they are the quin-
tessential antivictims. They are aggressive and domineering; they prosper on the
woes of genuine victims. When the swell of broad public discomfort with the
legalization of life met the great antilawyer antagonism among elites, lawyers were
attractive targets of comic assault.
Jokes are only one of many channels through which legal culture is expressed.
In longer narrative forms like movies, television, and novels, lawyers are more
likely to be involved in the criminal process (as prosecutors as well as defense
lawyers), the matter is more likely to involve a formal trial and more likely to deal
with large public issues, than are the lawyers in jokes. In movies, on television,
and in thrillers, lawyers are more glamorous and heroic than they are in jokes.
In the novels of John Grisham and in films like The Verdict (), Class Action
(), The Firm (),1 Philadelphia (), and The Rainmaker () lawyers
are shown as triumphing through law. In these works “Justice is done!”—lawyers
succeed in vindicating the right, at least locally and temporarily.
In contrast, the lawyers in jokes tend to be engaged in the pursuit of private
interests. They may be clever and resourceful, but they are of (at most) middling
moral stature. In movies, television, and novels, lawyers engage in tactical maneu-
ver in order to serve their clients and vindicate high principles. In the jokes, the
lawyer’s clever stratagems are deployed mainly to serve the lawyer’s interest. The
tensions between law and justice remain unresolved. Lawyers in jokes function in
the world of game-playing rather than in the world of weighty values and momen-
tous events. The longer narrative media often show us the nobility of the law vin-
dicated in the midst of the compromises of everyday life. But the jokes highlight
the contrast between the seamy reality and the law’s pretensions of nobility.
The distinctly skeptical representation of lawyers in jokes is fairly close to the
public opinion revealed in surveys that show the public full of critical views about
lawyers and cynical knowledge about the system. We have seen that it is widely
believed that there are too many lawyers and that lawyers are deficient in ethics.
In a recent survey, over half the public thought it a fair criticism of most law-
yers that “they file too many lawsuits and tie up the court system.”2 Another sur-
vey found a resounding  percent who agreed that “the amount of litigation in
America today is hampering this country’s economic recovery.”3
Public opinion tracks many aspects of the jaundiced view of the legal system,
as does much in the joke corpus—including such emblematic jokes as dogs (B),
chaos (D), laboratory rats (G), brass rat (I), and the whole categories of Scorn
and Death Wish jokes. But while the jaundiced view targets claimants and their
lawyers (under the rubrics of “trial lawyers,” “contingency fee lawyers,” and “class
 Only in America? 

action lawyers”—i.e., those who launch legal attacks on corporate America), the
joke corpus pays no special heed to claimants (and their lawyers) or to corpora-
tions (and their lawyers). Indeed the two distinctive clusters that have dropped
out of the joke corpus are jokes about conniving claimants and jokes about
lawyers frustrating justice at the behest of the powerful. Grassroots disaffection
with lawyers is not focused on their alignment in the civil justice wars.
In many respects the grievances of ordinary people are distinct from those that
animate the jaundiced view. Genuine grassroots legal reform groups, to the extent
that they exist at all, are concerned about issues like excessive fees and the weak-
ness of lawyer self-discipline.4 They call for the abolition of self-regulation and the
establishment of an open public procedure for grievances against lawyers. They
want “plain language,” do-it-yourself provisions, and higher limits in small claims
courts—all to enable citizens to pursue their legal business without lawyers. They
oppose the lawyer monopoly, enthusiastically urging nonlawyer practice. It is a
consumerist perspective in which access is a major theme: they want a system that
is user-friendly for ordinary people.5 Interest in generic law reform is vastly over-
shadowed by interest in remedies for specific grievances, such as those involved
in the “Patients Bill of Rights,” which roiled political debate at the turn of the new

. Cartoon by Mick Stevens (© The New Yorker Collection , from cartoonbank.com.
All rights reserved.)
 T J I

century. Despite wide agreement that it is “overused,” most people would like to
enlarge access to the justice system rather than restrict access and curtail remedies.
In a  survey,  percent of the respondents preferred to retain the present bal-
ance between injured and insurers, another  percent favored reform that would
“tilt things a little more in favor of those injured in accidents,” and only  percent
wished to tilt more the other way.6
Unlike the advocates of the jaundiced view, wider publics do not see the system
victimizing the affluent. For all their misgivings about the legal system, most Amer-
icans do not share the sense that it oppresses large businesses. When asked which
types of people were “not apt to be treated fairly by the law,” respondents to a
 Roper survey identified the poor ( percent), uneducated ( percent), and
blacks ( percent); only  percent thought “top business executives” were treated
unfairly. Indeed, when asked which types of persons “the courts are too lenient
with,” government officials and top business executives ranked, along with heroin
users and frequent offenders, just below dope peddlers.7 And this was long before
the public became exercised about corporate flim-flam in the wake of the scandals,
starting in late , involving Enron, Arthur Andersen, Merrill Lynch, and other
visible pillars of the economy. There is an abiding sense that the system favors the
rich and powerful and that lawyers promote and benefit from this disparity.
Like much of the legal profession itself, proponents of the jaundiced view
lament the disappearance of the good old days, that Golden Age of professional-
ism in which lawyers were paragons of civic virtue.8 This decline scenario conve-
niently enables one to maintain allegiance to the law while deploring the excesses
and deformities of our fallen time. In contrast, the jokes (and the broader streams
of public opinion) are free of nostalgia. There is no sense of an earlier time when
lawyers were better than those of the present day. Indeed, there is little sense
of “history” or change in the jokes; they portray a timeless world of small prac-
tices and personal service to clients. The deficiencies of lawyers are portrayed
as congenital to the profession, not a function of their involvement in the world
of contemporary rationalized money-driven forms of practice. Their critique of
lawyers is not “it ain’t like it used to be,” but “it ain’t like it ‘spozed to be.”
Jokes carry us to a realm of what we know but at the same time don’t want to
know. They remind us that lawyers lie, cheat, bungle, and make disastrous mis-
calculations, and that judges are sometimes corrupt, somnolent, and dense. Within
the joke frame we can affirm these uncomfortable truths without the explosive
and demoralizing force of a factual accusation.9 Jokes point to our cynical “sec-
ond” or “shadow” knowledge that mirrors the prescriptively suffused knowledge
that portrays lawyers and judges, husbands and wives, presidents and professors
in the raiment of their benign, respectable, frontstage roles. Jokes reveal the under-
side, the backstage, of these normative constructions and relieve the tension of the
duality of our knowledge.
Putting our awareness of the underside of the law within the joke frame not
only makes it acceptable. It also enables us to forget or at least discount it. It is
 Only in America? 

the nature of jokes to be intermittent discontinuous flashes, each a small whole,

not connected with one another in a sequence or narrative. So jokes never cumu-
late to offer us an alternative picture of the role or institution. They may even
reinforce the dominant normative picture by resolving the tension of deviance
from it.
That jokes are rapidly forgotten by most people is an important part of the
joke institution. It enables tellers to get much more mileage from their stock. And
it means that listeners never assemble this shadow knowledge into an alternative
vision of society that could challenge or displace the dominant normatively suf-
fused picture of the social world. Jokes enable us to dissent without overt chal-
lenge and without a program for change.
This account has focused on lawyer jokes in the contemporary United States.
When I have asked scholars and practitioners from other countries about the exis-
tence of a comparable body of jokes about lawyers, their unanimous response is
that no such thing exists in their countries. I have visited Great Britain more than
a dozen times since  to conduct research that has involved interviews with
lawyers, and with journalists, consultants, and scholars concerned with the legal
profession. I found no evidence of the presence of a body of lawyer jokes of any-
thing like the scope and intensity of the American variety. The few topical joke
books about lawyers that have been published in Britain in the past twenty years
are quite different from the American publications of the recent past.10 The humor
is far gentler. Lawyers are funny in the way that golfers and salesmen are funny; they
are not demonized. The most prominent of these collections, published in ,
contains many Discourse, Economic Predation, and Conflict jokes. Apart from a sin-
gle Death Wish joke—the old story about the judicial curmudgeon who says “bury
twenty-one of them” (I)—there is not a single joke located in the “new territories”
of lawyer joking.11 The stories of Betrayal, Moral Deficiency, and Scorn that figure
prominently in the American collections are entirely absent. When the kind of
aggressive lawyer jokes that are so common in the United States do crop up in Eng-
land, they are often characterized as “anti-lawyer jokes imported from the States.”12
This is not because the jokes are unknown; many of them are in the repertoire, but
they are just not applied to lawyers—or at least to the local lawyers. For example,
a  book of jokes about then recently deceased Robert Maxwell contains a num-
ber of jokes that in the United States were then strongly associated with lawyers,
including professional courtesy (B), dogs (B), and check in the coffin (F).13
An excellent  general joke collection from Australia bears a considerably
closer resemblance to the American corpus.14 Its section on lawyers contains a few
Death Wish and Scorn jokes and more Economic Predator jokes—as well as a series
of scathing attacks on judges that have no counterpart in the American literature.
Many stories that were already told as lawyer jokes in the U.S. are told about
others: two plus two (A) about accountants, dogs (B) about trade unionists, chaos
(D) about politicians. In  each of these was published as a lawyer joke in
Australia in versions derived from the Internet, but lawyers are still outnumbered
 T J I

by other protagonists. In that same year the first topical collection of lawyer jokes
was published in Australia by a law professor with roots in the American poverty
law movement and a definite reform agenda for Australian professionals.15
In India, too, we find an absence of Death Wish and Scorn jokes about lawyers.
Again it is not that the jokes are unknown, but many are deflected to politicians—
even rats (G), one of the signature stories of American antilawyer sentiment,
appears in India as a joke about politicians. In India, as well as in England and
Australia, chaos (D) is told about politicians rather than about lawyers.16
In each instance, the diffusion of print material, joined now by electronic
materials, suggests the need for caution; jokes may be appreciated even where they
are not thought reflective of local conditions, but instead are regarded as good
jokes about American or generic lawyers. For example, in India there are jokes
about lawyers arguing before juries even though juries have not existed in India
for over a century.
In an era when so many aspects of American culture have been imported
and imitated indiscriminately, how is it that the traffic in lawyer jokes has been so
selective? Britain, which has similar legal institutions, unsurprisingly shares a very
large part of what I call the enduring core of lawyer jokes. But despite an expan-
sion in the number of lawyers even more dramatic than that in the United States,
the jokes depicting lawyers as a pestilential affliction have not been taken up.17
Why has Britain been unreceptive to the new categories? In a richly elabo-
rated depiction of English and American legal cultures, Patrick Atiyah and Robert
Summers contrast a more formal, more certain, more strictly and evenly enforced
English law with a more substantive, indefinite, and uneven American counter-
part.18 But not only is the law different in character, it plays a very different role.
The fierce antilawyer animosity in early modern England, British historian Wilfred
Prest explained,
reflects the central relevance of the legal system and its practitioners to the everyday
life of early modern England. . . .
[In early modern England] proportionately more people were directly involved
in legal proceedings conducted at a much higher emotional and psychological tem-
perature than our modern, purpose-built, and public deserted courtrooms normally
witness, except for the occasional cause celebre.19

Prest attributes the eclipse of antilawyer sentiment in England to the decline in

the centrality of law:
Private law and litigation now play such a relatively insignificant part in the life of
most modern western societies that a major effort of imagination is required to grasp
their central prominence in early modern times. The late sixteenth and early seven-
teenth centuries constituted possibly the most litigious era in English history, as well
as a time when legal forms and institutions impinged upon almost every aspect of
daily life.20
 Only in America? 

If it was possible in  Britain to perceive the legal system as remote and not
significant in daily life, certainly no one could have said this of the United States
in  or since. If law in contemporary England is a delimited sphere of institu-
tional activity that impinges only indirectly on ordinary citizens, the United States
is more like early modern England, where law has “central relevance” to everyday
life. In the United States law is less a delimited sphere than a pervasive master
control of controls.21 I do not mean that law actually determines the course of
all other social institutions, but rather that it is the site of debate about them
and influences them as model, monitor, and intervener. It is this centrality and
pervasiveness of law that is absent in Britain.
When we move outside the English-speaking common law world, the con-
trast with the American lawyer joke culture is even more pronounced. Where
these jokes appear, they are often appreciated specifically as commentary on the
“American situation” (as the Dutch call it), rather than assimilated to the local
scene. Thus a  German collection of lawyer jokes contrasts the integrity of
the local bar with that in the U.S, where professionalism is stained by large
awards, contingency fees, and ambulance chasing. The compiler alerts the reader
that “some of the jokes printed here originate in the USA, and they are the most
severe. In the nature of things many of these jokes about lawyers seem drastic to
us, because here the income of lawyers in not a proportionate share as it is on
the other side of the Atlantic. Also, in our parts there are no lawyers that chase

. Cartoon by Michael Maslin (© The New Yorker Collection , from
cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.)
 T J I

ambulances to assist the victim—meaning to share the fat compensation. Then

enjoy these raven-black jokes about the American lawyer guild. Perhaps it will come
to us yet.”22
Generally, there are many fewer jokes about lawyers outside the common law
world. In civil law countries, with their smaller number of lawyers and larger
contingents of judges, lawyers do not seem to play an important role in the pub-
lic imagination. For example, Giselinde Kuipers, a Dutch sociologist, writes:
I can assure you there are no lawyer jokes in the Netherlands. . . . It reflects the
very different position of lawyers and legal practice in the Netherlands and the US.
Dutch people tend to jokingly refer to the American practice of “suing” (even using
the English word to stress the Americanness of the practice). . . . In the Netherlands,
lawyers simply don’t have the power and the social influence they have in the U.S.; as
a result, [the] Dutch don’t feel as ambivalent or even negative about lawyers. No need
for jokes. [The] Dutch simply couldn’t care less.23
The “power and social influence” of American lawyers derive from the Ameri-
can institutional setting of fragmented government and judicial review, but they
also reflect the distinctive preeminence of law in American ideology. The central
role assigned to law and courts by Americans, long a staple of lawyer rhetoric on
civic occasions, is conceded and sometimes celebrated by others. For example, a
journalist surveying “The Crisis in the Courts,” for Fortune in , before the
intensification of discomfort about the law, finds the inefficiency of the courts
troubling because “law is the authentic idiom of the American people in the strug-
gle for the world, carrying within its wisdom much of the morality, the charity,
the restraint and experience in the nation’s heritage—all waiting for application to
specific new cases. The great task is to bend and fashion the workings of justice to
fit the nation’s—and the world’s—newest needs.”24 The nation, he concludes, is
“hungry for the leadership of law,” and if the courts succeed in reforming them-
selves “they can be the principal institution that gives point to American national
development.” This kind of nomo-centrism is idiosyncratically American and
remains a puzzle and a wonder to European observers. A Danish scholar, Helle
Porsdam, examining American legal culture, concludes that “the American legal
system and American law . . . occupy a unique position in American culture and
society. Americans may complain about litigiousness and overcrowded court dock-
ets, about greedy lawyers and an adversarial system run wild, but if and when they
have problems it is to their lawyers and their courts that they turn for help. . . .
Countless are the cultural texts—books, films, and television series—that, after
setting out to expose the sorry state of American law, then move on to affirm its
promise.”25 Porsdam finds that in contrast to Denmark, where “the law is viewed
solely as a technical means to achieving a certain end, for Americans the law, in
addition to performing such a technical function, also carries a very important
symbolic meaning. Unlike Danes, Americans are persuaded that the law, beyond
protecting their rights and preserving their liberty, will provide them with trust
 Only in America? 

and meaning—Justice of a higher kind.”26 Observers have long noted that lawyers
in America occupied a distinctive position in relation to the central values of the
society. They have been likened to the priests of ancient Egypt or of medieval
Christiandom.27 If lawyers are priests, law is the national church, its “secular reli-
gion.”28 America, as Canadian legal scholar William Bogart calls it, is “the land
of law.”29
The profusion of lawyer jokes in the United States is not an independent
development driven by forces internal to the worlds of humor or entertainment.
It is driven by the ubiquity, visibility, and centrality of lawyers in American life.
They are, as one historian put it, “now the dominant profession in American soci-
ety.”30 As law appears more and more the central arbitral and meaning-conferring
institution in American society, it generates anxiety and consternation about the
legalization of life.
America is a society that absorbs huge amounts of law and lawyering—both
absolutely and compared to other industrial democracies. Even when we adjust
for the different occupational structure and nomenclature of providers of legal
services, it is clear that the United States supports far more lawyers per capita than
do other rich industrial democracies.31 This reliance on lawyers is the effect rather
than the cause of a decentralized legal regime in which any activity is subject to
multiple bodies of regulation; where the application of those rules depends on
complex and perhaps unknowable states of fact; where decision-makers produce
not definitive and immutable rulings but contingent temporary resolutions that
are open to further challenge; where outcomes are subject to contestation in mul-
tiple forums by an expanding legion of organized and persistent players who
invest increasing amounts in more technically sophisticated legal services. Robert
Kagan observes that in the United States, popular demand for expanded remedies
and regulatory protections
have been filtered through a political culture that mistrusts “big government” and
resists high taxes. In a political system that lacks strong national law enforcement, reg-
ulatory, medical care and welfare bureaucracies, the satisfaction of demands for “total
justice” necessarily has been left in large measure to state and local judges and gov-
ernmental agencies, even for the implementation of federally enacted programs and
policies. Without the capacity for exercising centralized, “top down” control over local
police officers, environmental inspectors, school districts and businesses, legislators
and high courts have granted ordinary citizens and advocacy groups the right to haul
errant officials and corporations into court. Lawyers and adversarial legalism thus sub-
stitute for hierarchical bureaucratic and political accountability mechanisms.32
The allegiance of the lawyers that provide these services is less to their guild
than to their clients, whose views they absorb and whose interests they champion.
Mark Osiel points out that American lawyers are different not only in their
“unqualified partisanship” but also in the kind of knowledge that comprises their
expertise.33 They provide not only technical mastery of legal texts but “practical
. The Policy of the Law! Illustration by Harry Furniss for A’Beckett’s
The Comic Blackstone, . Powered by vast minions, the law, although made
of books and files and topped by a scarecrow in judge’s ermine, crushes all
before it, rich and poor alike.
 Only in America? 

judgement: discernment in predicting how courts will balance, in light of under-

lying policy and principle, the relative significance of particular features of a com-
plex factual configuration.”34 The distinctive scope and role of American lawyers
underlies their prominence in the American political and cultural scene. As the
legend of lawyers undermining American competitiveness attests, they are seen
as leading actors astride the main stage, who bear responsibility for the society’s
central failings, real and imaginary.
Through this decentralized, endlessly receptive, and very expensive system,
we attempt to pursue our multiple and colliding individual and social visions of
substantive justice.35 We want our legal institutions to yield both comprehensive
policy embodying shared public values and facilities for the relentless pursuit of
individual interests. But we are suspicious of the concentrated authority required
for the former and reluctant to support the elaborated public machinery required
to provide the latter routinely to ordinary citizens. We prefer fragmented govern-
ment and reactive legal institutions with limited resources, so that in large mea-
sure both the making of public policy and the vindication of individual claims
are delegated to the parties themselves, who are left to fend according to their
own resources. In this complex system, lawyers form a major component of these
resources. But lawyers, each attached to her own client, cannot fulfill the fatally
divided promise of substantive justice.36
The lawyer joke corpus is a forum in which strands of popular and elite resis-
tance to the law come together. Both are anxious whether the society and world we
live in are just. We each know that in this or that familiar corner of things, wrong-
doers prosper and there is lots of undeserved and avoidable suffering. We would
like to think that nevertheless somehow it all adds up, that each gets his deserts,
that there is a cosmic balance in which virtue is rewarded and evil punished. But
there is a nagging feeling that the wicked flourish.37
What causes the shortfall? Law, courts, and lawyers seem deeply implicated.
Even as we have more law, injustice seems to increase rather than dwindle. The
amount of injustice increases, not because there is less justice but because the
sphere of justice (and injustice) is expanding. As the law addresses new demands
for justice it does not, paradoxically, reduce the amount of injustice. For our soci-
ety produces new injustices at an ever increasing rate. Injustice is something bad
that someone ought to do something about. As the risks of everyday life have de-
clined dramatically, there is a widespread sense that science, technology, and gov-
ernment can produce solutions for many of the remaining (and newly revealed)
problems.38 As more things are capable of being done by human institutions, the
line between what is seen as unavoidable misfortune and what is seen as imposed
injustice shifts. The realm of injustice is enlarged: hurricanes are misfortunes, but
inadequate warning, insufficient preparation, and mismanaged relief efforts may
be injustices.39 Once, having an incurable disease was a misfortune; now a percep-
tion of treatment bungled or withheld or insufficient vigor in pursuing a cure can
give rise to a claim of injustice. As the scope of possible interventions broadens,
 T J I

more and more terrible things become defined by the incidence of potential in-
tervention. Consciousness of injustice increases, not because the world is a worse
place, but because it is in important ways a better, more just place.
Every addition to the human capacity for control and remedy enlarges the
legal world. As resources increase and expectations rise, new vistas of injustice
unfold and new demands for remedy are brought to the legal system. But as more
justice is possible, more choices need to be made. Our pursuit of justice is not
single-minded. We want lots of other things as well—affluence, security, and social
acceptance to mention only a few. As with health care, the rationing of justice is
inevitable. Demands compete for an inadequate supply, and possession of other
resources helps capture some of that supply. We constantly encounter the “how
much justice can you afford?” question.
Why should this anxiety about justice be so much more intense in the United
States? Perhaps Americans can indulge immodest expectations with less constraint
by ancestral notions of propriety. Or perhaps they lack the cushioning provided
by highly developed welfare states. In any event, they clearly search for social jus-
tice in a different location—relying more on law (and correspondingly less on
government) as a vehicle of justice.
So the swollen body of jokes about lawyers is another form of American ex-
ceptionalism, testimony to our vaunting expectations of law and our anxiety that
they will be disappointed. The jokes reflect a mismatch that we cannot escape.
Suspicious of government, we want impartial law to secure us the fruits of com-
monwealth. But that same law is a vehicle of individual assertion, at the service
of every “special interest,” including our own. Longing for fraternity, we find our-
selves ever more dependent on those who zealously guard our self-interest and our
less fraternal impulses, the lawyers. Critics point to the paradox of trying to achieve
social or communal justice with legal tools suited to the assertion and defense of
individual interest. And, of course, the invocation of community affords a ready
disguise to those who seek to forward their own interests and dismantle the pro-
tections of others.
:
Register of Jokes




. The fake coat-of-arms is an old comic device. At the beginning and end of this appendix
we see two specimens, separated by centuries, gravitate to a set of common themes and
symbols. The  English Dum Vivo Thrivo (“Where I live, I thrive”) (BM  ) depicts
the lawyer as a fox in robes, spouting reams of legal jargon, taking fees from both sides, and
emerging with clients’ wealth . The verse reads: “Clients, Precarious Titles May Debate; /
The Lawyer only Thrives, grows Rich and Great: / The Golden Fee alone is his Delight; /
Gold make ye Dubious Cause go wrong or Right. / Nay; rather than his Modesty he’ll hide,
/ He’ll take a Privae Dawb o’ t’other side: / Heraldry ne’er Devis’d a fitter Crest, / Than Sly
Volpone so demurely drest: / Lawyers by subtle querks, their Clients fleece, / So when old
Reynard Preaches, ’ware ye Geese. / Two Purse-proud Sots yt quarrel for a Straw, / Are justly
ye Supporters of the Law: / As Fools at Cudgels, find it to their Cost, / The best comes off
but with dry Blows at Most. / So wrangling Clients may at variance fall / But ’tis ye Lawyer
Runs away with all.”
 
Register of Jokes

The Register of Jokes lists all the jokes in the archive that is the source of the lawyer
jokes examined in this book. It includes some, but not many, that are not included in the
text. The sources are presented in the notes to each individual joke. This register contains
some summary information about these jokes and provides a name for each joke. In a few
cases (e.g., ambulance stories) a set of related jokes are clubbed together under a single
name. The register indicates in brackets [ ] the year of the joke’s first known (to me)
appearance as a lawyer joke. Jokes are classified as indigenous to the legal setting (I) or
switched to the legal setting (S). In the case of switched jokes, the year of its first known
appearance is identified in braces { }; if there is a predominant earlier subject it is indi-
cated in parentheses, e.g., (politician). Cases in which a joke is shared with another group
are indicated by an equal sign within the parentheses (=). Where I feel confident that the
joke is not currently in wide circulation, I have marked it as a dropout (D).
A few items marked “Supp.” are jokes that are not told about lawyers, but seem closely
related to particular lawyer jokes.
Jokes that I was able to identify with a tale-type (Aarne-Thompson ) or motif
(Thompson ) are indicated by AT or Motif.
The dates given should be read as dates by which the item was in circulation. They rep-
resent the earliest instance that I found, but some may have appeared in print earlier and
most probably appear in the oral culture earlier—in some cases much earlier.

C

[ ] year of first appearance as lawyer joke

( ) predominant earlier subject
(=) shared subject
{ } first appearance with any subject
I indigenous
S switched
D dropout


 A

A. D       
Lying and Dishonesty
. lips moving [] (husband){} S
. lawyer = liar (play on sound) [] I
. which side (play on lie/lay) [] I
. death’s door [] I
. other play on lie/lay []
. either side [] (teacher) {}
. don’t need lawyer for truth [] I
. lying clumsily [] I
. lying as professional qualification [] I
A supp. who will weigh coal {}
. not too honest [] I
. what’s the difference? [] (politician) {} S
. regular kind [] I
. put in lies yourself [] I D
. sometimes tell truth [] I
. God works wonders [] I
. scarcest
. game laws [] I D
. two in grave [] I
. strange [] I
. miscellaneous lying

Workers in the Mills of Deceit

. professional advice [] I
. juryman learns law is cheating [] I
. lawyer objects to truth [] I
. lantern [] I
. oath [. Other versions to ] I

Eloquence, Persuasiveness, Resourcefulness

. inconsistent defenses [] I
. equally conclusive []
. client convinced [] I (AT c; Motif X. [Eloquent lawyer makes obviously
guilty client doubt his own guilt])
. what could he possibly say [] I
A supp. Hear the evidence {} I
. reversing course [] I
. another doctor [] (Jew or patient) {} S
. ghostwriter’s revenge [] (speechwriter) {} S
. two plus two [] (Communist functionaries) {} S

“Hot Air”: Fakery and Bombast

. telephone [] I
. pound the table () I
. can’t talk without thinking [] I
 Register of Jokes 

. who’s doing our thinking [] I

. brain in jar [] I
. winning in spite of argument [] I
. refute any point [] I
. gas works [] I
. balloon [] (parliamentarian) {} (client version ; associate version ) S

Masters of Stratagem
. overstate debt [] {} S
. unscrew arm [] I
. give clerk more [] [Cf. B] I?
. steal more [] I
. jury selection []
. pay off low bidder [] {} S
. train con() S

Lawyer Outsmarted
. measured it [] I
. clock behind you [c. ] I
. hit lawyer hard [] I
. all wanted to acquit [] I
. watching door [?] I
. cow came home [?] I
. gift to judge [] I
. other side’s story [] I
. Pathelin (lawyer’s winning strategy turned against him by client)[c.] I AT 
[The lawyer’s mad client]
. outsmarted by blonde [] {} S
. duck []
. cigar fires [] (men) {} S
. misc. discourse
B . E       P        
Only the Lawyer Wins
. law impoverishes [] I
. fat lawyer, thin clients [] I
. lawyer consumes stake [] I
. sheep will be ours [] I
. you’ll get it all [] I
. hard work to get money from lawyers [] I

Taking It All
. won’t move without fees [] I
. lawyer takes residue of loot [] I
. won’t defend client who didn’t steal [] I
. innocent until proven broke [] I
. nothing to offer [] I
. entirely professional [] I
 A

. remainder a mistake [] I

. newly discovered evidence [] I
. go to prison broke [] I
. lawyer takes legacy []I
. light bulb . . . afford [] S
. light bulb . . . yours to his [] S

A Prodigious Predator
. two fat wethers [] I D
. sure to be fleeced [] I
. client was rich [] I
. fix up our home [] I
. pockets [] I?
. lawyer would steal more () I
. pirate [] I?
. did he get anything? [] I?
. pickpockets concede prey [] I
. parasites/scavengers (tick, leech, vampire, vulture, buzzard) [] I
. professional courtesy [] I
. mistake shark for lawyer [] I

Fee Simple
. contingency fee [] I
. counterfeit dollar [] I
. anyone can fall down manhole [] I
. think you got hit by brick [] I
. timesheets [] I
. like buying a car [] [=doctor] I
. didn’t make much either [] (=doctor) {} S

Throwing the Meter

. butcher and dog [] I AT  [The Lawyer’s Dog Steals Meat]
. lawyer charges for “social” services () I
. bill for greeting [] I
. doctor at party [] I
. sequence of lawyers send bills [] I
. charge for advice at dinner [] I
. wake up at night [] I
. crossing street [] (doctor) {} S
. three questions [] (=fortune-teller) {} S

Sexploitation
. spinster’s estate [] I
. really needed this case [] (friend) {} S
. workaholic avoidance of romance [] {} S
. clucks defiance [] I
. choice of sins [] (suitor, various) {} S
. screwing somebody already [] (Republican) {} S
 Register of Jokes 

. screw out of what? [] I

B supp. out of crooked business {}
. multiply-married virgin [] {} S
. screwing in queue [] {} S
. screw partner’s wife/repay $ [] (friend) {} S AT C [Borrowing from
the Husband and Returning to the Wife]
. pay whore with client’s debt [] (Israeli) {} S
. dogs [] S?
. misc. sexploitation
C. T  D     ’ P        
The Devil’s Own [cf. A2]
. St. Ives [] D
. association with devil/hell/sin/irreligion []
. came to you []
. wicked practice law a while [] D
Headed for Hell
. brimstone [] I D
. my attorney’ll be there [] I
. chase lawyer in hell []
. retrieve from devil [] I
. not out of danger []
. fire across street [](patient){} S
. next to fire [] (=preachers) I
. best lawyers in hell [] I
Absent in Heaven
. no lawyers admitted to heaven [] I [Cf. AT ] [The Dream: All Parsons in Hell]
. no prosecution in heaven because no lawyers [] I [Cf. AT ]
. where will you get a lawyer? [] {} S? [Cf. AT ]
. no lawyer in heaven to do divorce [] (parson){?} I [Cf. AT ]
. first lawyer in heaven [] (=various) {} S AT  [The Peasant in Heaven]
A Kingdom of this World
. reward in this world [] I
. die like savior []
. opposite of Christian ()
. too important for God [] I
. religion not efficacious in legal realm [] I
C supp. Akhnai’s Oven (majority prevails over God) {d cent. C.E.}
. he’s not, I am. [] I
. chapter  [] I
. judge more efficacious [] I
D. C      
Excess and Insufficient Combativeness
. argumentative son [] I
. fight over nothing [] I
 A

. fair to both [] I

. chaos [] (politician) {} S

Promoters of Conflict
. lest thy servant perish [] I
. steal clothes [] I
. town with two lawyers [] I
. ambulance stories [] I
. crutches [] I
. need lawyer to know if injured [] I
. lawyer advises conciliation [] I

The Conniving Claimant

. determined litigant {}
. strike blow to get damages {}
. lie down beside you {}
. compensation has set in {}
. I’m on disability {}
. victim thinks he is defendant {}
. defense preemption {}
. Jewish litigiousness {}
. next week {}
. why the delay? {}
. other fire stories {}
. misfortune as good fortune {}
. gold digger {}
. how do you make a flood {}
. lift arm {}
. Lourdes {}
. spiteful litigant {}
. litigious child {}

Litigation Fever
. lawyer son wants me lame [] I
. fore [] (Jew) {} S
. orchard [] I
. annuity for life [] I
. won’t settle [] I
. virtuoso of delay I
. doctor won’t treat lawyer [] I
. lawyer goes crazy when can’t figure how to sue self [] I
. spitting in shoes [] (waiter, cook) {} S

Lawyer as Champion
. lawyer as heroic benefactor/compassionate champion [] I D
. get money back [] I
. OK to come to work late [] I
 Register of Jokes 

E. D         
Women in Combat
. pit bull [] {} S
. female prosecutor and terrorist [] {} S
. marry woman lawyer [] I
. cross lawyer with feminist [] I
. monomania [] (golf/political obsessive) {} S
. feed gorillas [] {} S
. promote one with biggest tits [] (boss) {} S
. misc. woman lawyer

Jews and Other Outsiders

. almost thou persuadest me [] I
. yens goy []
. misc. Jewish lawyer
. misc. ethnic lawyer

Seniors and Juniors

. junior outsmarts senior [] I
. senior exploits junior []

F. B      
. collision and flask [] (various) {} S
. outrun bear [] (outdoorsmen) {} S
. payment during robbery [] (Jews) {} S
. extra $ bill [] (Jewish merchant) {} S
. safe unlocked [] (partners, often Jewish) {} S
F supp. put it back {}
. mine died [] (partners) {} S
. beautiful house too [] {} S
. celebrity greeting spurned [] (various) {} S
. sign language [] (translator) {} S
. poisoned you [] (spouse, partner) {} S
. trust me [] (Yiddish) {} S
. partner undoes wishes [] (dumb guys) {} S Cf. AT A [The Wishes]
F supp. just a cup of coffee{}
. check in the coffin [] (Jew, Scot, Welsh, etc.) {} S Motif K. [Agreement
to Leave Sum of Money on Coffin of Friend].
. misc. betrayal

G. M      D        
Suspect Profession (criminal, prostitute, etc.)
. don’t expect much of them [c.] I?
. who did he rob? [] I?
. criminal lawyer [] I
. how else get advice [] I
. whose profession? [] (=doctor) {} S
 A

. prostitute by luck [] I?

. prostitute: no difference []
. prostitute stops after you die []
. prostitute doesn’t pretend to care []
. some things hooker won’t do [] I?
. other prostitute

Looking Out for Number One (indifferent to others)

. baby grabs all [] (politician) {} S
. my Rolex [] [=yuppie] S?
. drag Harry [] (golf addict) {} S
. Mother Theresa [] I?
. what’s the catch? [] (agent) {} S?
. I don’t see a problem []
. misc. indifference to others

No Redeeming Social Value

. refund [] (rich miser) {} S AT  [Rich Man Allowed to Stay in Heaven]
. don’t give to any [] (rich miser, often Jewish) {} S
. higher grass [] {} S
. play at night [] {} S

“He Just Doesn’t Get It”

. a few more missteps . . . [] (bookkeeper) {} S
. father sued for tuition [] I
. just a suggestion []

In the Laboratory
. laboratory rats []
. misc. moral deficiency
H . O         S   
Circle of Scorn
. throw lawyer back in mud [c.] Motif X
. skid marks [] I?
. hostages [] (spouse, mother-in-law) () S
. cows protest [] (various ethnic) {} S
. commemorative stamp [] (tyrannical ruler) {} S
. saved from drowning [] (military officers, politicians) {} S

Sounding the Depths: “Lower than . . .”

. prefer burglar, etc.[] I
. piano player in whorehouse [] (various) {} S
H supp. tell about source of shame {}
. better a bastard[] (black) {} S
. would ruin heaven []
. toxic-waste dumps [] (various ethnic) {} S
. question her punishment [] (various) {} S
 Register of Jokes 

Into the Slime

. spider[]
. snake []
. blind rabbit [] I
. sperm [] (black) {} S
. catfish []
. Viagra {}
. ten-inch prick [] {} S Viagra {}
The Anal Connection
. cats bury [] (black) {} S
. anal sex [] (various) {} S
. enema [] (Irish/Texans) {. Expurgated versions from } S
. bucket [] (various) {} S
. melting [] (various) {} S
. taste worse [] (Texan, black) {} S
. give up law practice [] (show business) {} S
. misc. anal
I. D    W   
Prehistory
. bury twenty-one [] I (=undesirable immigrants/politicians, etc.)
. rebate for killing lawyer [] I
. hang lawyer instead [] (weaver) {} S ATA; Motif J. [Innocent Man
Chosen to Fit the Stake (Noose)]
. check with undertaker [] (office-seeker) {} S
The Contemporary Onslaught
. more cement []
. good start [] (various) {} S
. bus over cliff [] {} S
. love to hear it [] (various) {} S
. make sure he’s dead []
. wanted to tell him []
. bury deep down []
. deathbed conversion [] (Jews, Catholics, etc.) {} S
Let’s Kill All the Lawyers
. get in line [] (wife, mother-in-law) {? from Cicero?} S
. Doberman [] (black) {} S
. alligator [] (Jews, blacks, etc.) {} S
. lawyers get double [] S AT  [The Covetous and the Envious]; Motif J
Twice the Wish to the Enemy]
. got him with door [] (black) {} S
. open season [] I
A Pestilential Affliction
. more lawyers than people [] I
 A

. throw out of train [] (wife, Mexican, etc) {c. } S
I supp. make everyone happy (politicians) {}
. brass rat [] (Chinese) {} S
. misc. death wish
J . E        J     
Doing Justice
. appeal at once [] I
. two oppose hanging [] I D
. consult to break law [] I D
. cheaper to obey law [–] I D
. justice not enough [] I

Lawyer as Enemy of Justice

. conveys physical threat [] I D
. ensnares innocent [] I D
. lawyer advises escape I []
. corporation law [] I
. charge more to evade law [] I
. no tricks this time [] I D
. proved it constitutional [–] I D
. don’t separate from lawyers[] I D
. wonderful quality [] I
. expert in justice [] I

What Does Law Deliver?

. not courts of justice [] I
. chief justice [] I D
. pricy lawyer will win [] I D
. courts open to all [ ] I D
. not one law for rich [by ] ID
. how much justice can you afford? [] I
. misc. justice

K. M   -    
. how many lawyer jokes [] I
. didn’t know they were jokes [] I
. Research (academics) {}
. Two centuries later, in , The Daily Graphic, a New York newspaper published, Tout
Pour Soi, Rien Pour Les Autres (“All for me, nothing for the others”). Here the fox is joined
by a vulture, the lawyer takes the oyster and leaves a shell for each of the litigants (a visual
depiction of B) and collects piles and bags of money. In addition to raking it in at clients’
expense just as his predecessor did, a new and ominous claim is made: “Laws I make and
destroy.”
 

A           
AML
A Million Laughs. CD-ROM. Spring Valley, NY: Interactive, .
AT
Aarne . Aarne, Antti. . The types of the folktale: A classification and bibliogra-
phy. Trans. Stith Thompson. nd rev. ed. Helsinki: Academia Scientarum Fennica
 Cal.
 uproarious lawyer jokes, riddles, and quotes:  calendar. Riderwood, MD: Para-
mount Enterprises, .
 Cal.
The lawyer joke-a-day calendar [for ]. Lame Duck, .
 Cal.
The lawyer joke-a-day calendar [for ]. Lame Duck, .
 Cal.
The lawyer joke-a-day calendar [for ]. Lame Duck, .
 Cal.
Lawyers: jokes, quotes and anecdotes. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel, .
 Cal.
Lawyers: jokes, quotes and anecdotes. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel, .
BM
British Museum. –. Catalog of political and personal satires preserved in the
department of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Vols. – by Frederick George
Stephens; vols. – by M. Dorothy George.  vols. London: The British Museum.
CLLH 
Canonical list of lawyer humor (court jester). URL at on-line section of reference list.
CLMH 
Canonical list of medica humor (funny bone). URL at on-line section of reference list.


 Notes to pages –

Jhumor List
Jewish humor list. E-mail humor list, date as indicated.
Lawyer Jokes
various dates. URLs at on-line section of reference list.
Lawyer Jokes from Internet
Unnamed collection on file with the author.

I          
1. Lawyer jokes from Internet , no. ; Brallier : ;  Cal.: Oct. ;
Regan : ; Anon. a: . Cf. Hobbes b:  (woman jokes).
2. McCaslin . The joke surfaced earlier in O’Dwyer’s PR Services Report :
; Streiker : .
3. Radin .
4. Philip Stubbes quoted at Ives : .
5. Tucker : ; Ives : .
6. Ives : .
7. Prest : .
8. Brooks : .
9. The “economic thinking of the day for the most part held that lawyers, instead of
adding to the nation’s wealth, siphoned their incomes from those farmers, merchants, and
tradesmen who did.” Brooks : .
10. Veall : , –.
11. Chroust : , in part quoting from John McMaster, History of the People of the
United States during Lincoln’s Administration (), . See also Bloomfield : chap.
; Gawalt : ; Warren : chap. .
12. Adams : , .
13. The presence and coexistence of the multiple and conflicting strands in American
legal consciousness are richly documented in Ewick and Silbey . From intensive inter-
views about the way that people construct “legality” in everyday life, they distill three
widely shared perspectives on the legal: the law as majestic impartial authority; the law as
a complex game of pursuing self-interest; and the law as oppressive constraint. These three
perspectives are not the possession of different sets of individuals, but coexist in different
mixes in most of us and are manifested in different settings. The vitality of law, Ewick and
Silbey argue, lies in the combination of these multiple perspectives: “the majestic removal
of law from everyday life inspires allegiance” while “the cynicism and pessimism expressed
in a view of law as a game level our aspirations and set realistic expectations” ().
14. Not only do the doings of imaginary lawyers inform our ideas about real ones, but
the two are often conflated. The  National Law Journal survey asked people to name
the lawyer they most admired; the top ten included both Perry Mason and Matlock. Sam-
born . Among legal intellectuals, this is paralleled by the struggle over the significance
of To Kill a Mockingbird’s Atticus Finch. See n.  below and chap. , p. –.
15. The Gallup results are presented in American Bar Association Commission on
Advertising : .
16. On the literature of legal nostalgia, see Galanter : .
17. Francis Nevins  calls the late s–early s period the “first golden age of
the law film” (, ).
18. Stark : .
 Notes to pages – 

19. Chase : , . Chase says this image coalesced in the period from  to
 (Sputnik to Kennedy assassination). See also Asimow : .
20. C. Johnson : .
21. Asimow : .
22. Many of the claims and counterclaims are recounted in C. Johnson . Atkin-
son  sets out an elaborated critique of Atticus as a model for lawyers. Steven Lubet
 propounded a revisionist take on the story. In Lubet’s view, “Atticus was able to rec-
ognize and rise above the race prejudices of his time, but he was not able to comprehend
the class and gender prejudices that suffused his work” (). Five other legal academics
disagreed vigorously. Althouse et al. . A controversy over Kenneth Starr’s appropria-
tion of Atticus Finch to reprove President Clinton is described at chap. , p. –.
23. Looking back, Lipset and Schneider  note that “the early s turned out to
be a high-water mark in the history of the American public’s attitudes toward their key
social, political and economic structures” ().
24. Wolff : , .
25. Lefcourt :  (“collapsing”); Rostow  (Is Law Dead?).
26. See, e.g., Sheppard : “With the overflow of Watergate and the revelation that
a great majority of the offenders were members of the legal profession, the public image
of the Bar seems to have reached a low ebb. . . . There seems to be a rising tide of resent-
ment to the entire profession who [sic] guides the legal system in our country” ().
27. On public interest law, see generally Weisbrod et al. ; Council for Public
Interest Law . On access to justice, see Cappelletti – and Cappelletti .
28. Carter . Earlier critiques include Blumberg ; Bloom ; Nader and
Green ; Auerbach ; Lieberman . Carter’s address is the direct descendant of
an unheralded Law Day speech he gave at the University of Georgia School of Law, four
years earlier, as governor of Georgia. In that speech he traced his understanding about jus-
tice and “what’s right and wrong in this society” to reading Reinhold Niebuhr and listen-
ing to the songs of Bob Dylan (Carter ). Cataloging the injustices of the legal system,
he chastised lawyers for tolerating injustice, lacking fire to improve the system of which
they were a part, avoiding the obligation to “restore equity and justice and to preserve
or enhance it,” and being distracted from the pursuit of justice by self-serving concern for
their own well-being and authority. He closed with the reflection, echoed four years later,
that the State could be transformed if the body of attorneys were deeply committed to
abolishing the inequities of the system. Apparently the speech was from notes and no full
text exists. The version that appears in his book of addresses was reconstructed from a tape
recording.
Fortuitously, the audience that day included gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson,
who reports Carter telling him in , “That was probably the best speech I ever made”
(Thompson : , ). Viewing it as “the heaviest and most eloquent thing I have ever
heard from the mouth of a politician,” Thompson extended an enthusiastic endorsement
of Carter’s candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
29. Quotations are at Carter : , , , .
30. The New York Times reported, “Leading lawyers around the country reacted with
anger, bitterness, frustration and sadness yesterday to President Carter’s assertion that the
legal profession has been an impediment to social justice.” Goldstein . The Wall Street
Journal noted that since “Washington itself has become the fountainhead of unneces-
sary laws and litigation,” the president should spend “less time lashing out at lawyers in
general and more time asking the government’s lawyers just what it is they are trying to
 Notes to pages –

do” (May , ). The Washington Post dismissed the president’s remarks as “unfocused
resentment” (May , ). Two-thirds of a sample of registered voters polled by Yankel-
ovich, Skelly, and White thought the president’s criticism of the legal profession was fair.
A Roper poll of a national sample of adults found  percent who thought his criticisms
were justified and another  percent who thought them partly justified (Roper ).
31. The American Bar Association’s Special Commission on Evaluation of Profes-
sional Standards was known as the Kutak Commission, after its chair, the late Robert
Kutak (National Organization of Bar Counsel, ). The impetus for a new ethics code,
which was adopted on August , , came in part from the damage to the bar’s public
image occasioned by Watergate. See Spann : .
32. Schneyer : .
33. Schneyer .
34. Clark : , .
35. The signal event in the crystallization of the “too much law” critique was the
National Conference on the Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of
Justice, held in April , at the instance of Chief Justice Warren Burger. The proceed-
ings are published at  F.R.D.  (). The conference, known as the Pound Confer-
ence, commemorated Roscoe Pound’s  address of the same title; the participants (like
Pound) propounded “popular” perceptions unaided by any discernible consultation of the
broader public.
36. U.S. News & World Report .
37. Burger .
38. These concerns antedate Carter’s  speech. Burger’s address to the  Pound
Conference contains faint echoes of the public justice critique in the chief justice’s ob-
servation of “the loss of public confidence caused by lawyers’ using the courts for their
own ends rather than with a consideration of the public interest.” Burger : . But
the predominant theme of the chief justice’s address is not a shortage of justice, but sur-
feit of law (). Just a year later, the chief justice was warning that “unless we devise sub-
stitutes for the courtroom processes—and do so quickly—we may well be on our way to
a society overrun by hordes of lawyers, hungry as locusts, and brigades of judges in num-
bers never before contemplated.” Burger : ; Goldstein .
39. These larger assertions about the civil justice system were embodied in oft-related
atrocity stories about outrageous claims and monstrous decisions. See Daniels ;
Hayden ; Brill and Lyons : ; Strasser : .
40. In the United States, the population grew from  million in  to . mil-
lion in . The median age increased from . in  to . in . Per capita income
grew from $, in  to $, in . The median years of school completed
increased from . years in  to . years in . U.S. Bureau of Census : ;
U.S. Bureau of Census : , , , . All dollar amounts in  dollars. Current
dollar amounts were converted into  constant dollars using the annual GNP implicit
price deflator of the given years. See Economic Report of the President : –, table
B; U.S. Bureau of Census : , table .
41. Public spending on social welfare increased from $. billion in  to $.
billion in . Public spending on health and hospitals increased from $. billion in
 to $. billion in . Average life expectancy increased from . years in  to
. years in . U.S. Bureau of Census : –; : , , . For discussion
of higher expectations of institutional performance, see L. Friedman .
42. Lipset and Schneider .
 Notes to pages – 

43. The gross national product increased by  percent, from $. billion in 
to $,. billion in . U.S. Bureau of Census : , table . Employment rose
from  million in  to  million in . Workforce increased, due largely to greater
participation by women, from  percent of the population to over  percent.
44. In , . percent of GNP was in goods and . was in services. In , goods
made up only . percent of GNP while services made up  percent. U.S. Bureau of
Census : , series F; : , table .
45. The percentage of wage and salary workers employed in the financial sector
increased from . percent in  to . percent in . From  to , the ratio
of interest income to pretax profits in the United States increased fivefold, rising from
 percent to  percent. The ratio of external to internal financing used by nonfinan-
cial corporations increased from .:  to .: . U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics :
table A; Economic Report of the President : tables B and B; Galanter and Rogers
: .
46. Exports and imports as a percentage of gross domestic product increased from .
percent in  to . percent in . Economic Report of the President : tables B and
B; Galanter and Rogers : , table . U.S. assets invested abroad increased from
$. billion to $. billion, while foreign assets in the U.S. increased from $. bil-
lion to $. billion. U.S. Bureau of Census : , table .
47. Galanter  (lawyers); Caplow et al. :  (comparison with doctors).
48. Between  and , the share of the gross domestic product contributed by
the legal services sector increased from . percent to . percent. The share of national
income contributed by the legal services sector increased form . percent in  to
. percent in . On the value of lawyers’ work that is not counted in the legal ser-
vices sector, see Sander and Williams : , .
49. A rough measure of the sheer quantity of rules may be derived from the number
of pages added to the Federal Register each year: in , , pages were added; in ,
,. This is the gross addition for the year; some of it supplants or repeals earlier reg-
ulation and some is ephemeral. But making appropriate discounts for depreciation, it is
clear that there has been a great increase in the “capital stock” of regulation. From  to
, the number of pages in the Federal Register devoted to regulations increased from
, to , with more than two-thirds of that growth occurring during the s.
Buhler ; Galanter and Rogers .
There were comparable increases of regulation by state and local governments. The
absence of direct measures makes it necessary to use the even rougher measures of expen-
ditures and employment. State and local government expenditures increased from .
percent of the GNP in  to . percent in . Economic Report of the President :
, . Total civilian employees of governmental units roughly doubled in this period,
from . million in  to . million in . U.S. Bureau of Census : series Y
–; U.S. Bureau of Census : table . Not all of these employees were engaged
in tasks connected directly with law making or regulation, but the figures are used here as
a rough index of the increase in regulatory activity.
50. Less formal channels of legal information grew as well. For example, in  nearly
, newsletters were published in Washington (in addition to those published by the
, Washington-based associations that mailed newsletters to their members). Weiss
: .
51. At the turn of the previous century, legal work was reshaped by the telephone, the
typewriter, expanded legal publishing, and new research devices like digests and citators.
 Notes to pages –

Apart from minor refinements like loose-leaf services, the technology of the law office
remained essentially unchanged into the s.
52. On the “trough” in American litigation from the onset of the Great Depression
until the end of the postwar recovery, see Galanter .
53. On the changing patterns of litigation in the federal courts, see Galanter ; Pos-
ner ; Clark .
54. Curran : . This figure includes lawyers as judges, court officials, and support
personnel.
55. Employees in the federal judiciary increased from , in  to over , in
 and , in . U.S. Bureau of Census : ; U.S. Bureau of Census :
. The number of lawyers employed by the judicial branches, federal and state, almost
tripled, from , in  to , in . Weil : ; Curran : .
56. Friedman : , ; see also Friedman and Russell : .
57. Bergstrom : .
58. Galanter .
59. A reading of the magnitude of this change is provided by the analysis of Tilling-
hast, a firm of actuarial consultants, which has compiled data on the gross cost of the tort
liability system and of other social systems from the s to the present. Tillinghast
found that “until shortly after World War II, growth in both tort costs and the GNP ran
fairly parallel. Only in the late s and early s did the two diverge.” Tillinghast
: . Tort costs have risen dramatically, from . percent of gross domestic product in
 to . percent of gross domestic product in . Tillinghast : . This includes
the cost of insurance and self-insurance. Only a fraction of this goes to victims; Tilling-
hast estimates  percent (). The compensation received is only a fraction of the eco-
nomic losses of victims, leaving aside all other forms of loss, pain and suffering, etc. For
example, a study of recoveries by victims of air crash fatalities from  to  found
that decedents recovered about one-fourth of their economic loss and survivors about
one-half of theirs. King and Smith : viii.
60. Friedman : .
61. Galanter : ; Speiser .
62. Friedman .
63. Gawalt : vii.
64. Reich .
65. Fleming ; Kirp .
66. O’Neil .
67. Dertouzos, Holland, and Ebener ; Geyelin .
68. Cf. Edelman .
69. Galanter : .
70. Warren Miller in the New Yorker, July , , .
71. E.g., Barton ; Galanter ; Galanter .
72. Macneil –.
73. Teubner .
74. Teubner : , quoting Jurgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns,
 vols. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, ).
75. Yngvesson .
76. As societies industrialize, serious disputes are increasingly between entities of dif-
ferent sizes—typically between individuals and large organizations—rather than between
comparable entities. Coleman , Coleman .
 Notes to pages – 

77. Galanter and Rogers . From  to , the portion of the receipts of the
legal services industry contributed by businesses increased from  percent to  percent
of a much enlarged total, while the share purchased by individuals dropped from  per-
cent to  percent. Bureau of Census : table ; : table ; : table ; : table
. Figures for  are estimates from Sander and Williams : , . Large firms:
Galanter and Palay : chap. ; Sander and Williams : –.
78. Galanter .
79. Coleman .
80. Galanter .
81. An ever-increasing share of the ever-growing legal services “pie” is purchased by
businesses and governments rather than individuals. In , individuals bought  per-
cent of the product of the legal services industry and businesses bought  percent. With
each subsequent five-year period, the business portion has increased and the share con-
sumed by individuals has declined. By  the share bought by businesses increased to
 percent and the share bought by individuals dropped to  percent. Individuals’ expen-
ditures on legal services increased  percent from  to , while law firms’ income
from business increased by  percent during that period. Even this more than double
rate of growth understates the growth of business expenditures on legal services, for it
includes only outside lawyers and does not include in-house legal expenditures, which
greatly increased during this period. Bureau of the Census , , , , .
Figures for  are estimates developed by Sander and Williams . (The legal services
category includes all law practices that have a payroll, which means virtually all lawyers in
private practice.)
82. Heinz and Laumann  estimated that in  “more than half ( percent) of
the total effort of Chicago’s bar was devoted to the corporate client sector, and a smaller
but still substantial proportion ( percent) is expended on the personal client sector.”
When the study was replicated twenty years later, the researchers found that about  per-
cent of the total effort of all Chicago lawyers was devoted to the corporate client sector
and only  percent to the personal/small business sector. Since the number of lawyers
in Chicago had doubled, this meant that the total effort devoted to the personal sector
had increased by  percent. But the corporate sector grew by  percent. To the extent
that lawyers serving the corporate sector were able to command more staff and support
services with their effort, these figures understate the gap in services delivered. Heinz
et al. .
83. Smigel : .
84. Hoffman : –.
85. The Canons of Professional Ethics condemned as “unprofessional” various forms
of advertising, solicitation, getting business through agents, and “furnishing or inspiring
newspaper comments,” as did its successor, the Code of Professional Responsibility.
86. Bates v. State Bar of Arizona,  U.S.  ().
87. This curiosity reflected the sharp increase in the number of lawyers and was man-
ifested in the first prime time television shows about noncriminal law and lawyers, in-
cluding The Paper Chase (–) and The Associates () and culminating in L.A. Law
(–). On lawyers on television, see Stark ; various contributions to Yale Law
Journal Symposium on Popular Culture (June ); Rosen ; Jarvis and Joseph .
On lawyers in movies, see Chase ; Mastrangelo –; Denver ; Asimow and
Mader . On the impact of these media on law, see Sherwin .
88. For a sketch of the new era of legal journalism, see Sherman : .
 Notes to pages –

89. Goldstein ; Powell .

90. Goldstein .
91. Dramatically marked by the publication of Woodward and Armstrong , and
elaborated by disclosures by the judges themselves. Wermiel : ; Taylor : .
92. The Production Code of the Motion Picture Producers and Directors of Amer-
ica included a General Principle that “law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor
shall sympathy be created for its violation.” The text of the code can be found in Jowett
: app. . The weakening of censorship, starting in the s, is detailed in Randall
; Jowett : chap. .
93. Sherman : .
94. On the history of this genre, see Robinson .
95. A similar “downward trajectory” reappears in the portrayal of Supreme Court
justices in the novel, drama, and film. Over the past fifty years, Laura Krugman Ray finds,
there are “two related tendencies: an increasing familiarity with the Court and a declin-
ing reverence for the figure of the Justice.” Ray : , .
96. A  study of network prime time found that television depictions of attor-
neys’ character, composure, physical attractiveness, and presence were significantly higher
than the public’s perceptions. TV depictions and public estimation attributed to lawyers
significantly more power than did lawyers themselves. Pfau et al. : , , .
97. Pfau et al.  at . Surveys provide no support for the belief, widespread
among lawyers, that lawyer advertising is an important cause of lawyers’ declining image.
An ABA commission that assessed the evidence on this pointed out that “those who are
most likely to have received information about lawyers through advertising have a rela-
tively high impression of the legal profession.” ABA Commission on Advertising : .
98. In the legal academy, the relatively stable and comfortable consensus about law
that had prevailed in  was shattered. Schools and movements of legal thought dis-
playing a variety and disagreement then unimaginable flourished in the legal academy and
through conferences and journals—sociolegal studies, law and economics, alternative
dispute resolution, critical legal studies, critical race theory, and feminist legal theory. For
the most part, these bodies of thought, which are not built on legal categories, are remote
from the views of practitioners. But in other ways, at least some of them are closer than
rarefied analysis of doctrine, paying more attention to the practitioner’s quotidian world
of tactics, fees, and compromises.
99. In the ancient world “the lawyer was a close second to the doctor as a butt of
jokes.” McCartney : .
100. Meadow : .
101. Alan Dundes, quoted in Scanlan .
102. MacLean .
103. Shrives  (joke books); Ringle  (radio, etc.).
104. Harvey I. Saferstein, quoted at Torres . His considered program for stopping
lawyer bashing (which did not include hate-speech legislation) is at Saferstein a.
Saferstein and other commentators were concerned not only with jokes but with a set of
prominent television advertisements demeaning lawyers, as well as the depiction of an
obnoxious lawyer being devoured by a dinosaur, to great audience satisfaction, in the hit
movie Jurassic Park (). Saferstein .
105. See, e.g., Radin : , –.
106. The organization of “profoundly contradictory” popular attitudes toward law-
yers around such polarities is insightfully explored in Post : . Tensions among
 Notes to pages – 

contradictory images of lawyers are empirically documented in Mindes : , 
(“The lawyer finds himself in a conflicted world in which one must be both Tricky and
Helpful to maximize admiration, while being helpful requires that one is not Tricky and
being Tricky requires that one is not Helpful”).
107. Calve : .
108. Dundes : vii–viii.
109. Myrdal : .
110. Myrdal : .
111. I base this coinage on the analogy with “discography,” a s word which in turn
seems to be based on bibliography.
112. Also included are a few stories that are not about lawyers as such but about the
legal realm in which they work (e.g., A, cheating; A, oath; J, courts of law, etc.). Jokes
that are specifically about judges rather than lawyers or law are not included.
113. Whether the jokes cross language barriers as readily as national borders must
remain a question for another day. Jokes about lawyers are far less prominent, where vis-
ible at all, outside the English-speaking, common law world. See p. <>.
114. Other observers have hit upon some elements of the classification (e.g., Bachman
) and naturally I deem them perspicacious.
115. Jokes comprise what Hayak  calls a “spontaneous order” that is “the product
of the action of many men, but not the result of human design” (). Such an order “uti-
lizes the separate knowledge of all its several members, without this knowledge ever being
concentrated in a single mind or being subject to those processes of deliberate coordina-
tion and adaptation which a mind performs” (–). A similar notion is found at Davies
: .
116. While there is no bibliographical guide to lawyer jokes, guides to other genres of
lawyer humor about law and lawyers can be found in Bander ; Bander ; Gordon
; Baker .
117. Jan Brunvand  defines an anecdote as “a short personal legend, supposedly
true but generally apocryphal, told about an episode in the life of either a famous indi-
vidual or a local character “ (). As noted below, many tellers are tempted to present
jokes as anecdotes.
118. Hetzron : –. Adapting from James Humes he likens a joke to a balloon:
“You pump it up with details and puncture it with a punch line” ().
119. Many instances will be found below. A particularly striking example is the solic-
itude for clients found in item A, two plus two.
120. The Register of Jokes (appendix) indicates the source of each joke. On the prac-
tice of switching see below at p. .
121. Folklorists sometimes refer to oicotypes [oikotypes, ecotypes] to make a related
distinction. The term is elastic. It was borrowed from botany to refer to “a special version
of a folktale, developed by isolation in a certain cultural area, by which on account of
special national, political, and geographical conditions it takes a form different from that
of the same tale in other areas.” Bodker : . It expanded to refer to “local forms . . .
[of ] any folklore genre . . . defined with reference to either geographical or cultural fac-
tors.” Dundes : . On the career of the concept see Cochrane . The oicotype
concept is of limited use in describing the lawyer joke corpus, for it involves localization
to a group of carriers. But the present study is not of a group of carriers (at least not one
narrower than all English-speaking tellers of jokes about lawyers). It is about a group of
subjects. There may be ecotypification based on different groups of tellers—lawyers versus
 Notes to pages –

nonlawyers, whites versus blacks, or Americans versus British—but most of the sources
used here give little information about tellers, except for what can be inferred from the
identity of the compiler and the place of publication. On the other hand, these sources
provide abundant information about differences between the version of a joke told about
lawyers and versions of the same joke told about Jews or politicians. In addition to eco-
typification (i.e., the adaptation to a group of carriers), we require a notion of specifica-
tion—i.e., the distinctive adaptation of a joke to a specific set of topics or protagonists.
122. See “What Do the Jokes Tell Us?” in chap. .
123. Richard Raskin traces the transformation of stories that began as anti-Semitic
jokes about Jews into classic Jewish jokes told by Jews. Raskin : chap.  (“ten com-
mandments” joke); chap.  (“he had a hat”).
124. Hetzron : .
125. Wright : . An extended discussion of switching by gag writers and pro-
fessional comedians is found in Adams : –. The same process is called “spinning”
by Miller : –.
126. Davis : .
127. Thus, from “roasts and show business contacts,” the major popularizer of Ole
and Lena jokes “collected more and more bits of top rated humor, many of which were
converted to Ole & Lena jokes.” Stangland : .
128. Before Wilde , the last topical collection of lawyer jokes by a “professional”
author was Golden . In the interval, two “amateur” collections by a lawyer were pub-
lished (May ; May ).
129. E.g., Shafer and Papadakis ; Steiger .
130. This impression is strengthened by occasional traces of the incomplete switch.
For example, when an old story told about bookkeepers or accountants was switched to
lawyers by both Wilde (: ) and Knott (: ), telltale traces of an earlier origin
remained (references to “the company” rather than the firm—see joke G). Later editors
got the switch smoothed out.
131. For the partner switches, see chap. . In the course of a discussion of the limits
of “switchability,” Davies  observes that “there is . . . a significant stock of Jewish
jokes, particularly those deriving their humor from a distinctively Jewish use of indirect
and elliptical but relentlessly consistent reasoning that perhaps could be adapted to fit the
circumstances of another group but in practice rarely are” ().
132. For example, an Israeli journalist (Nesvisky ) presents as “quintessential Israeli
humor” an easily switched joke of wide international currency (A, pay off low bidder).
133. I refer to G, play at night, which I heard in , but it did not appear in print
until .
134. Explanations for the distinctive license to be nasty about lawyers are taken up in
chap. .
135. Pierce : –.
136. Just four of these jokes—lips moving (thirteen times), professional courtesy (twelve),
laboratory rats (nine), and skid marks (seven)—accounted for almost three-quarters of all
the tellings. Each of these has appeared many times in print and electronic media. See A,
B, G, and H, app.
137. E.g., the list version of B (multiply-married virgin), the “Art Buchwald” version
of D (doctor won’t treat lawyer) or the list version of G (laboratory rats).
138. E.g., A (put in lies yourself ) seems to have suffered a seventy year gap in publi-
cation and A (the “stick to it” version of oath) a  years gap. D (town with two lawyers)
 Notes to pages – 

evaded print for  years. The longest gap in publication I have encountered is the 
years between appearances of J (no tricks this time).
139. The arrival of contemporary antilawyer humor is traced in detail below. Little
of the harsh antilawyerism of the present era can be detected in any of the specialized
topical books of lawyer jokes published more than forty years ago (G. Edwards ;
Milburn ; Cook ; Golden ; May ; May ) or even in the book that
marks the beginning of the current period, Larry Wilde’s Official Lawyers Joke Book
(). The shift is fully in evidence in s collections such as Kill the Lawyers (Steiger
), Lawyers from Hell Joke Book (Grossman ), and First, Kill All the Lawyers (Adler
).
140. On the other hand, in cases where my archive includes collected oral material
that precedes the earliest published material, the gap is never more than a few years. Yet
there are instances of gaps of forty years or more between published versions.
141. Love’s Labour’s Lost act , scene .
142. For these reasons, humorist George Mikes  concludes that jokes are fated to
“unavoidably always remain a minor art” (–).
143. Henry : . Also Anon : item  [=Williams : item  = Botkin
: xxi]; Fuller : item ; Mandel : . More simply, “if you steal from one
author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.” Allen : item . Butler
(–) was President of Columbia from  to ; Mathews (–) was a
Professor there from  to  and a noted author.

 . L      S          : T   C            D        
1. Oliver ; Knott : ; Rafferty : ; Novak and Waldoks : ;
Knott b: ; Behrman : ; Brallier : ; Grossman : ; Nolo’s Favorite
; Adler : ;  Cal.: Jan. ;  Cal.: Mar. ; Ross :  [Australia];
POPULUS Jokes Top Ten Jokes, Dec. , ; Lyons : ; anon. Stanford law student,
Mar. , ; Alvin a: ; Greene : ; Tibballs : item .
2. Husbands: Cantor : ; Meier : ; Golden : ; Pendleton
[]: item ; Murtie : ; Forbes : ; Topol []: . Sartor : 
(woman); Rovin :  (salesperson); Yermonee  (Robert Maxwell); Leo : 
(criminal suspects: reported by researcher as “truism among detectives”); Barnett and
Kaiser :  (economist); Baddiel et al. :  (men); Johnson : . Politi-
cians: Ginger :  (Lyndon B. Johnson); Terrell and Buchanan :  (Republican);
Miller :  (senator); Pease : ; Colombo :  (Brian Mulroney).
3. Radin ; Pound . The classic critique of the shortcomings of the lawyer’s
rhetorical art is Plato’s Gorgias (Jowett : ).
4. The lawyer = liar equation is a favorite in India, where the vowel sounds are
much closer in Indian English.
5. The version here is from Lurie : . The story has changed little since it
appeared in The Town and Country Almanack, for . . .  (Dodge : ). Also in
Hupfeld []: ; Willock : ; Kieffer : ; Engelbach : ; Williams
: ; Woods : item .; Wilde : ; Scott :  (attributed to Abraham
Lincoln); Wilde : ; Adler :  (attributed to Lincoln); Rovin : ; Nolo’s
Favorite ; Ross : ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ;; Regan : . A variant iden-
tifies the lawyer not as the devil’s son but as the devil himself (“the devil was a lawyer from
the beginning”): The Farmer’s Almanack . . . for . . .  (Dodge : ; Joe Miller’s 
I: ). A vaudeville routine playing on the lawyer-liar equation leaves out the devil but
 Notes to pages –

emphasizes, “Well, it’s all the same thing; you’ve got to be one to be the other” (Kemble
: ).
6. Grenville, Witty Apothegms . . . [] in Ashton : ; An Astronomical Diary . . .
for . . .  (Dodge : ); Joe Miller’s  I: ; Morton and Malloch : ; Engel-
bach : ; Lupton : item ; Golden : ; Hay : .
7. Nash et al. : ; Hay :  (“more than fifty years ago”). Bigelow : ;
Hupfeld []: .
8. Edwards : item ; Mosher :  (identical); Milburn :  (identi-
cal); Copeland :  (identical); Eastman :  (identical); Wilde :  (iden-
tical) Phillips : ; Lowdown Disk : item  (= Edwards );  Cal.:
Nov. .
9. Anon. ? [Cole’s nd]: ; Clode : ; Milburn :  (identical);
Copeland :  (identical); Phillips : . Cf. Landon :  (lawyer like rest-
less sleeper, lies first on one side and then on the other);  Cal.: Nov.  (“last night I
slept like a lawyer. First, I lied on one side, then on the other”); Alvin b: ; Mr. “K”
: . MacDonald []:  tells an anecdote of a dying Canadian Q.C. who told his
nurse, “I’m a lawyer and I’m used to lying on both sides.”
10. Esar : .
11. Berle : ;  Cal.: Dec. . This joke has been more frequently published
about the teacher applying for a job who assured the selection committee that he can
“teach it round or flat.” Brown []: ; Wynn : ; Friedman : n.p.; Murdock
: ; Tomlinson : .
12. The “either side” theme reappears in J and J in chap. .
13. Johnston : item . Usually the defendant is an “old negro charged with rob-
bing a hen-coop,” often appearing before a newly appointed judge in the South: Morton
and Malloch : ; Mosher []: ; Milburn : ; Case :  (identical);
Scruggs : item  (college students); Eastman : ; Copeland : ; Lupton
: item ; Williams : item ; Knox c.: ; Meier : ; Esar : 
(village ne’er do well); Williams : item ; Wilde : . Cf. Nash et al. : 
(no race factor; told as anecdote about  case in Middletown, OH). Race drops out in
an Australian version: Ross : . British versions omitted the story altogether and
reduced matters to the crucial exchange: Aye : ; Ferguson : ; Phillips : .
A fine turn is added by the Irish defendant who argues, “Sure, if I was guilty I’d have a
lawyer.” McCann []: ; Desmond []: .
14. Esar : ; Lawson : ; Moulton : item ; Golden : ; Adams
: ; Wilde : ;  Cal.: Aug.  [=  Cal.: June ]; Mital and Gupta :
 (India).
15. Copeland : ; Green Bag :  (); Johnston : item ; Scruggs
: item ; Anon. : item .; B. Phillips : ; Wilde : ; Knott :
; Steiger : ; Rovin : ; Adler :  (= Copeland ); Nolo’s Favorite ;
 Cal.: Apr. ; Streiker : . Cf. CLLH : no. ; Ross :  (afterlife for
lawyers assured for “they lie still after death”).
16. Johann Gast, Convivalium sermonem liber (Basel, ) at Bowen : .
17. Anon. c. [Uncle Sam’s Jack-Knife]: ; Anon. : . Cf. Lean : vol. ,
pt. : (“It is an old joke that a lawyer cannot be too bare-faced,” citing Webster “As
short as a lawyer’s beard”).
18. Lieberman : ; Lieberman :  (identical); Behrman : . Cf. the
“client” version of this in Edwards : item :
 Notes to pages – 

LAWYER: “Are you—er—er—truthful?”

YOUTH: “Yes, sir, but I ain’t so blame truthful as ter interfere with your business.”
19. Other occupations also cultivate expertise in lying: “My father is a real estate man,
and he knows more about lying than your father does.” Edmund and Williams : ;
Johnston : ; Aye : ; Holub : ; Berle : ; E. Phillips : . Cf.
Aye :  (boys who don’t tell truth get sent out as traveling salesmen when grown). A
coal merchant is excused from jury duty as unable “to weigh a matter properly.” Green Bag
:  (). Another coal merchant parries his brother’s attempt to convert him with “If
I join the church who’ll weigh the coal?” Edmund and Williams : ; Masson :
 (wool merchants); Aye : ; Copeland : ; Williams : item ; Jones
: ; Esar : ; Droke : . Cf. Johnston : item . This version of the
story expired in postwar America with the decline of coal heating of homes. In a recent
appearance the brothers have become butchers and the worldly one asks, “If I get religion
too, who’s going to weigh the turkeys.” Adams : .
20. Shillaber :  [= Hupfeld []:  = Willock : ]; Gillespie : 
(American girl tells Scots lawyer, “Whenever we’ve a member of a family who is a bigger
liar than another, we make him a lawyer”); Morton and Malloch :  (do.); Lawson
:  (mother who doesn’t want son to be lawyer because “a lawyer has to tell so many
lies,” embarrassed to realize she is speaking to wife of lawyer, proceeds, “That is—er—to
be a good lawyer”); Pickens :  (lying son becomes lawyer); Singh :  (lawyer
“professionally required to tell lies”); Jones and Wheeler :  (man goes into ministry
because “he was too weak to plow, too dumb to teach, too honest to law”). The theme
recurs in this recent item:
A young girl curious about her later college years was asking her mother what college was like. She
said “mommy, if I want to be a lawyer when I grow up, what do I do in college?” Her mother said,
“you have to take special classes for that.” She replied, “like what? Lying classes?” (A9)
POPULUS Jokes Top Ten Jokes, Oct. , .
21. Schermerhorn : . The resonance with the story of George Washington and
the cherry tree is developed further in the story of the Texan George whose father
responds, “We’re moving to Virginia. With an attitude like that, you’ll never make it in
Texas politics.” Scott : ; Ginger : ; Skubik and Short : ; Esar : ;
Wilde a: ; Dole []: ; Brunsting : .
22. Shillaber :  [= Hupfeld []:  = Willock : ]; Carrick et al. :
 [= Howe []: ]; Sprague :  (Scot client); Green Bag :  () [= Green
Bag :  ()]; Anon. b: ; Morton and Malloch :  (Scotch country-
woman); Johnston : item ; Lurie : ; E. Phillips : ; Regan : 
(Scot). Shillaber’s  version has an English ring to it. Curiously this item seems to have
been passed over in the general joke literature of midcentury and the great outpouring of
lawyer joke publication after .
23. Willock :  [= Green Bag :  ()]. Cf. Franklin :  (attorney’s
remark that action for a divorce “will not lie” provokes woman’s response: “Not lie! It is
you, sire, I engage for that purpose”); McIlwaine :  (litigant brings solicitor only “in
order that he need not tell lies himself ”).
24. Sprague : ; Green Bag :  (); Johnston : ; Franklin : ;
Adams : ; Wilde : ; Wilde : ; Adler :  [= Adler : ]; 
Cal.: June ; Adams : .
25. Brallier :  (Franklin); New-England Callendar: or Almanack, for . . . 
(Dodge : ); Anon. ? [Cole’s nd]: ; Aye :  (Ben Jonson); Boatright :
 Notes to pages –

 (Ben Jonson); Humes :  (Franklin); Nash et al. :  (Franklin). In an elab-
orated story, this is inscribed by St. Peter on the tombstone of “St. Evona, the patron saint
of lawyers.” Botkin :  (from James J. MacDonald, ).
26. Hupfeld []: ; Kempt : ; Bigelow : . Cf. Waters :  (hon-
est woman).
27. Patten : ; Green Bag :  (); Edwards : ; Heighton :
 (Judge Gary replies); Anderson :  (Dallas); Anderson :  (identical); Law-
son :  (Arkansas); Franklin :  (Texas); Johnston : item  (identical);
Lurie :  (Alabama); Lupton :  (Alabama); Moulton : item 
(Arkansas); Prochnow :  (Alabama); Anon. :  (New York: game laws omit-
ted); Esar :  (“Southern state”); House :  (Arkansas); Williams : item
 (identical to Moulton ); May : ; Prochnow and Prochnow  (identi-
cal to Prochnow ); Adams :  (south). In Canada, the writer was a young polit-
ically ambitious liberal who left Quebec for Alberta (Shelley : ).
28. Aye : ; Green Bag :  (); Sprague : ; Green Bag :  ();
Masson []: ; Franklin : ; Knox : ; Wood : ; Schermerhorn
: ; Eastman :  (marriage to lawyer and honest man is bigamy); Williams
: item ; Copeland and Copeland : item ; Meier : ; Esar : ;
Cerf : ; Weiherman : ; Lieberman : ; Adams :  [= Adams
: ]; Hefley : item ; Adams : ; Morecroft []: ; Harris : ;
Terrell and Buchanan :  (lawyer and Christian gentleman); Leary  []: ;
Rovin : ; Berle : ; Jones and Wheeler : ; Phillips : ; Duncan
: ; Rovin : ; Adler : ;  Cal.: June ; Richard Gordon, e-mail mes-
sage to author, Feb. , ; Streiker : ; Dedopulos :  [= Baddiel et al.
: ]; Singh : ; Greene : .
This joke has been switched to politicians (Parker : ; Cagney :  (Irish);
Wilde : ; Hill : ; Coote : ); liberals (B. Phillips : n.p. [= B. Phillips
: ]); investment bankers (Odean : ); estate agent (Schindler : ). Cf.
Barry :  (marriage to “stockbroker and honest man” is bigamy); King and MacNeil
:  (Irishman interprets as Scotch stinginess).
29. Anon. : ; Hicks : ; Henry : ; Fredericks : ; Adams :
; Lowdown Disk ; Adler : ; Adler :  (identical); Anon. c:  [=
Baddiel et al. : ]; Streiker : ; Southwell : ; Baddiel et al. : ;
Brunsting : ; Regan : .
30. Clemons : ; Wheeler :  (vaudeville routine); Dundes : 
(extended into Englishman joke, but Strange not a lawyer); Rovin : ; Nolo’s Favorite
; CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Rees :  (man named Amazing dislikes
name; wife puts inscription “here lies a man who was faithful to his wife for sixty years”);
Ross : .
31. Gallup poll conducted for Newsweek, Jan. .
32. Mouton ; Lewis and Wachs : ; Wilde :  (identical to Mouton
); Rovin : ; Harvey c.b: ;  Cal.: Feb. /.
33. Lurie : ; Hood et al. : ; Esar : ; Wilde : .
34. Anon. ?: .
35. Anderson : ; Rango : ; Braude : ; Prochnow and Prochnow
: ; Boliska []: ; Berle : ; E. Phillips : ; Johnson : ; Regan
: .
36. Cobb : . The earliest version is presented as an anecdote involving Senator
 Notes to pages – 

Daniel of Virginia as defense counsel. Anon : [=Green Bag :  ()]; Green
Bag :  (); Green Bag :  (); Edwards : item ; Anon. : ;
Mosher : ; Kieffer : ; Milburn :  [= Copeland : ]; Williams
: item ; Smith :  (New Englander); Cerf : ; Keene :  (Joseph
Choate perspicaciously anticipates crucial question); May : ; Wilde : ; Rovin
: ; Regan : . After World War Two, the watchman lost his black identity
in most versions, but remained an old codger. The story migrated to the UK (Ashmore
; Aye : ; E. Phillips : Southwell : ); Australia (Howcroft : ;
Adams and Newall : ); and India (Vaidyanathan : ).
37. Green Bag :  (); Sprague : ; Patten : ; Green Bag :  ()
(reported as anecdote about Southern Negro); Morton and Malloch :  (same);
Heighton : ; Milburn : ; Ferguson : ; Copeland : ; Estman
: ; Hicks : ; Johnson et al. : ; Gilbert []:  citing Maurice Healy
() (told as anecdote about Irish witness in father’s case); Copeland and Copeland
: item  (Australia: aborigine); Moulton : item ; Cantor : ; Esar
:  (hillbilly); Golden []: ; Lieberman :  [= Lieberman : ]; May
: ; Bowker :  (told as anecdote about child witness in English court); Jack-
son :  (slight variation of Bowker ); Woods : item .; Adams : ;
Wilde : ; Rosten : ; Dines : ; Wilde : ; Shafer and Papadakis
: ; E. Phillips : ; Rovin : ;  Cal.: Oct. ; Mital and Gupta :
;  Cal.: Dec. ; Regan : .
A child witness responds that she “would not be given any witnesses’ expinses” (Knox
ca.: ) or sent to his room or “kicked out of Cubs” (MacDonald []: ). Other
witnesses, asked what is “the value of an oath,” respond with the sums they received as
bribes. Green Bag :  (); Green Bag :  (); John : .
38. Hupfeld []: . In another variant, a witness who alludes to this possibility
finds the judge has something else in mind:
In another court case, an old farmer was giving testimony that was so far fetched that the judge
thought it best to warn him that he was in serious danger of perjuring himself.
“Are you aware,” the judge asked, “of what will happen to you if you are caught lying under
oath?”
“When I die I’ll go to hell,” the old man replied.
“Yes, but what else?” the judge asked.
The old man was puzzled for a moment. “You mean there’s more?” (A20)
Scott :  [= Adler : ].
39. Brown []: ; Franklin : ; Esar : ; House : ; Wilde :
; Humes : .
40. Cf. Gregory Casey’s () finding that those with the most education, status, and
political awareness are the most likely to embrace the mythic picture of the U.S. Supreme
Court.
41. Curtis : , .
42. Curtis : , .
43. Drinker : , .
44. Drinker : .
45. Drinker : .
46. Freedman ; Luban ; Applbaum ; Campos ; Simon . For a
sophisticated critique of the various justifications of lawyers’ lying, see Wetlaufer ,
who concludes that “lying is not the province of a few ‘unethical lawyers’ who operate on
 Notes to pages –

the margins of the profession. It is a permanent feature of advocacy and thus of almost
the entire province of law” ().
47. Starr ; Washington Times .
48. Geoffrey Hazard cited in the Economist : .
49. Lee : chap. . See Johnson : . Finch remains an icon for the bar and
a site of considerable controversy. See p.  and note .
50. Anon. : ; Kempt : ; Andrews : ; Anon. :  (criminal
defense); Engelbach : ; Lawson : ; Knox : ; May : ; Jackson
: ; Marquand : ; Pollack : ; Triverton :  (identical to Mar-
quand ); Wilde : ; E. Phillips : ; Adler : ; Phillips []: .
51. Hupfeld []:  (neighborhood joker in court); Anon. :  (draftee); Anon.
: ; Mosher []:  (dunned customer); Anon.  (Anecdota): item  (rape
defendant); Ferguson :  (drinker); Copeland and Copeland : item  (dunned
customer); Knox ca. :  (clergyman); Meier :  (sued borrower); Levenson
:  (borrower); Spalding :  (sued borrower); Chambers :  (rape defen-
dant); Anon. :  (church elder at hearing before bishops); Phillips a:  (dunned
customer); Wilde :  (sued dog owner); Schindler :  (hotel guest accused by
manager); Arya a:  (wife accused by husband).
52. The notion of prevailing by the relative rather than absolute merit of performance
also occurs in F.
53. Brown []: ; Green Bag :  (); Anon. : ; Anon. a:  [=
Brown ]; Franklin :  [= Brown ]; Spalding : ; Davidson : 
(told as anecdote about William Jennings Bryan, mistakenly attributed to Jackson ).
54. Brown []: ; Hupfeld []: ; Green Bag :  (); Sprague : ;
Andrews :  (English, two versions, one given as anecdote); Green Bag : 
() (client didn’t realize how badly he was abused until he heard Rufus Choate); Lan-
don : ; Anon. ?: ; Patten : ; Green Bag :  (); Green Bag :
 () (client convinced of innocence before plea); Morton and Malloch : ;
Edwards : item  (accused changes plea when convinced of innocence by lawyer);
Edwards : item ; Franklin : ; Pickens :  (acquitted client convinced of
innocence demands lawyer accept lower fee); Wood : ; Ernst : ; McIlwaine
:  (solicitor almost convinced defendant); Copeland : ; Johnson et al. :
item  (acquitted client answers “not that horse”); Johnson et al. : item ; Lup-
ton : item ; Williams : item ; Gee : ; Meier : ; Rango :
; Boatright : ; Esar : ; Boatright : ; Jackson : ; Wachs :
; Walser : ; Spalding :  (Irish recasting of Green Bag ); MacDonald
[]:  (told as anecdote about turn-of-century Calgary lawyer Patrick James Nolan);
Jones and Wheeler : ; AML : no. , no. , no. ; Berle : ; Jones
and Wheeler : ;  Cal.: Apr. . This is tale-type no. c; Motif X. (Eloquent
Lawyer Makes Obviously Guilty Client Doubt His Own Guilt). In spite of its continu-
ing currency, the story is entirely passed over by the recent spate of topical books of lawyer
jokes, a useful reminder that these do not represent the whole of the lawyer joke corpus.
In a lesser version, a witness cross-examined by defense counsel is no longer sure he
ever owned the stolen horse or car: Allen : item ; Howcroft : ; E. Phillips
:  (English); B. Phillips : ; MacDonald :  (told as anecdote).
55. O. J. Simpson, Aug. . : misc. jokes no.  (on-line; attributed to Jay Leno).
56. Adams : ; Green Bag :  (); Green Bag :  (); Downs : ;
Green Bag :  (); Knox : ; Learsi : ; Learsi : ; Braude :
 Notes to pages – 

item ; Golden : ; Cagney : ; Wilde : ; Marks : ; Phillips
: ; Berle : .
57. Bigelow :  (treatise); cf. J, proved it constitutional.
58. Morton and Malloch : –; Hood et al. : .
59. Cerf :  [= Adler : ]; Milburn : ; Muller []: .
60. Knox : ; Eastman : ; Davis : ; Youngman :  (Jew);
Blumfield :  (Jew); Mindess :  (Jew); Asimov : item  (Jew); Rabi-
nowitz  []:  (Jew); Mandel :  (Jew); Humes []:  (Israeli); Mar-
quand : ; Spalding :  (Irish); Pendleton []: ; Pollack :  (Jew);
Yarwood []: ; Baker :  [collected ] (Jew); Murtie :  (Irish); Berle
:  (Cajun); Schindler :  (Jew); Topol []:  (Jew); Jhumor List, Aug.
,  (Jew).
61. Knott :  [= Knott g:  = Knott :  = Cohl : ]; Shafer and
Papadakis : ; Humes : .
62. Morton Sklaroff, e-mail message to author, May , .
63. Stevens : ; Rodent : . This is a wonderful adaptation from the story
of the ghostwriter upending his rich or powerful client: Cerf : ; Gerler : ;
Boliska []: ; Gingras : ; Humes []: ; Skubik and Short : ;
Shelley : ; Schindler : ; Alverson []: ; Tomlinson : ; Rees
: .
64. Cited by Post : , from Kupferberg : .
65. Swift : chap. .
66. Oral tradition (collected, Madison, WI, ca. ); collected by Edward Reisner,
Madison, WI, ca. ; Adler :  [= Adler : ] (corporation director); Nolo’s
Favorite ; Brallier : ; Cohl : –;  Cal.: Jan. ; anon. Stanford law
student, Mar. , ; Streiker : ; Greene : .
In addition to the “three candidates for the big job” variant, there is another and ear-
lier appearing major variant of the story in which lawyers and members of other profes-
sions serially respond to a test or to a troubled questioner or in no context at all; Wilde
: ; Rafferty : ; Knott : ; Behrman : ; Law and Politics (Jan. )
; AML : no. ; Grossman :  [= AML : no. ];  Cal.: May ;
CLLH: lawyer humor no. , Mar. ,  [= Ross : ].
67. Many years earlier a lawyer repulsed a judge’s use of “two plus two” as a model of
indisputability by noting that it made twenty-two: Anon. : .
68. Another possible contributor to the s version—or possibly the ancestor of the
Eastern European version—is a joke about Jews in which the response to the “two and
two” question was “Am I buying or selling?” Rees :  (told of impresario Lew Grade
in ); Blumenfeld : ; Coote : .
69. Dolgopolova : ; Kolasky : ; Dolgopolova : ; Banc and Dundes
:  and references there. The joke also existed earlier in the West with the same
theme of the abnegation of truth before power:
A maid of honour, in old France, was once asked by the Queen what o’clock it was. She replied,
with a curtsey: “Whatever your majesty pleases.”
Laing : .
Banc and Dundes (: ) relate the “how much do you want it to be” story to the story
in which the joke figure is not the candidate but the selector, who elicits responses to a
numerical puzzle and then ignores the responses to pick the girl with appealing physical
characteristics. See discussion of E in chap. .
 Notes to pages –

70. Scott :  (politician); MacHale :  (candidate for Conservative Party
information officer, responding to Margaret Thatcher); Rees :  (accountant, dated
to ); Warner :  (applicant for job in bar); Lonigan :  (accountant); Adams
and Newall :  (accountant); Adams and Newall :  (economist); Two Fun
Guys  (accountant); Baddiel and Stone :  (accountant); Singh : 
(municipal accounts superintendent); Anon. a:  (economist); Anon. a: 
(economist).
71. This empathic receptiveness is also present in the troubled questioner version,
where the lawyer’s answer is accompanied by such gestures as the arm around the shoul-
der or “leaning forward” and “smiling compassionately” in the case of a woman lawyer.
72. Rees :  (letter to the Times, Sept. , ); Baddiel and Stone : .
73. Anon. c: .
74. Adams and Newall : . (The reference to “counsel’s opinion” I take as
meaning it would be advisable to consult a specialist on this rather than to act on the basis
of my opinion.) In an American CPA version (Two Fun Guys ) the accountant
checks to secure privacy.
75. Campos : .
76. Rodell : , , .
77. Rodell : .
78. Rodell : .
79. Riesman :  []. Compare Sally Engel Merry’s observation in a con-
temporary urban court: “If a case progresses to a pretrial conference or to a trial, the
prosecutors and defense attorneys play a critical role in translating complex, emotional
problems into narrow legal cases. They serve as the front line, cleansing problems of their
emotionally chaotic elements and reducing them to cold rational issues.” Merry : .
80. Lieberman : –.
81. Edwards : item ; Franklin : ; Scruggs : item ; Mosher :
 (told as anecdote); Mendelsohn : ; Williams : item ; Wright : ;
Williams : item ; Weiherman : ; Braude : item ; May : ; Wil-
son and Jacobs : ; Shelley : ; Walker : ; Wilde : ; Chariton
: ; Phillips : ; Behrman : ; Grossman :  (firm setting rather than
own practice); Nolo’s Favorite ;  Cal.: June  [=  Cal.: July ]; Subramaniam
: ; CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Pease : ; Cohl : ; Dedopulos
:  [= Baddel et al. : ]; Richard Gordon, e-mail message to author, Feb. ,
; Brunsting : ; Regan :  (woman lawyer); Anon. b: . Although
predominantly a lawyer story, this is also told of newly promoted military officers (Laugh
Book Magazine, Aug. : ; Hefley : item ; Wilde a:  [Israeli major];
B. Phillips : ; Adams : ) and occasionally of a doctor (Blumenfeld : ),
oil promoter (McManus : ), investment advisor (Rosten : ), theatrical agent
(Topol []: ), young businessman (Berle : ; Kostick et al. : ; Tibballs
: item ), a Democratic congressman (B. Phillips : n.p.), and a Labour M.P.
(Dale and Simmons : ). Cf. the story, now apparently dead, of the new doctor or
lawyer shopping for a well-worn doormat or old magazines: Ernst : ; Copeland
: ; Lupton : ; Hershfield :  [= Hershfield : ].
82. Anon. []: ; Anderson : ; Braude : item ; Droke : ;
Reader’s Digest :  (quoted from W. S. Maugham); Hefley : item  (attrib-
uted to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes); Baughman : ; Walser :  (attributed
to Sen. Sam Ervin in ); Schock : ; Hay :  (Maugham); Rovin : ;
 Notes to pages – 

Vas a;  Cal.: May ; Reader’s Digest : ; Mason :  (told of U.S.
prosecutors). It has been switched to congressmen (Parker : ) and clergy (Murray
: ; Bouquet : ; Streiker : ).
83. Hupfeld []: ; Bigelow :  (told of English barrister).
84. Johnston : item ; Green Bag :  (); Waters : ; Edwards :
item ; Anderson : ; Ernst : ; Williams : item  [= Williams :
item ); Esar : ; Keene : ; Braude : item ; Readers Digest :
 (told of Sir Henry Irving); Woods : item . (similar to Johnston ); Jessel :
; Phillips a: ; Wilde a (black): ; Wilde :  (similar to Johnston );
B. Phillips a: ; Rosten : ; E. Phillips : ; Phillips : ; Steiger :
 (told of Henry Irving); Rovin : ; Lowdown Disk : item ; AML : no. ;
Grossman : ; Nolo’s Favorite ;  Cal.: item ;  Cal.: June  [=  Cal.:
Dec. ]; Burke a: ; Kostick et al. : ;  Cal.: Jan. . This story is told
exclusively about lawyers, but the need to talk without thinking turns up in a few stories
about Mormon Elders (Saints’ Herald, May , , , quoted in Smith : ) and
politicians (Esar : ; Humes :  [attributed to Lincoln about Stephen Douglas]).
85. Golden []: ; Droke : ; Braude : item ; Murdock : ;
Woods : item .; Shafer and Papadakis : ; Phillips : ; Knott : ;
Behrman : .
86. Barry Glassner, e-mail message to Cynthia F. Epstein, Nov. ,  [= e-mail from
Ann Althouse, Nov. ,  = e-mail from Sarah Galanter, Jan. ,  = e-mail from Bill
Broder, Mar. , ]. An earlier “true story” version is found in Hay : . The same
story is presented as a joke in Shafer and Papadaikis : ; Knott : ; Cohl :
;  Cal.: Feb. ; Randy’s Favorite Lawyer Jokes, July , ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. ,
; Streiker : ; Greene : ; Anon. a: ; Brunsting : ;
Tibballs : item ; Anon. : ; Regan : ; Mason : ;  Cal.:
Sept. . Bangkok Post (June , , ) is agnostic.
The ancestor of this tale may be the story of the arrogant emergency room intern who
is scornful of the policeman who declares an arrival dead only to realize that it is “a decap-
itated body, its head tucked under its arm.” Anon. a: “Heads, you lose.”
87. In addition to items A and A above about lawyers not thinking, lawyers have
been frequent subjects of several “brain” jokes: if lawyer and another bang heads, only the
other risks brain concussion (e.g., Case : ; Ashmore : ); lawyer’s brain is very
expensive for brain transplant because it has never been used (e.g.,  Cal.: Mar. ); or
because it is necessary to kill so many to get requisite amount (e.g., Greene : ).
88. Lupton : item ; Williams : item  (Harlan); Meier : ; Droke
:  (Harlan); Williams : item  (Harlan); Golden []:  (Harlan);
Behrman :  (woman lawyer); AML : no.  (similar to Behrman ) Related
themes are examined Anon. : item  (judge cuts off young lawyer and directs ver-
dict in his favor because “I don’t want to take any chances”); Foote :  (appellate
judge still concurs after hearing colleague’s lengthy judgment).
89. CLLH : no. ; Regan : . The “no lawyers in heaven” theme is taken
up in chap.  at items C–C. Yarwood (: ) anticipated the “refutation” point:
“Charles [sic] Darrow, the noted criminal lawyer,” unprepared for debate, says “I’ll take
the negative side. I can argue against anything.”
90. Edwards : item ; Milburn :  [=Eastman : ] (law school);
Anderson : ; Wilde :  (law school). Cf. Esar :  (retainer to lawyer like
quarter put in gas meter). Switched to politicians in Parker : .
 Notes to pages –

91. Adams and Newall : ; Foster : ; Steiger : ; Law and Politics
: ; Nolo’s Favorite ; CLLH : lawyer humor no.  [= Streiker : ];
Brallier : ; anon. Stanford law student, Mar. , ; Brunsting : ; Regan
: ;  Cal.: July . It appears as a story about parliamentarians (Benton and
Loomes  []: ), diplomats (Schindler : ; Aspinall : ; E. Phillips
[]: ), accountants (Schindler : ; Subramanian : ; Two Fun Guys ;
Mason : ), public relations men (Rees : ), Microsoft employees (Howard
Erlanger, e-mail message to author, Jan. ,  [response identifies spot for lost helicop-
ter pilot]), neurologists (Prasad : ), information technology workers (Greene :
), Dominicans (Blue :  [man stuck in tree]), psychologists (Anon. : ).
92. E-mail message to author from Gretchen Viney, Aug. ,  (quotation marks
supplied) = e-mail from Mia Cahill, Jan. ,  = e-mail from Bill Broder, Apr. ,
. In its first published renditions the characters in the enlarged exchange are an infor-
mation technology person on the ground and a corporate manager in the balloon. Greene
: ; Anon. a: ; Anon. a: ; Colombo : .
93. Mindes : .
94. Lewis and Wachs : ; Keene  []: ; Woods : item .;
Rosten : ; E. Phillips : ; AML : no. ; Coote :  [= Coote :
]. Although this has been a lawyer joke for half a century, it continues to be told of
other advisors: Hupfeld []:  (Baron Rothschild provides helpful advice to a money-
lender); Robey :  (millionaire); Meier :  (friend); McManus :  (friend);
Laugh Book Magazine, Sept. :  (Scot father); Braude : item  (father); Reader’s
Digest :  [= Reader’s Digest : ] (John D. Rockefeller); Cerf :  (busi-
nessman’s friend); Yarwood []:  (accountant father); Prochnow  []: 
(father); E. Phillips :  (executive).
95. Edmund and Williams : ; Green Bag :  (); Anderson : ;
Williams : item ; Anon. ca.: ; Copeland : ; Woods : item .;
Wilde : ; E. Phillips :  (English, told of barrister); Streiker : . The
sentencing of the offending body parts appeared some years earlier, attributed to “Judge
Kent” (possibly James Kent, –, Chancellor of the New York court of chancery
and the first major commentator on American law): Green Bag :  () (right arm,
right shoulder and head sentenced to prison) [= Sprague :  = Kieffer : ]).
96. Quoted at Arnold : .
97. Golden [] : ; Edwards : item ; Wilde : .
98. Dr. Merryman : ; Anon.:  [= Engelbach : ]. In Spalding :
 Curran also refuses to accept a fee.
99. Behrman :  (note the substitution of the woman lawyer, which may be a
report of what is circulating orally or the compiler’s effort at correctness) [=AML : no.
]; Lieberman :  [= Lieberman : ]; Wilde : ; Rovin : .
100. Franklin : . In May :  the lawyer, on learning that the embezzler has
“run through all the money,” advises him to “get $,. more and then come back to
see me.”
101. Baddiel and Stone :  [= Baddiel et al. : ]; D. Brown f: ;
Keelan : ; FHM : .
102. Nolo’s Favorite ; Randy’s Favorite Lawyer Jokes ; Streiker :  (very
similar to Nolo’s Favorite );  Cal.: Aug. –;  Cal.: July .
103. Orso :  (German, Englishman, Greek); Pietsch :  (Pole, Italian, Jew);
Anon. :  (Kerryman, Welshman, Englishman); Stangland :  [=Stangland
 Notes to pages – 

: ] (Norweigan, Dane, Swede); Knott :  (Pole, Italian, Jew); Nesvisky : 
(German, American, Israeli); Alvin :  (Pole, Italian, Jew); Allen  (Pole, Italian,
Jew); Knott b:  (Pole, Italian, Jew); Dover and Fish  (Pole, American, Robert
Maxwell); Muradi :  (Sikh, Sindhi, Marwari); MacHale :  (Englishman,
Irishman, Scotsman); Coote :  [= Coote : ] (Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne
contractors); Mital and Gupta :  (Marathi, Marwari, Sindhi); Adams and Newall
a:  (Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne); Cohl :  (Pole, Italian, Jew); Jhumor
List, July ,  (Florida, Missouri, New York contractors); Cohen  (Polish, Italian,
Chicago gardeners).
104. Major Grant Blowers, U.S. Forces in Korea, e-mail message, Mar. , ; Randy’s
Favorite Lawyer Jokes  (lawyers outwit accountants).
105. Two Fun Guys  (engineers con accountants); Anon. b:  (engineers
con accountants); Brown and Flynn :  (one family cons another); Griest, posting
on Novell community chat, Jan. ,  (engineers con lawyers);  Cal.: Oct. 
(paralegals con lawyers); e-mail from Jan Hoem, Nov. ,  (Bushes con Clintons);
McFool :  (engineers con lawyers); Columbo :  (Canadians con Americans).
106. Wardroper : item  (from The Complete London Jester . . . nd ed., ) [=
Dodge :  (from Hutchin’s Improved: Being an Almanack . . . for . . .  )] = Dr.
Merryfield : ]; Lemon : ; slightly modernized in Anon. : ; Bigelow
: ; Hupfeld [] ; Brown []:  [= Burdette : ]; Downes : 
(German); Anon. :  (told as anecdote by Philadelphia lawyer); Engelbach : ;
Green Bag :  (); Edwards : item ; Clode : ; Milburn :  [=
Copeland :  = Eastman :  = Rango : ]; Aye : ; Johnson et al.
: ; Muller []: ; Esar : ; Woods : item .; Adams : ;
Wilde a (black): ; B. Phillips : ; Spalding : ; Wilde : ; Berle
:  (questioner is police lieutenant); E. Phillips :  (British); Johnson :
; Phillips : ; Adler : ; Warner : ; Claro : .
107. Arya : ; Wood n.d. [c.]:  [= Eastman :  = Copeland : ];
Esar :  (saw through hole in fence); Lieberman : ; May :  (looked at
clock on my dresser); Triverton : ; Wilde : ; Behrman : ; Rovin :
; Vas : n.p.
108. Meier : ; Byrn []: ; Shillaber : ; Hupfeld []: ; Green
Bag :  (); Engelbach : ; Milburn :  [= Copeland : ]; Meier
: ; Berle : ; E. Phillips : ; Rovin : ;  Cal.: July . The
early versions do not contain the multiplier, which first appears in Milburn .
109. Moulton : item ; Green Bag :  () (German juror); Anon. :
 (quoted in Tidwell : ); Anon. ?:  (German juror); Green Bag : 
(); Copeland and Copeland : ; Fuller : item ; Cerf :  [= Cerf
a: ]; Esar : ; Boatright : ; Keene : ; Wilson and Jacobs :
 (elaborated Cajun version); Spalding : ; Yarwood []: ; Anon. : ;
Claro : ; Behrman : ; AML : no. ; CLLH : no. ; CLLH :
no. ; Adams and Newall : ; Claro : ; Brallier : ; Regan : ;
 Cal.: June .
In an equally popular variant, it is the defendant (or a relative) rather than the lawyer
who bribes the juror: Kemble :  (Jewish juror); Kelly :  (Irish juror) [= Cahill
:  = Johnston : item  = Ernst :  = Copeland :  = Eastman :
 = May : ]; Engelbach : ; Robey : ; Franklin : ; Hershfield
: ; Knox ca. : ; Thomas : ; Lehr et al. : ; Williams : item
 Notes to pages –

 [= Kelly , etc.]; Golden [] : ; Kahn :  (South Africa, citing
Blackwell ); Hershfield : ; Adams : ; Adams : ; Hornby :
; Wilde :  (Irish juror); Baker : ; Gardner : ; Scott : ; Rovin
: ; Chariton : ; Knott : ; Knott a: ; Adler : ; Adams
: ; Arya :  (India [a jurisdiction with no juries!]); Cohl : ; Claro
: ; Allan : ; Sharpe : ; Mason : .
A civil version of this turnabout is found in Green Bag :  () (lawyer’s office
boy obtains continuance as instructed although judge wanted to dismiss in his favor).
110. Brallier : ; Lisa Harinanan, e-mail message to author, Apr. , ; Sharpe
: ; Mason : ; Alan Dundes, e-mail, Aug. , ;  Cal.: Feb. .
111. Buford and Grabowski : ; Humes []: item ; Delf : ; Adams
and Newall : ; Streiker : ; Kostick et al. : .
112. Phillips : ; Anon. :  (farmer client); Davidson :  (Jewish
client); Franklin :  (Jewish client); Richman :  (Jewish client); Ferguson :
 (Scots client); Johnson et al. : ; Old Commercial Traveler n.d.:  (Jewish
client); Esar : ; McManus : ; Williams : item ; May : ;
Woods : item .; Morecroft []:  (Maori client); Harris : ; Gillespie-
Jones :  (Chinese client); Johnston :  [= Johnston : ] (farmer client);
Wilde : ; Sood :  (sent cheapest whiskey); E. Phillips :  (farmer client);
Behrman : ; Rovin :  (Jewish client); AML : no. ; Coote :  [=
Coote : ]; Mital and Gupta : . In a few instances it is the novice lawyer who
upends his senior colleague (Cerf : ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ;  Cal.: Jan.
) or an imported “Philadelphia lawyer” who outdoes the locals (Green Bag : 
[]). In a single instance the joke is reversed: the lawyer sends the brandy over the
objection of the client (Berle : ).
A similar story is told of politicians who cadge drinks or fail to tip and divert the
opprobrium to their opponents. Wilson : ; Cerf : ; O’Neal and O’Neal
: ; Boliska []: ; Shelley : ; B. Phillips ; Singh : ; Dole
[]: .
113. Debow’s Review : .
114. Droke :  [= Lupton : item ]; Green Bag :  () (Scot);
Edward : item  (Scot); Heighton :  (bad case, barrister happy to take it);
Robey :  (Scot); Franklin :  (Scot); Ernst :  (Scot); Johnson et al.
:  (Scot); Copeland and Copeland : ; Cerf :  [= Cerf a:  =
Cerf : ]; Esar : ; Lieberman :  [= Lieberman : ] (Jew); Cohen
:  (Jew); Braude : item  [= Reader’s Digest :  = Davidson : ]
(told of financier Russell Sage, –); Crompton :  (Jew); Wilde : ;
Rosten :  (Scot); Shafer and Papadaikis : ; Berle : ; E. Phillips :
; Allen :  (Jew); Rosten :  (Jew); Claro :  [= Claro : ]; Dun-
can : ; Behrman : ; Rovin : ; Coote :  [= Coote :  =
Coote : ] (Scot); Vas : n.p. (Jew, two versions);  Cal.: May ; Brunsting
: .
115. Reproduced in London : :–. This is AT (The Lawyer’s Mad
Client). Pre-twentieth-century versions in many languages are surveyed in Oliver . In
addition to the versions cited below, see Zall :  [?]; Zall :  []; Ash-
ton :  [] (lawyer enlisted to outwit himself by daughter’s suitor); Brown []:
 [= Landon : ]; Lurie : ; Anon. :  (daughter’s suitor); Hochwald
[]: .
 Notes to pages – 

116. Angelo Poliziano (–), Bel Libretto [–], reproduced in Speroni :
.
117. Pasquil’s Jests . . . [?], reprinted in Ashton :  = Willock : ; Zall
:  [?]; Brown []: ; Landon : ; Pickens : ; Hochwald
[]: .
118. Lurie : –; Hupfeld []:  (told of Luther Martin [?–], a
prominent Maryland lawyer); Green Bag :  () (young lawyer buys senior’s houses
at tax sale). This is an expansive American version of an English variant that features a
lawyer and his clerk: Dr. Merryfield : ; Merryman : ; Willock : ;
Anon. : .
119. House : ; Pickins :  (insanity); Lurie :  (insanity); Elgart :
 (witnesses); Woods : item  (same); Esar :  (same); Harris : 
(same); Gardner a:  (same); Wilde : ; Rovin :  (same); Hochwald
[]:  (imbecility).
120. McFool : ; Tibballs : item ; Anon. c: . Cf. Davis b:
 (professor and student); Delf :  (banker and peasant).
121. Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ; Edward A. Tiryakian, e-mail message to author, Sept.
,  (California lawyer in Texas); Baddiel and Stone :  [= Baddiel et al. :
] (Scotsman kicks Englishman); Brown e:  (same); Keelan :  (two Irishmen).
122. Alan Dundes, e-mail message to author, Jan. , . This is an adaptation of
“cigar fire Insurance” at the AFU and Urban Legend Archive, Nov ,  (Charlotte
man); Anon. c: . But this up-to-date story is found in Sprague :  (“cunning
fellow”), where it is credited to a German tobacco trade paper.
123. de Tocqueville: :.
124. Auerbach b: .
125. Miller : .
126. “The Money Trail” at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/march/
fund-–.html.
127. Denby : 
128. New Republic : .

 . T  L        E        P      
1. Reprinted in Zall : . Compare the wry observation, “‘I never was ruined
but twice,’ said a wit: ‘once when I lost a lawsuit and once when I gained one.’” Lemon
: . A capable lawyer confesses that he would not defend against a claim for his coat
“lest in defending my coat, I should too late find that I was deprived of my waistcoat also.”
Lemon : ; Willock : . That clients are emaciated and lawyers adipose is
asserted by a joke about fat and lean horses. Merryfield : ; Hupfeld []: ; Anon.
: ; Anon. : ; Joe Miller’s : I, . In a modern counterpart, “Gandhi look[s]
more like a client than a lawyer to me.” O’Neal and O’Neal : .
2. Marks et al. : .
3. Trubek et al. : . The comparable figure for organizational parties was 
percent.
4. The lawyer’s economic incentive to encourage clients to proceed may be coun-
tered by professionalism and concern for reputation.
5. Croy :  []; Droke : item  [= Subhash and Dharam b: ].
6. Rhodes : .
7. Singh : .
 Notes to pages –

8. Tucker :  cites this as a retelling by James Puckle (around ) of Nicholas
Boileau’s (–) celebrated tale and notes other eighteenth-century versions, includ-
ing one by Alexander Pope. Also, Hupfeld []:  (two boys quarreling over walnut);
Edmund and Williams :  [= Milburn :  = Bonham : ]; Knott :
; Behrman : ; Berle : ; Streiker : ; Regan : .
9. A prose version is May : .
10. Johnston : item ; Aye : ; Wilde : ; Phillips : ; Harvey
ca.a: . Compare Anon. :  (asked to prevent son from inheriting, lawyer
overperforms).
11. Esar : ; Green Bag :  (); Wilde : ; Rovin : .
12. Anon : –; Hood et al. : .
13. For example, Willock :  (poor man whose lawyer did not respond until he
was given a lamb, thinks lawyers understand lambs’ words better); Green Bag :  ()
(Theophilus Parsons [–], the leading lawyer in the U.S. in the first years of the
nineteenth century, says opinion “stuck in his throat” until client pays more); Engelbach
:  (Serjeant Davy [d.] can read no further in brief for two guineas).
14. Green Bag :  ().
15. Lurie : ; E. Phillips : .
16. Woods : item .; Wilde : ; Berle : ; Knott : ; Rovin
: ; Berle : ; Arya : .
17. Alvin : ; Alvin a:  (“Johnny Cochran’s theory of law”); Green :
;  Cal.: Jan. .
18. Brown []: ; Green Bag :  (); Klein :  [= Anon. a: ];
Anon. b: ; Green Bag :  (); Edwards : item ; Anderson :
 (lawyer and “a couple of jurymen”) [= Braude : item a]; Franklin : ;
Gerler : ; Anon. : item .; Jessel : ; Wilde : ; Berle : ;
B. Phillips : ; Rovin : ; Adams :  [=  Cal.: Oct.  =  Cal.:
Oct. ]; Harvey a: ;  Cal.: Jan. .
19. Lemon :  [= Hupfeld []:  = Burdette :  = Ferguson : ];
Hood et al. : ; Landon :  (told of Rufus Choate); Miles ?:  (took
every farthing, told of “Serjeant” William Davy [d.], renowned as a master cross-
examiner and a humorist); Miles :  (adverting to custom that barristers’ fees be paid
in gold); Green Bag :  () (Choate); Green Bag :  (); Green Bag : 
(); Engelbach : ; Edwards : item ; Johnstone : item  (told of
Augustine Birrell [–] ); Franklin :  (Choate); Ferguson : ; Williams
: item  (Rufus Choate in England); Ross :  (Choate).
20. Gilbert []: , citing Edward G. Parker, Reminiscences of Rufus Choate ().
Presumably the incident occurred some years earlier.
21. In a related story a drayman accepted a measly fee from a poor widow for a sizable
job for “I took all she had, sor; an’ bedad, sor, a lyer could have done no better nor that,
sor.” Landon []:  [= Burdette : ]; Mustlaff c.: ; Boatright : 
[= Boatright : ].
22. Apart from appearing in the introduction to an Australian collection (Ross :
) as an illustration of the profession’s long-standing preoccupation with money.
23. Bates v. State Bar of Arizona,  S. Ct.  ().
24. Some medical examples are Anon. ; Claro : .
25. Bierce [] (: ) [= Behrman :  = AML : no. ]; Spalding
: .
 Notes to pages – 

26. Edwards : item  [= Lawson :  = Gerler :  = Lieberman :
 = True :  = Lieberman :  = Vas ]; Cerf :  [=Adams : ];
Lewis and Wachs : ; Woods : item .; Wilde : ; Shafer and
Papadaikis : ; E. Phillips : ; Knott : ; Lowdown Disk : item ;
Nolo’s Favorite ;  Cal.: Mar. ; Adams : ; Streiker : .
27. Wachs : ; Droke : item ; Pendleton []: ; Wilde : ;
Wilde : ; Allen : ; Knott : ; B. Phillips : ; Rovin : ; Vas
; Mital and Gupta : ; Adams : ;  Cal.: July ; Nolo’s Favorite (on
line, Sept. , ).
28. Scruggs : item  [= Williams : item ]; Green Bag :  ().
29. Lowdown Disk : no. ; Washington Post ;  Cal.: Mar. ; Rees :
 (quoting Financial Times, May , ); Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ; Streiker :
; Greene : ; Regan : .
30.  Cal.: item ; Ross : .
31. Lemon : ; Anon. : ; Joe Miller’s : I, ; Copeland and Copeland
: ; E. Phillips : . The medical counterpart may be found at Ferguson :
 (physician sends patient to colleague in Bath with letter that advises “keep the old
lady three weeks and send her back again”).
32. Halpert and Thomas .
33. Lemon :  [= Beeton :  = Woods : item .]; Howe []: ;
Williams : item  (rabbi).
34. Edwards : item ; Knott : ; Rovin :  [= AML : no. ];
 Cal.: July .
35. Williams : item ; Esar : ; Lehr et al. : ; Adams :  [=
Adams : ]; Cohen : ; Hefley : item ; Spalding : ; Wilde
: ; Berle : ; E. Phillips : ; Behrman :  [= AML : no. ];
Adler :  [= Adler :  =  Cal.: May ]; Mital and Gupta : .
36. In addition the lawyer/other people’s pockets trope occurs in various stories, such
as Lemon : ; Engelbach : .
37. Anon. : ; Hupfeld []: ; Werner : ; Green Bag :  ();
Anon. : ; Green Bag :  (); Johnston : item ; Williams : item
; Fuller : item ; Boatright : ; Spalding : ; E. Phillips : .
The portrait version has occasionally been applied to bankers (Moulton : item
), politicians (Meier : ; Skubik and Short : ), and businessmen (Larson
: ).
38. Edmund and Williams :  [= Lawson : ; Milburn :  = Cope-
land :  = Eastman :  = Copeland and Copeland : item  = McManus
: ]; Zall :  [versions from  and ]; Anon. : ; Lurie : ;
Scruggs : item ; Johnson et al. : ; Smith : ; Allen : item ;
Teitelbaum : ; Mendelsohn : ; Williams : item ; Golden 
[]: viii; Rabinowitz  []: ; Claro :  [= Claro : ]; Nash et al.
: ;  Cal.: Nov. ;  Cal.: Mar. .
39. It is possible that Twain is the source of the two speakers version of pockets. Zall
:  reports a Twain version in . Twain would probably have been familiar with
the portrait version, which was published in .
40. William Maxwell Evarts (–) was a prominent lawyer who served as attor-
ney general of the United States (–), secretary of state (–), and a member of
the United States Senate (–). Louis Marshall (–) was a prominent American
 Notes to pages –

lawyer and Jewish communal leader. The Yiddish writer and humorist Sholem Aleichem
(–) spent – and – in the U.S., so an encounter with Marshall may
have occurred.
41. Lieberman :  [= Vas ]; Wilde : ; Rovin : .
42. National Law Journal, May , : A; Ross : ; Cohl :  (narrative
version);  Cal.: Aug. ; Dedopulos : ; Alvin : . These were anticipated
by a version involving senators: Stangland : .
43. Act , scene .
44. Lemon : .
45. Shafer and Papadaikis : ; Dole []: ; Regan : .
46. Puzo : .
47. Green Bag :  () [= Milburn : ]; Braude : item ; Adams
: ; Wilde : ; E. Phillips : ; Adler : ; Robin :  (be like
Clyde Barrow);  Cal.: June . This joke has also been applied to other callings:
Davies : ; Amsterdam :  (television repairman); Wilde :  [= Wilde
: ] (surgeon).
48. Ellis v. Frawley,  Wis. ,  ().
49. Speiser : .
50. Rovin : ; Green Bag :  (); Green Bag :  (); Fowler :
; Edwards : item  [= Johnston :  = Milburn :  = Prochnow and
Prochnow : ]; Franklin : ; Johnson et al. : ; Posner : ;
Williams : item ; Knox c.: ; Golden  []: viii; May : ; Wilde
: ; Berle : ; Knott : ; AML : no. ; Nolo’s Favorite ;
B. Phillips : ; Alvin : ; Knott : ;  Cal.: July .
51. Bierce  []: .
52. Green Bag :  ().
53. Robbers lose money in the course of spirited physical resistance from members
of a lawyers’ club: Delf : ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Dedopulos :  [= Baddiel et
al. : ]; Tibballs : item ; Regan : . Cf. Cerf :  (home for
retired actors); MacHale :  (Scots’ boardinghouse).
54. Ernst :  (attributed to Boston Transcript); Case : .
55. Anderson :  (insurance man sells policy to hold-up man); Schermerhorn
:  [= Rango : ] (real estate man sells lots to burglar). Similarly, a bishop
extracts a contribution from a beggar (Lurie : ). And a Jewish insurance agent sells
life insurance to a priest sent to convert him (Gurney ).
56. Willock : ; Franklin : ; Ernst : .
57. Singh :  (attributed to lawyer in Ludhiana).
58.  Cal.: item ; Ross : ;  Cal.: Oct  (vampire bat is mouselike
creature with wings, lawyer is diseased, bloodsucking predator); Alvin a: ; Tibballs
: item . Another set of riddles compares lawyers with leeches (e.g., CLLH :
riddle no. ;  Cal.: Mar. ; Tibballs : item ) and ticks (e.g., Ross : ;
Greene : ; Alvin :  [= Alvin a: ]).
59. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “Shark.” Partridge : . Cf. Wentworth and
Flexner : .
60. Anon. : . The same collection contains a similar story about lawyers being
chased by a pack of wolves. Anon. : . Earlier collections remarked on the identi-
fication of sharks as “sea lawyers” (Hupfeld []: ) and noted shark-bite as the source
of antilawyer animus (Willock : ).
 Notes to pages – 

61. Reader’s Digest :  (attributed to Alex F. Osborn); Cerf : ; Taube-
neck : ; Esar : ; Droke : ; Morecroft []:  (speech in London,
); Braude : item ; Laugh Magazine c.: ; O’Neal and O’Neal : ;
May : ; Rabinowitz  []: ; Humes  []: ; Baker : ; Wilde
: ; Robin : ; Chariton : ; Phillips : ; Sartor : ; Berle :
; Knott : ; Novak and Waldoks : ; Steiger : ; Behrman : ;
Rovin : ; Johnson : ; Brallier : ; Asimov : ; Grossman :
; Nolo’s Favorite ; AML : nos. , ; Berle : ; Nick Larsen, e-mail
message to author, Aug. , ; Adams and Newall : ;  Cal.: July ; CLLH
: riddle no. ; E. Phillips : ; Goldstein-Jackson : ; Barnett and Kaiser
: ; Ross : ; Van Munching : ; Streiker : ;  Cal.: May ;
Greene : ; Alvin a: ; Anon. a: ; Claro : . In many of the
recent items, the narrative shrinks to a riddle. Occasionally the courtesy is not from
sharks, but from snakes (Maledicta :  [–]; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ) or thieves
( Cal.: Sept. ;  Cal.: Nov. ).
62. Franklin :  (lobbyist and burglar); Bonfonti :  (Mafia capo); Rees
:  (Hollywood agent, attributed to Dick Vosburgh, ); Lyons :  (Jewish
American Princess and cobra); Knott :  (Jewish mother); Miller :  (politi-
cian and thieves); Dover and Fish  (Robert Maxwell); Yermonee  (Maxwell);
Alvin :  (Jewish American Princess); Cohl :  (Jewish mother); Two Fun
Guys  (accountants).
63. E.g., Humes []: ; Wilde :  (“immediately eight sharks formed a two-
lane escort and helped him to the ship, and back”).
64. For Counsel Product and Gift Catalog : . A Dallas firm was reported to
have mounted an eighteen-foot fibreglass shark, visible from the interstate. National Law
Journal, Oct. , , .
65. Advertisement of the Law Offices of Walter W. Moore, San Francisco Chronicle,
Mar. , .
66.  Cal.: ; Berle : ; Behrman : ;  Cal.: Oct. ; Regan : .
67. Curran : . Seventy-three percent of nonusers agreed, but only  percent
of those who had used lawyers. Curran : .
68. Roper Center .
69. National Family Opinion Research, survey “How Do You Rate the Value You
Get . . . Lawyers’ Fees,” available in Westlaw, Poll database.
70. Samborn : .
71. Karsten : . Much earlier, a Massachusetts polemicist against lawyer mis-
deeds speaks in  of the “pernicious practice . . . [of ] making bargains upon the event
of the cause. . . . Are the ‘people’ of this Commonwealth reduced to so dreadful a state,
as to give one quarter part of their property to secure the remainder, when they appeal to
the laws of their country?” Honestus [] : .
72. Bergstrom : 
73. Karsten ; Auerbach : –; Bergstrom : ; Dornstein : chap. .
74. Landon : ; Green Bag :  (); Sprague : ; Edwards : item
; Ernst : ; Franklin : ; Williams : item ; Esar : ; Maledicta
:  (–) (reporting  telling); Wilde : ; Rovin : ; May : 
(Evarts, different case); Allen : ; Behrman : ; Rovin : ; Lowdown Disk
: item ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Berle : ; Vas ;  Cal.: Mar. ; CLLH
: lawyer humor no. ; Ross : ; Greene : ; Regan : .
 Notes to pages –

75. Berle : .

76. Anon. : . Hamlin practiced law in Maine until . Also, Edmund and
Williams :  [= Ernst : ]; Milburn :  [= Copeland :  = Smith
:  = Lowdown Disk : item ]; Rango : ; Esar : ; Boatright
: ; Williams : item ; Golden : ; Wilde : .
77. Milburn : .
78. Sprague : ; Edwards : item ; Johnston : item ; Franklin :
; Ernst : ; May : ; Friedman : ; Cerf : ; Woods : item
.; Wilde : ; Phillips : ; Rovin : ; Berle : ; Goldstein-Jackson
: ; Adams : .
79. Rovin : .
80. Green Bag :  () [= Williams : item ]. Aye :  (scaffolding);
Ferguson :  (scaffolding); Braude : item  (car); May : ; Wilde :
 (car). A slight variation of the punch line to “you would think you started the fire”
connects the joke with another line of jokes that are addressed in chap. .
81. Roper Center .
82. Louis Harris and Associates : .
83. But if the contingency fee is accepted as an institution, this does not mean that
the public feels that the price is fair. The public regards lawyers’ charges generally as exces-
sive. I have been able to find very little on public response to contingency fee rates. In a
 Gallup survey, a national sample of adults were asked how much a lawyer should get
“without going to court” for “mak[ing] the railroad pay damages of $,” to your
friend badly hurt in a railroad accident. Of the  percent who had an opinion,  per-
cent chose $—i.e.,  percent (the median response);  percent thought the appro-
priate fee higher and  percent thought it lower.
84. Those who have actually made a claim are even more favorable to the contingency
fee: in the  Gallup poll, those with trial experience were more favorable (: );
in the  Louis Harris survey those who had a claim considered it more indispensable.
85. Karsten : .
86. Copeland v. Marshall,  U.S. App. D.C. ;  F.d  () (en banc, Judge
Wilkey dissenting at  F.d , n.). Also, White : ; Dickson : ; Shafer
and Papadakis : ; Knott : ; Novak and Waldoks : ; Steiger : ;
Brallier : ; Asimov : item  [= Humes : ]; Rovin : ; Delf :
; Lowdown Disk : item ; AML : no. ; Grossman : ; Nolo’s Favorite
; Warner : ; Adams and Newall : ;  Cal.: Feb. ; Funny Times, May
, ; Goldstein-Jackson : ; CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; CLLH : lawyer
humor no. ; Barnett and Kaiser : ; Ross : ;  Cal.: Sept. ; Richard
Gordon, e-mail message to author, Feb. , ; Cohl : ; Two Fun Guys ;
Van Munching : ;  Cal.: June ; Streiker : ; Dedopulos :  [=
Baddiel et al. : ]; Greene : ; Claro : ; Tibballs : ; Mason
: ; Regan : . A recent English version switches to accountants (Anon.
b:  = Anon. b: ).
87. Observers of the current legal scene sometimes project hourly billing much further
back, as does an advisor on dealing with lawyers, who reports, “U.S. President Thomas
Jefferson—a lawyer himself—said in  that ‘It is the business of a lawyer to question
everything, produce nothing, and bill by the hour.’” Dancing with Lawyers  (on-line).
88. The joke, which is told only about lawyers, may derive from an older story about
the job applicant who is asked to explain how his years of job experience can be greater
 Notes to pages – 

than his age and replies, “I put in a lot of overtime.” Cohen : ; Blumenfeld :
; Hefley : item ; Golden : ; Marks : ; Prochnow  []: ;
Phillips : ; Subramanian : .
89. Copeland and Copeland : ; Esar : ; May : ; Wilde : ;
Behrman : ; Grossman : ; Nolo’s Favorite ;  Cal.: item  [=  Cal.:
Jan. ]; CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Brallier : ;  Cal.: Oct. ; Ross
: ; Streiker : ; Greene : . The joke appears about doctors with about
equal frequency: David : ; Cerf : ; Anon. : item .; Pendleton
[]: ; Wilde a: ; Rosten : ; Pietsch :  [= Boskin : ]; Knott
:  [= Knott b: ]; Allen : ; Odean n.d.; Subramanian : ;
Behrman : ; Claro : ; Sharpe :  (dentist).
90. Green : ; Pendleton []: ; Berle : ; Metcalf : ; Rovin
: ; Coote : ; Cohl : ; Greene : ; Brunstine : ; Regan
: . Blue collar guys triumph over other professionals, too: Humes []:  (doc-
tor); Hornby :  (bank manager); Spalding :  (brain surgeon); Foster 
(doctor); Warner :  (doctor); Pietsch :  (brain surgeon); Streiker : 
(doctor); Dance :  (orthodontist); Prasad :  (doctor, citing  source);
Kostick et al. :  (brain surgeon); Southwell : ; Anon. b: ; Anon.
c:  (neurosurgeon); Anon. : .
91. The jokes about the depreciation and neglect of social obligations in this section
concern lawyers’ fees, but a related set of jokes extend the charge into other areas. See the
section “No Redeeming Social Value” in chap. .
92. Joe Miller’s : II, . Six shillings and eightpence (one-third of a pound) was
the traditional minimum fee of English solicitors.
93. Richman : . The butcher version is tale type AT  (The Lawyer’s Dog
Steals Meat). Joe Miller’s []: item  [= K . . . : ] (judge offsets oath fee against
coachman’s charge); Green Bag :  () (told of Gen. Ben Butler, –); Werner
: ; Marks : ; Green Bag :  () [= Anon. : ] (lawyer being
dunned by tailor interprets his inquiry as request for legal advice); Engelbach : ;
Anon. : ; Fuller : item ; Moulton : item ; Esar : ; Keene
 [] (Ben Butler); Williams : item ; Droke : item ; Wachs :
; Adler : ; Adams : ; Ranke : item ; Wilde : ; E. Phillips
: ; Rovin :  (baker); Subhash and Dharam b: ; CLLH : lawyer
humor no. ; Ross : ;  Cal.: Dec. ; Streiker : ; Dedopulos :
 [= Baddiel et al. : ]; Greene : ; Tibballs : item ; Regan
: .
94. Joe Miller’s : ,  [= Tickleside :  = Willock :  = modernized lan-
guage version of Joe Miller : item ]. The item resurfaces as Adams : .
95. Shafer and Papadaikis : . Samuel Untermeyer (–) was a prominent
New York lawyer and name partner in the city’s most prestigious Jewish firm. Also Hersh-
field : item ; Mendelsohn : ; Cerf : ; Ford et al. : ; Golden
 []: ; Murray : ; Braude : item ; O’Neal and O’Neal : ;
May : ; Lewis and Wachs : ; Boliska []: ; Crompton : ;
Morecroft []: ; Wilde : ; Wilde a: ; Hay :  (told of Max
Steuer); Lowdown Disk : item ; Rovin : ; AML : no. ; AML :
no. ; Cohl : ; Streiker : . The joke has been extended to a few doctors
(Fowler : ; Eastman : ; Davis : ) and to a public relations man in Eng-
land (Rees :  [cited to  source]).
 Notes to pages –

96. Case : ; Lawson : ; Hay : . David Lloyd-George (–
) served as prime minister of Great Britain from  to .
97. Kiser : ; Bell : .
98. Nader and Smith : .
99. Bonham : . In the earliest versions the lawyer is asked to ascertain the
genuineness of a coin. Lemon : ; Cole ?: . This variant is still extant
(Phillips :  [counterfeit note]). Another lawyer charges his daughter’s suitor for
“advice.” Ernst : . The doctor enters in  and has occupied the field since. Cerf
:  [= Cerf a]: ]; Woods : item .; Esar : ; Newman : ;
Yarwood []: ; Bonham : ; Wilde : ; Korale ; Anon. : ;
E. Phillips : ; Claro :  [= Claro : ] (combined with “bill for greet-
ing”); Behrman : ; Adler : ; Brallier : ; Lowdown Disk : item ;
AML : no. ; Robin a: ; Adler : ; Subramanian : ; CLLH :
lawyer humor no. ; Behrman : ; Streiker : ; Kostick et al. : ; Regan
: .
100. Adams : ; Berle : ; B. Phillips : .
101. Aye : ; Willock : ; Rhodes : ; Miles ?:  (attributes
it to account of a Dublin lawyer in London Chronicle of ); Engelbach : ; Engel-
bach :  (attributes story to London Chronicle of Jan. –, ).
102. Williams : item ; Anon. : ; Edwards : item ; Franklin
: ; Lieberman : ; Wilde : ; Gardner a: ; Knott : ;
Behrman : ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Ross : ;  Cal.: Mar. ; National Law
Journal, May , , A (cartoon).
103. Petersen .
104. Rodent : .
105. Nader and Smith : .
106. Richard Gordon, Esq., quoted in Budiansky : .
107. Claro :  [= Adler :  = Adler :  = Claro : ]; Cerf :
 [= Cerf a: ]; Droke : ; Bowker : ; Jackson : ; Hershfield
: ; Shafer and Papadaikis : ; E. Phillips : ; Rovin : ; Nolo’s
Favorite ; AML : no. ; Metcalf : ; Ross : ; Cohl : ;
Michael Cardinal posting at alt. gathering rainbow, Jan. , ; Anon. a: ; 
Cal.: July .
108. Anderson :  [= Mosher : ]; Lawson :  [= Knox :  = East-
man :  = Copeland :  = Copeland and Copeland : item ]; Allen :
item ; Keene  []: ; Golden : ; Wilde a: ; Behrman : .
109. Green Bag :  ().
110. Rafferty : ; Boliska []: ; Skubik and Short : ; Spalding :
; Wilde ; Jones and Wheeler : ; Knott : ; Stangland : ; Novak
and Waldoks : ; Behrman : ; Lowdown Disk : item ; Robin :
; Brallier : ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Metcalf : ; Berle : ; Faine : ;
Coote : ;  Cal.: Sept.  [=  Cal.: Aug. ]; Adams : ; Pease :
; Ross : ; Barnett and Kaiser : ; Cohl : ; Baddiel and Stone :
; Kostick et al. : ; Greene : ; Keelan : ; Anon. a: ; Anon.
c: ; Brunsting : ; Claro : ; Tibballs : item ; Anon. a:
; Regan : ;  Cal.: May ; Pritchard : .
111. Friedman :  (fortune teller); Anon. : item . (Gypsy); Play-
boy :  (Gypsy); McElroy :  (crystal gazer); Philips a:  (crystal gazer);
 Notes to pages – 

Peterson :  (fortune teller); Pendleton []:  (same); Murtie a:  (Irish
clairvoyant); Rosten :  (clairvoyant); Rosten :  (fortune teller); Brandreth
:  (same); Rovin :  (same); Berle :  (Gypsy fortune teller); Barry
:  (fortune teller); Delf :  (gypsy fortune teller); a lone therapist turns up
in Strean : .
112. Playboy : ; Legman :  (citing  source); Scruggs : item ;
Anecdota : item  [= Anecdota : item ]; Murray : ; Gerler : ;
Anon. b; Roberts : ; Wilde b:  [= Wilde : ]; Shafer and
Papadaikis : ; Berle : ; Knott :  [= Humes : ]; AML : no.
; Subhash and Dharam b: ; Amy Singer, e-mail message to author, Oct. , ;
Jan Hoem, e-mail, Oct. , ; Anon. c: . The story has occasionally been told
about others: Anon. (Anecdota) : item  (salesman); Anon. (rugby) :  (doc-
tor); Jones and Wheeler :  (bank trust officer); Jhumor List, Sept. ,  (rabbi).
113. Wilde : ; Knott : .
114. Playboy : ; Roach : ; Cleveland : ; Berle : .
115. See the section “A Suspect Profession” in chap.  and item J, expert in justice,
in chap. .
116. Richard Gordon, e-mail message to author, Apr. , . This story is more fre-
quently told of scientists. See Two Fun Guys  (physicist; lawyer is earlier in series);
Anon. c:  [= Baddiel et al. : ]; McFool : . The basic idea has been
around much longer. Engelbach :  (man with two mistresses).
117. CLLH : riddle no. ; Dundes and Georges : ; May : ;
Tobias : ; Wilde : ; Knot :  [= Knott a: ]; Cruikshank : ;
Lyons : ; Robin : ; Collected by Joshua Wynd in Berkeley, CA, Dec. , ;
Rovin : ; Metcalf : ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Barnett and Kaiser : ; Pease
: ; Cohl : . Dundes and Georges  call this a spooneristic condundrum
and provide many more examples of the type.
118. Richard Gordon, e-mail message to author, Feb. , ; Behrman :  [=
AML : no. ]. This apparently goes back to a story about the suitor, quizzed by his
sweetheart’s father whether his intentions are honorable or dishonorable, who asks, “Do
I have a choice?” Cerf : ; Allen : item ; Esar : ; Lehr et al. : ;
Reader’s Digest :  (attributed to H. Hershfield); Anon. ; Hershfield : ;
Playboy : ; Kowalski : ; Larkin : . The shift to a choice among sinful
pursuits comes in with Adams  []:  (attributed to Groucho Marx); Rees :
 (several versions, from ); Anon. ; Wachs : ; Adams :  (Grou-
cho Marx); Adams : ; Humes  []:  (Groucho Marx); Esar : ;
Novak and Waldoks : ; Triverton : ; Lanigan : ; Breslin : 
(Brian Mulroney); Gross : ; Rovin : ; Warner : ; Berge : ; John-
ston : ; Kahn and Boe : i; Reader’s Digest : ; Forbes : ; Alvin
a: ; Jan Hoem, e-mail message to author, Feb. ,  (Clinton and Jerry Falwell);
Anon. c:  (Clinton and Ian Paisley); Johnson : . An alternative punch line
makes the same point: when, reproved for smoking with the adultery comparison, the
young woman replies, “I have only half an hour for lunch,” etc. Playboy : ; Wachs
: ; Anon. b; Harvey b: .
119. The association of the lawyer with gratification in this world rather than the next
is taken up in the section “A Kingdom of This World” in chap. .
120. Brallier : ; Wilde : ; Knott : ; Nolo’s Favorite ;  Cal.:
Mar ; Anon. : .
 Notes to pages –

121. Anon. : ; Dorson : ; Dorson a: ; Legman :  [col-
lected ] (white ten minutes and hates Negroes); Gross : ; Eilbirt : .
122. Legman :  [collected ]; Keene  []:  (Republican, stealing);
O’Neal and O’Neal :  (Democrat, stealing); Wilde :  (Republican, screw-
ing); Miller :  (Democrat, thief ); Alvin :  (Republican, screwing); Pietsch 
(Republican, screwing); Dale and Simmons :  (Democrat, screwing). The switch
here may be traceable. In , Larry Wilde published a Republican version; three years
later the first published lawyer version appeared in his topical collection of lawyer jokes.
123. Alvin : ; Lowdown Disk : item ; collected from Jerome Carlin,
Berkeley, CA, August, ; CLLH : lawyer humor no. ;  Cal.: Nov. ; CLLH
: lawyer humor no. ; Sethi b: ; Brallier : ; Clifford Westfall, e-mail
message to author, Nov. , ; Cohl : ; Martling : ; Pietsch : ;
Cohen : ; Keelan : ; Anon. c: . This may be related to an older item
that plays on the ambivalence of the phrase “out of,” which can signify either departure
or extraction:
“As soon as I found it was a crooked business, I got out of it.”
“Did you?” said the other. “How much?” (B53 Supp.)
In Croy  []: , the speakers are just “two men.” In more recent appearances
(Wilde : ; Sood : ) they are lawyers.
Another possible ancestor (Green Bag :  []) also turns on the notion of the
lawyer as incorrigibly extractive:
First Lawyer—Suppose we go out and take something.
Second Lawyer—From whom?
124. A version about agents is at Alvin a: ; Mr. “K” : .
125. May :  (“Kennedy crowd who sit on the edge of the bed and talk about
how good things are going to be”); Playboy :  [= Humes  []: ] Wilde
: ; Alvin a: ; Rovin : ; Knott a:  [= Knott b: ]; Forbes
[]: ; Phillips []: ; Sethi b: ; Thomas : ; Reader’s Digest : ;
Reginald : ; Pietsch :  (lawyer is the third husband who “just kept saying,
‘I’ll get back to you next week!’”); Dole []: ; Lyons a: ; Johnson : ;
Hobbes a: .
126. CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; CLMH : gynecologists no. ; Baddiel
and Stone :  [= Baddiel et al. : ]; Alvin a: ; Tibballs : item .
The joke has grown into an extended list: Mark Suchman, e-mail message to author, Nov.
,  (lawyer is tenth husband); Neil Smelser, e-mail, May ,  [= Lisa Harinanan,
e-mail, Sept. , ] (lawyer is thirteenth husband); Amy Singer, e-mail, Apr. , 
(eleventh husband); Anon. c: .
127. Kahn and Boe : ; Boskin :  (collected ); CLLH : lawyer
humor no. ; Clark Freshman, e-mail message to author, Sept. , ; anon. Stanford
law student, Mar. , ; Greene : ; Keelan : ; Alan Dundes, e-mail, July
, . This was switched from a joke about a man with fourteen kids: Martling :
; Knott : .
128. Knott : –; Shafer and Papadaikis : .
129. AT C; Motif K. (lover’s gift regained; borrowing from the husband and
returning to the wife). The theme surfaces in Boccaccio, Decameron, Eighth Day, nos. ,
; Chaucer, The Shipman’s Tale.
130. Elgart : ; Anon. a; Anon. : ; Adams : ; Playboy : ;
Wilde b: ; Mr. J. : ; Wilde a: ; Orson : ; Walker : ; Rovin
 Notes to pages – 

: ; Berle : ; Coote : ; Jhumor List, Nov. , ; Adams : ;
Baddiel and Stone :  [= Baddiel et al. : ]; Reginald : ; Pietsch :
; Alvin : ; Sharpe : ; FHM : ; Hobbes a: .
131. Rovin :  [= AML : no. ]; Pease :  (sister in Sydney). Non-
lawyer versions invariably involve a traveler entrusted with a large sum by a caring and
supportive relative, whose generosity highlights the predatory opportunism of the emis-
sary. Adams :  (sister in Hungary); Novak and Waldoks :  [dated to ]
(grandmother in Israel); Wilde :  (mother in Raleigh); Dolgopolova :  (aunt
in Tel Aviv); Ben Eliezar  [] (brother in Israel); Barry :  (friend in Brook-
lyn to “Becky” in Israel); Gross :  (grandmother in Haifa); Telushkin : 
(brother in Haifa); Strean :  (brother in Israel); Adams and Newall a: 
(brother in Brisbane); Goldstein-Jackson :  (father in Edinburgh); Jhumor List,
Nov. ,  [= Jhumor List, May ,  = Anon. b: ] (sister in Minsk); Brown
f:  (father in Edinburgh); Anon. c:  (father in Melbourne); Joseph Thome,
e-mail message to author, Apr. ,  (shift from Minsk to Louisiana).
132. CLLH ; lawyer humor: no.  [= Barnett and Kaiser :  = Southwell
: ]. Other lawyer versions are May :  (lawyer’s dog takes lion’s share of
bones); Knott :  [= Knott :  (edited version)]; Playboy ; Wilde : 
[= Tobias :  = Wilde : ]; Behrman : ; Rovin : ; Brallier :
; Nolo’s Favorite ; Grossman : ; AML : nos.  (cats), ; Adams and
Newell : ; Clifford Westfall, e-mail message to author, Nov., ;  Cal.: Feb.
; Ross : ; Cohl : ; Van Munching : ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , .
133. See B above.
134. Jane Mansbridge, e-mail message to author, May , . Other government
worker versions are Singh : ; Jhumor List, Apr. , ; Greene : ; Tib-
balls : item ; Jan Hoem, e-mail, Mar. ,  (cats). Union versions are Anon.
:  (collected in Southfield, MI, ); Wisconsin State Journal, Nov. ,  (letter
to editor adapts joke to attack strike by Madison Teachers Union); Adams and Newall
: ; Pease : : The story is readily switchable and has also been told of actors
(Alvin : ); musicians (Pietsch : ); Apple engineers (Wilde and Wozniak :
); Brian Mulroney (Breslin : ); Robert Maxwell (Yermonee ); bond salesmen
(Knott a: ); radiologists (Prasad : ), and salesmen (Keelan : ). Many
of the same story elements appear in a tale of a competition among Australian drovers to
see whose dog is smarter that involves neither interprofessional competition nor destruc-
tive behavior (Gurney ; Coote : ).
135. Gigot .
136. Peter D. Hart Research Associates : question .
137. Peter D. Hart Research Associates : –. See chap. , p. –.
138. Crevecoeur quoted in Warren : .
139. Silberman : , , .
140. Silberman : . Silberman here anticipates an anxiety about the excessive
number of lawyers in the United States that blossomed over the following decade and
came to fruition in Dan Quayle’s  polemical question about why the United States
had  percent of the world’s lawyers. See “The  Percent Legend” in chap. .
141. Hacker : . The annual total of law school graduates when this was written
was about ,. Auerbach : .
142. Magee et al. : chap. . Magee’s methods and findings are critiqued by Cross
; Epp ; Epp a: .
 Notes to pages –

143. On the polemical use of Magee’s work, see chap. , n. .

144. Pitts .
145. Pitts : , .
146. Pitts : . His argument that “lawyer legislating” is a major cause of bad pol-
icy anticipates Magee’s concern.
147. Pitts : , .
148. Radin : .
149. Castelmen at ,  (quoting Warner).
150. That the skill of the lawyer should be free to all is argued in the immensely in-
fluential Piers Plowman (Langland [–]) and Ship of Fools (Brant []).
151. Yunck : .
152. Peter of Blois (c.–c.), quoted at Yunck : . The final lines are from
Psalm .
153. See “The Enlargement and Withdrawal of the Legal World” in the introduction;
Galanter .
154. Galanter and Palay : , ; Gordon .
155. American Lawyer : .
156. Kronman ; Glendon ; Linowitz and Mayer .

 . P             D   
1. On St. Ives, see Green Bag :  (); Axon at Andrews : ; Miller : .
2. Green Bag :  (). See also Green Bag :  (). Radin : 
observes of several later lawyer-saints that “hagiographic tradition represents them as leav-
ing the profession because of its moral dangers.”
3. Tucker : .
4. Anon. : .
5. Anon. : –.
6. Crosswell’s Diary: or The Catskill Almanack, for . . . , reprinted at Dodge
: .
7. Hupfeld [] ; Haslitt : ; Willock : ; Anon. : ; Edwards
: item ; Milburn : ; Ashmore : ; Muller []: ; Esar : ;
Teitelbaum : ; Wilde :  (judge); E. Phillips : ; Rovin : ; Burke
a:  (magistrate);  Cal.: Oct. . The jest (not specifically applied to lawyers) was
present earlier, Anon. : .
8. The Farmer’s Almanack . . . for . . . , reprinted at Dodge : (empha-
sis in original). The lawyer-liar equation is discussed in the section “Lying and Dishon-
esty,” chap.  .
9. Trachtenberg []: .
10. Trachtenberg []: .
11. Trachtenberg []: .
12. Quoted at Yunck : . See the section “The Justice Tariff,” chap. .
13. Sprague : ; Anon. : ; Johnson et al. : .
14. Hupfeld []: . This follows closely an earlier English version (Anon. [?]:
). Foote is presumably Samuel Foote (–), English actor and comic playwright. In
his history of the American legal profession, Anton-Hermann Chroust (: :) re-
prints a version from the Jefferson City (MO) Inquirer, June , , and describes the story
as “widely circulated on the frontier.” Also Lemon : ; Beeton : ; Willock
: ; Aye : ; Phillips : .
 Notes to pages – 

15. Milburn : . The thought is anticipated by Tickleside : . Also, John-
ston : ; Mosher []: ; Schermerhorn : ; Eastman : ; Lupton
: item ; Anon. : ; Esar : ; May : ; Anon. []: ; Wilde
: ; Wilde : ; Humes : .
16. Johnston : item ; Green Bag :  (). The joke reappears later as a
story about an unlucky gambler and a casino operator (Davis : ) and about a jus-
tice of the peace (Shafer and Papadaikis : ; Adler : ).
17. Woods : item .. This is a very close replication of Jerrold : ; Rhodes
: ; and Green Bag :  (). Jerrold (–) was a journalist, playwright, and
renowned wit.
18. Wilde a: .
19. Randy’s Favorite Lawyer Jokes, July , ; Star Tribune, Sept. ,  (source
noted as in Rio de Janeiro); Ross : ;  Cal.: Mar. ; Claro : ; Anon.
a: . The specification to lawyers is recent, but the joke had been around for a long
time with little specification of the patient’s occupation: Ham :  (autobiographi-
cal anecdote); Johnston : item  (attributed to Ham); Lupton : item ; Esar
: ; Hefley : item ; Anon. a; Newman : ; Yarwood []: ;
Wilde a: ; Duncan : . More recently, it has been switched to Bill Clinton
(Symons : ), Peter Mandelson (Dale and Simmons : ), and other British tar-
gets ((Baddiel et al. : ; Sharpe : ).
20. CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Shillaber : ; Hupfeld []: ; Brown
[]:  [= Willock :  = Green Bag :  ()]; Landon : ; Willock :
; Green Bag :  (); Sprague : ; Edwards : item ; Johnson et al.
:  (Lincoln); Gardner :  (Lorenzo Dow) [= Botkin : ]; House :
; Keene  []: ; Golden  []: x (Lincoln); Wilde : xiii (Lincoln);
Studer : ; Knott :  (Lincoln); Humes :  (Lincoln); Grossman : ;
Nolo’s Favorite  (Dow); CLLH : lawyer humor no.  (Dow) [=Streiker :
]; CLLH : lawyer humor no.  (U.S. Grant) [= Adams and Newall :  =
 Cal.: Feb  =  Cal.: Dec. ];  Cal.: May ; Regan :  (Dow). The
story has been switched to clerics: Boatright : ; MacGregor ?: ; McNeil
[]: ; Newman : ; Anon. : ; Phillips : ; Jones and Wheeler :
. And less frequently to “the rich” (Pickens : ), to whites using blacks as shields
from the fire (Pickens : ), and to Democrats (B. Phillips ).
21. Cal.: May  [=  Cal. Nov.  =  Cal.: July ]. A narrative version is at Knott
: . Or the abundance may be of judges: Shafer and Papadaikis : ; Streiker
: ;  Cal.: Oct. .
22. The New-England Almanack for . . . , reprinted at Dodge :  and
Streiker : ; Bigelow :  [= Hupfeld []: ] (“the people have the money”).
In a jest attributed to Jonathan Swift, the devil would prevail in a lawsuit with the clergy
because all the lawyers are on his side. Hood et al. : ; Anon. : ; Macrae
[]: ; Fowler : ; McCann []: . Hell also has all the umpires (Peterson
: ; Marquand : ; Streiker : ) and referees (Brown b: ).
23. Mendelsohn : ; Rywell : ; Spalding : ; Rabinowitz 
[]: .
24. Green Bag :  ().
25. Byrn []: .
26. Anon. :  [= Williams : item ]; Beer’s Almanac . . . for . . . ,
reprinted in Dodge : .
 Notes to pages –

27. Chance : ; Aye : . Another lawyer gained admission when St. Peter
concluded, “He’s no lawyer; he only thinks he’s a lawyer.” Green Bag :  ().
28. Lisa Harinanan, e-mail message to author, Sept. , ; Tibballs : ; Regan
: ;  Cal.: Aug. .
29. Avery :  [= Shillaber : ]; Hupfeld [: ; Sprague : ; DeMorgan
: ; Morton and Malloch : ; Johnston : ; Milburn :  [= Cope-
land :  = Rango : ]; Eastman : ; Moulton : item ; Boatright
:  [= Boatright : ]; Williams : item ; May : .
30. Cook : ; Copeland and Copeland :  [= Rango :  = Berle
[]:  = Friedman : ]; May : ; Braude : item ; Boliska []:
; Woods : item .; Adams : ; Jessel :  (reprinted at Sartor :
); Spalding : ; Wilde : xiv; Dickson : ; Singh : ; Rafferty :
; Rovin : ; Jones and Wheeler : ; Berle : ; Phillips : ; Knott
: ; Novak and Waldoks : ; Phillips : ; Steiger : ; Behrman :
; Adler :  [= Adler : ]; Dover and Fish ; Berle : ; AML :
item no. ; Grossman : ; B. Phillips ; Faine : ;  Cal.: Jan. ; Sub-
ramanian : ; CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Jones and Wheeler : ;
Desmond []: ; B. Phillips : ; Brallier : ;  Cal.: Dec. ; Charleston
Gazette, Sept. , ; Ross : ; Coote : ; Cohl : ; Streiker : ;
Dedopulos : .
31. Morton Sklaroff, e-mail message to author, July , ; Jack Ladinsky, e-mail,
Apr. , ; Elissa, e-mail, Apr. , ; John McCaslin, Washington Times, Aug. ,
, A; Van Muching : ; Tibballs : ; Pritchard : . This story pro-
vides a revealing glimpse of the sequential relation between “oral” transmission (represented
by the e-mail messages), newspaper publication a few months later, and publication in
book form after a further few months. The first edition of the Van Muching book is dated
October . The “improvements in Hell” theme appeared some thirty years earlier as a
result of the sequestering there of Jews who, to Satan’s displeasure, “already . . . raised
$, and want to air-condition the place.” Blumenfeld : ; Alvin : ;
Weston-Macauley :  (“Hadassah Ladies”). Cf. Skubik and Short : 
(“Republican women”); Wright and Wright :  (“club women”). This theme was
anticipated even earlier in a story about magnates organizing and prospering in jail. Green
Bag :  ().
32. Adams and Newall : ; Jones : ; Jhumor list, Apr. , ;  Cal.:
Dec. ; Readers Digest : ; Streiker : ; Lauren Edelman, e-mail message to
author, Aug. , ; Jhumor List, Apr. , ; Sarah Galanter, e-mail, Sept. , ;
Southwell : ; Anon. a: ; Anon. c: ; Regan : .
33. AT  (The Dream: All Parsons in Hell). E.g., Dorson :  (collected by
); Spalding :  (verse); Stangland : ; Johnson : . References to
Jewish sources are at Schwartzbaum : –.
34. Green Bag :  (); New York Times, June , , reprinted at Streiker
: .
35. Rafferty : ; Playboy :  [= Tobias : ]; Knott : ; Terrell
and Buchanan : ; Shafer and Papadaikis : ; Knott : ; Steiger : ;
Behrman : ; Delf : ; Asimov : item ; Adler :  [= Adler :
]; Rovin : ; AML : no. ; Grossman : ; Adams and Newall :
;  Cal.: Mar. ; CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Coote : ; Pease :
; Brallier : ; Ross : ; Coote : ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ; Jhumor
 Notes to pages – 

List, Aug. , ; Streiker :  (St. Yves); Marigay Grana, e-mail message to author,
Mar. , ; Claro : ; Anon. a: ; Regan : ; Colombo : .
36. AT .
37. Botkin  []:  (admiral); Woods : item . (admiral) [= Wright
and Wright : ; Skubik and Short :  (politician); Wilde :  (Republi-
can Senator)]; Dickson :  (Congressman); Anon. :  (congressman); Wilde
a:  (Doctor); Stangland :  (Swede); Berle :  (senator); Phillips :
 (congressman); Knott a:  (sales manager); B. Phillips  (Democratic con-
gressman); Marsh and Goldmark :  (jazz musician).
38. Bigelow : . This is also told as an anecdote about Joseph Choate: Green Bag
:  (); Edwards : item ; Williams : item  [= Williams : item
].; Also Wilde :  (woman lawyer); Rovin : ;  Cal.: June . Cf.
Schindler : .
39. Rovin : .
40. A recent and comprehensive collection of attempts at rapprochement between
religion and the practice of law will be found in Fordham Law Review . In his fore-
word to the collection, Russell Pearce notes how different is the vision of the religious
lawyering movement from “the standard conception of the lawyer’s role.” Fordham Law
Review : .
41. For an account of this proverb, much used by Martin Luther, and its French and
German versions, see Kenny ; Murray : , .
42. Green Bag :  (); Anon. : ; Anon. : ; May : . In recent
versions, the lawyer has to share the thief role: Jones and Wheeler :  (lawyer and
doctor); Streiker :  (lawyer and doctor); Tapper and Press :  (doctor and
priest); Regan :  (lawyer and doctor); Alan Dundes, e-mail message to author, Sept.
,  (lawyer and IRS agent).
43. Green Bag :  ().
44. Burnett : .
45. Green Bag :  (); Green Bag :  (); Cook : ; Edwards : .
46. Heighton :  (two versions); Kahn :  (South Africa, citing  source).
47. Green Bag :  (),
48. Hay :  (told of Supreme Court Justice Harold H. Burton –); Jack-
son : ; May : ; Morecroft []: ; Edwards : ; Esar : ;
Yarwood : ; Baker : ; Foster : ; Rees : ; Kahn :  (South
Africa). Cf. Green Bag :  () (judge sentencing prisoner to death counsels him to
“get such consolation as he can [from priest] but the court advises you to place no reliance
upon anything of that kind”).
49. Knox c.: .
50. Williams : .
51. Streiker : ; Strean :  (rabbi); Brunsting : .
52. Anon. : ; Engelbach : ; Fuller : ; Laing : ; May :
; Yarwood : ; Wilde : .
53. Bialik and Ravnitsky : . For a nuanced assessment, see Stone : –.
The story now circulates in joke form as well: Jhumor list, Apr. ,  (when God gives
sign, rabbi says, “Now its  to ”); Jhumor list June ,  (synagogue elders outvote
rabbi and God); Tapper and Press : ; Winston-Macauley : .
54. Heinz and Laumann found that in   percent of lawyers in Chicago agreed
that “to lead a good life, it is necessary . . . to be guided by the teachings and beliefs of an
 Notes to pages –

established religious group,” while  percent disagreed. Heinz and Laumann :
. In a  survey of partners in the highest-billing law firms, “ percent . . . identify
themselves as Catholics, Protestants, or Jews, [but]  percent never or only rarely attend
religious services. . . . [A]bout  percent attend services once or twice a month, and 
percent attend religious services every week.” Black and Rothman : .
55. Bouwsma : , .
56. Bouwsma : .

 . C       : L         F           S    
1. B. Phillips : ; Green Bag :  (); Anderson : ; Prochnow and
Prochnow : ;  Cal.: Sept. .
2. Behrman : ; Shillaber :  (dispute among judges); Green Bag : 
(); Anon. : ; Engelbach : ; Green Bag :  (); Heighton : ;
Hershfield : ; Mendelsohn : ; Rango : ; Thomas : ; Keene
 []: ; Williams : item ; Richman : ; Lieberman : ;
Woods : item .; Spalding : ; Golden : ; Lieberman : ; Har-
ris : ; Wilde : ; Phillips : ; Adler : , ; Arya : ; 
Cal.: Jan. ;  Cal.: Oct. .
3. Blumenfeld :  [= Adler :  = Adler : ]; Braude : item
; May : ; Woods : item .; Reader’s Digest :  [= Reader’s Digest
: ]; Wilde :  (dress manufacturers) Phillips : ; Claro :  [= Claro
: ].
4. Raskin’s analysis is summarized in chap. , n. .
5. This pattern of lawyer as peacemaker/client as combatant recurs elsewhere in the
joke corpus. See the client version of appeal at once (J), where the lawyer is idealistic and
the client cynical, or gift to judge (A), where the lawyer tries to restrain the client from
provocative tactics.
6. Macaulay .
7. Blumberg .
8. Sarat and Felstiner : .
9. Hoenig ().
10. Communists: Williams : item ; Cerf :  [= Cerf a: ]; Meier
: ; Cerf : . Politicians: Holub : ; Prochnow : ; Orcutt : ;
Esar : ; Lehr et al. : ; McManus : ; Braude : item ; Braude
: item ; O’Neal and O’Neal : ; Gerler : ; Woods : item .;
Murdock : ; Morecroft []: ; Mandel : ; Skubik and Short : ;
Wilde  (Democrat): ; Bernnard : ; Bonham : ; Mr. O’S ; Baker
: ; Phillips b: ; Wilde : ; Anon. : ; Lukes and Galnoor ;
Rovin : ; William Grey ; Breslin :  (Brian Mulroney); Gross : ;
Humes : ; Allday  (UK); Cooper, Oct. ,  (UK); Faine : ; Adams
and Newell :  (Australia); Bob Phillips ; Mittal and Gupta :  (India);
Behrman : ; Raasch, May , ; Bob Phillips : ; Adams and Newell
:  (Austrialia); Pretzer ; Goldstein-Jackson :  (UK); Kostick : ;
Streiker : ; Harvey ca.a:  (India); Dale and Simmons :  (UK); Claro
: .
11. Cerf : ; Cerf : ; Meier : ; Lehr et al. : .
12. Knott : ; collected by M. Caudill, Piedmont, CA., Sept. ; Behrman
: ; Asimov : item ; Adler :  [= Adler : ]; Builler : ; Rovin
 Notes to pages – 

: ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Grossman : ; Metcalf : ;  Cal.: Apr. ;
CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Morgan ; Marigay Grana, letter to author, Apr.
, ; George Wright, letter to author, Sept. , ; Ross :  (Australia); Cohl
: ; Two Fun Guys ; Jhumor List, Jan. , ; Jhumor List, Mar. , ;
Anon. a: ; Regan : .
13. Hoenig : . A simple doctor-engineer-lawyer version is found at May : .
14. Pound Conference . The National Conference on the Causes of Popular Dis-
satisfaction with the Administration of Justice, held in St. Paul, MN, in April , was
organized by Chief Justice Burger and sponsored by the Judicial Conference of the United
States, the Conference of Chief Justices, and the American Bar Association. Needless to
say, there was little to connect the discontents voiced there with popular dissatisfaction.
15. Samuelson : A.
16. Shafer and Papadakis : ; Humes []: ; Hay : ; Knott : ;
Adler : ; Humes : ; Streiker : .
17. Edwards : ; Milburn : ; Eastman : ; Copeland : ; Anon.
: ; Wilde : ; Steiger : ; Harvey c.a: ;  Cal.: July .
18. Nolo’s Favorite . Lean : : credits a barrister with the quip “Two attor-
neys can live in a town, when one cannot” in . I have not found any printed versions
between that and Esar : . That same year it was described as “an ancient story
which lawyers love to tell” by Silberman : . Pietsch : ; Wilde : ;
Rafferty : ; Chariton :  (LBJ); Knott : ; Steiger : ; Behrman
: ; Rovin : ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Metcalf :  (LBJ); AML : no. 
(long narrative version); Adler : ;  Cal.: item ;  Cal.: July ;  Cal.:
Apr. ; Ross : ;  Cal.: Dec. . Cf. Olson :  (tort reform campaigner
cites as “axiom” to explain liability crisis “happening throughout our system.”) The inter-
nal attribution to Lyndon Baines Johnson (–) by Chariton and Metcalf may evi-
dence an earlier currency.
19. Oxford English Dictionary, d ed., s.v. “ambulance chaser.”
20. Scruggs : item ; Brodnick : ; Wilde : .
21. Adler : .
22. Rafferty : .
23. Daenzer .
24. Braude : item  (virtually identical to Lurie : ); Masson []: ;
Johnston : ; Mosher : ; Williams : item ; Rango : ; Mendel-
sohn : ; Golden  []: ; Davis : ; Hershfield : ; Larkin :
; Spalding : ; Wilde : ; Phillips : ; AML : no. , no. ;
Grossman :  (arm in cast);  Cal.: Apr. ; Mital and Gupta : ; Adams
: . Cf. Adler :  (lawyer tells victim, “Don’t get up”); Golden []:  (sea
voyage on advice of lawyer, not doctor).
25. Adams : ; Green Bag :  (); Anon. a: ; Brodnick : n.p.
(told of President Gerald Ford).
26. Behrman : ; Knott b: ; Rovin : ; Berle : ; Coote
: .
27. Heighton : ; Esar :  (Choate reference dropped).
28. Edwards : item .
29. Edwards : item .
30. Green Bag :  (), attributed to Harper’s Weekly; Edmund and Williams
: ; Milburn :  (more successful of Jewish claimants in railway accident “had
 Notes to pages –

der presence of mind to kick my wife in der face”); Johnson et al. : item  (man
tells motorist he can have another go at wife if she was not injured); Lupton : item
 (woman volunteers to hit husband who was in accident if defendant has deep pocket);
Brodnick : ; Esar : ; McHale : ; Sharpe : .
31. Ernst : .
32. Schermerhorn : ; Masson :  (traveling salesman); Anderson : 
(Jew); Golden : ; Laugh Book Magazine (July ):  (tramp); Walker : ;
Alvin a:  (Jew); McHale :  (Scot); Barry :  (Jew); Coote : 
(Jew); Coote :  (Jew). A similar opportunism in making claims is often attributed
to Scots (collision of two taxis leads to a score of injuries) (Ferguson : ; McHale
: ).
33. Dornstein : –, , , .
34. Moulton : item ; Adams : . Cf. May :  (“legal mortis”).
35. Jhumor List, Sept. , ; Greene :  (third is Democrat); Southwell
(English setting); Anon. a:  (redneck); Tapper and Press a:  (black); Harris
a:  (redneck).
36. Green Bag :  (); Edwards : item ; Edmund and Williams : ;
Cobb : item ; Moulton : item ; Peterson : . Cf. Chance : 
(wife of injured man tells railroad it won’t get a cent out of her); cf. Lupton : item
 (injured Negro lying near railway disaster asked about damages denies hitting train:
“You cynain’t git no damages out ob me”).
37. Anon. a: . Cf. Anon. b:  and May : , where victims who sue
for injuries sustained by fall into open coal chute are jailed for stealing coal.
38. Edwards : –; Edmund and Williams :  (railroad director); Rango
:  (railroad director); Vaidyanathan :  (Indian railroad official).
39. Phillips : . As the coal chute and the working youngster suggest, this is a
much older joke. I have seen, but am unable to locate, an earlier version. According to
Anon. b:  and May : , this strategy may succeed. Cf. the preemptive strat-
egy of the doctor:
Dr. Perlman was examining a patient when his nurse rushed into the room. “Excuse me,
Doctor,” she said, “but that man you just gave a clean bill of health to walked out of the office and
dropped dead. What should I do?”
“Turn him around so he looks like he was walking in,” replied the M.D.
Wilde a: ; Knott b: ; Stangland : ; Phillips : .
40. Johnson et al. : ; Cobb : .
41. When Douglas Rosenthal (: ) studied personal injury claimants in New
York City, he found no religious difference in activity/passivity as clients. However, this
does not speak directly to the propensity to bring claims. Nor does Matthew Silberman’s
(: ) finding that Jewish residents of the Detroit metropolitan area in  were
more likely to go to lawyers, but their small numbers in the sample did not support
any firm conclusions. Silberman attributed greater Jewish involvement with the legal sys-
tem to greater wealth and social integration rather than to religious or ethnic reasons.
(These factors would not have been present during the period in which the conniving
claimant jokes arose.) None of the studies of proclivity to claim has tested the religious/
ethnic variable.
42. Allen : . A related story tells of a collision in the desert between Arab and
Israeli tanks: the Arab driver leaps out shouting “I surrender,” the Israeli jumps out shout-
ing “whiplash.” Barry : ; Eilbirt : .
 Notes to pages – 

43. Pietsch : ; Knott : ; Jhumor List, Nov. , ; Cohl : . After
a decade as a joke about Jews, the sushi bar shifted its clientele to lawyers:  Cal.: Mar.
; Southwell : ; Regan : . Leo Rosten (: ) credits the popularity of
“so sue me” to the musical Guys and Dolls () and Damon Runyon’s earlier stories on
which it was based. The phrase serves as the title of James Yaffe’s book (Yaffe ) about
the Jewish Conciliation Court in New York City.
44. Trachtenberg []: –.
45. On these Jewish fire stories, see Davies : –; Davies : –. An
insurance publication advised, “There are honorable Jews and there are honorable Gen-
tiles, but that the evil disposed among the race gravitate to incendiarism is a notorious
fact.” Insurance Monitor :  (), quoted at Baker : , n..
46. Clode : ; Kieffer : ; Robey : ; Richman : xiii; Knox
ca.: . Long gone in the United States, the story survives in England: Mason :
 (West Riding businessman); Blue : .
47. Johnston : item ; Ferguson : ; Cerf a: ; Berle : . Curi-
ously, the earliest instance of this story is an anecdote about a figure far removed from
the pawnbrokers and dry goods proprietors that generally inhabit it, the president of
Oberlin College, John Henry Burrows, D.D., printed in the New York Times at the turn
of the century. Anon. : .
48. Cohl : ; Alvin : ; Vas : . Cf. Muller []:  (merchant tells
son marriage to wealthy woman almost as good as failure); Golden :  (good luck
if die before repayment due).
49. Anon b: .
50. Murray : ; Kiser :  (lucky customer broke arm); Ernst : ;
Lupton : item  (lucky to have three accidents); Cerf :  (lucky to lose arms
and legs day after taking out policy); Murray :  (lucky to break neck); Howcroft
 (good luck that wife was run over).
51. Anon a: .
52. Anon. : .
53. Kinser : .
54. For a recent assessment of the “anti-heart balm movement,” see Larson : –.
55. Eilbirt : –; Geiger :  (quoted by C. Davies at Ziv and Zajdman :
) (French); Cobb :  (tornado, not explicitly Jewish but “proprietor of a small retail
clothing store”); Asimov :  (hurricane, Jew); Anon.  (flood, hillbillies); Novak
:  (earthquake, Jew); Walker :  (flood, Jew); Tobias :  (flood); Allen
:  (flood, Jew); Yermonee  (hurricane, Robert Maxwell); E. Phillips []
(flood, factory owner): ; Hochwald []:  (hurricane, Jew); Vas  (flood, Jew);
Harvey ca. b: ; Tibballs :  (storm, Jew). The joke also appears as a Hoja
story, presumably at a much earlier date. Shah []: .
56. Cohl : ; Adams and Newall :  [= Randy’s Favorite Lawyer Jokes,
July , ); Regan : ;  Cal.: Oct. .
57. Such switches are particularly frequent among the Betrayal jokes discussed in
chap. .
58. Aye : . The story is told as an anecdote about Frederick Edwin Smith
(–), first Earl of Birkinhead. Also Rango : ; Jackson :  (Birkinhead
defending bus company); Fadiman : ; Foster : ; Hay :  (Birkenhead);
Rovin : ; Davidson :  (boy has grown into “young man”). Cf. Spalding :
 (Jewish grandmother displays arthritic condition).
 Notes to pages –

59. Varon :  (reported as told in late s); Cerf :  (Irish); Reader’s
Digest :  [= Reader’s Digest : ]; Mindess :  (Jewish); Golden :
 (Jewish); McElroy : ; Humes []: ; Marquand :  (Jewish) [= Pollack
: ]; Wilde :  (Jewish); Rosten  (Irish); Berle : ; Coote : ;
Coote: :  (Irish); Mason : ; Colombo :  (French Canadian going to
Ste. Anne-de-Beaupré).
The Lourdes trope surfaced earlier in a joke about a Jewish immigrant who proposes
to feign lameness to avoid working. Lipman []: . Lipman records this story as cir-
culating between  and  ().
60. S & A Restaurant Corp. v. Leal,  S.W. d , , , ;  Tex Lexis ;
Tex. Sup. J. :  (). The strained distinction the court erected to reach this result
was soon dismantled. In Keim v. Anderson, decided by the El Paso Court of Appeals on
Apr. , , the court explained that judgment is rendered not “when the trial court
officially announces its decision in open court.” Texas Lawyer .
61. U.S. News & World Report , .
62. Anderson .
63. Galanter : –.
64. Galanter ; Brill and Lyon, ; Strasser ; Daniels ; Hayden . A
more recent crop of stories can be found on the “Loony Lawsuits” page of the Web site
of the American Tort Reform Association, formerly called “Horror Stories: Stories That
Show a Legal System That’s Out of Control.” The November  batch is analyzed in
Galanter .
65. Lande : .
66. Lande : .
67. Quayle :  [].
68. On these campaigns and their backers, see Daniels ; Chesebro ; Daniels
and Martin : chaps. , , ; Daniels and Martin .
69. Kritzer and Pickerill : .
70. Dornstein  concludes that the image of the personal injury faker “allows the
honest claimant to believe that personal injury compensation is dirty in all its aspects” and
thus liberates him to discount the immorality of “exaggerating a claim or authorizing their
attorneys to make outrageous demands on their behalf or conspiring with a garageman to
inflate the damage estimate and split the difference” ().
71. Burger .
72. Johnston : item  [= Copeland :  = Williams : item ]; Berle
: .
73.  Cal.: item . This was enlisted as a lawyer joke only recently—probably
in the early s. Originally, the joke figure was a Jew walking across the golf course:
Edwards : item ; Johnson et al. : ; Hershfield : ; Copeland and
Copeland : item ; Ford et al. : ; Williams : item ; Golden 
[]: ; Anon. []: ; Crompton : ; Pollack :  [= Triverton : ];
Marks : ; Allen : . The Jewish element is effaced in Hershfeld :  (“city
chap”) and Matson :  (“little old foreigner”). Scots also appear frequently—Knox
: ; Larkin : ; Wilde : ; Rosten : —along with a single Irish-
man (McHale : ). Those without ethnic specification turn up with Pendleton
[]: ; Rovin : ; McCune []; Berle : ; Rovin : ; Streiker
: ; Brown c: .
Lawyers arrive in Green : ; AML : no. , no. ; Grossman : ;
 Notes to pages – 

Nolo’s Favorite ;  Cal.: item ; King and McNeil : ; Brallier : ; Ross
: ; Regan :  [ Cal.: July ].
74. Lawyer Jokes from Internet : no. ; Wilde : ; Phillips : ; Knott
: ; Behrman : ; Rovin : ; AML : no. .
75. Roper, no. .
76. Engelbach : ; Beeton : ; Dr. Merryman : ; Lemon : ;
Willock : ; DeProses n.d.: ; Andrews : ; Morton and Malloch : ;
Heighton : ; Lawson : ; Franklin : ; Esar : ; Wilde : ;
Phillips : ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Lawyer Jokes ;  Cal.: Feb. ; Generic
Lawyer Jokes, Sept. , ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ; Streiker : ; Regan :
. I was told this story by my father in Philadelphia in the early s. There is a med-
ical counterpart story in which the doctor’s son cures the patient whose illness put him
through college, etc. Robey :  (doctor can’t afford to marry patient); Williams :
item ; Rango : ; Meier :  (can’t marry); Wachs : ; Anon. a;
Pendleton []: ; Bonham and Gulledge : ; Berle : ; Stangland : ;
Adams : ; Anon. a: ; Anon. : .
77. Adams ; Cerf : ; MacDonald []:  (told as anecdote about Cana-
dian lawyer in s); E. Phillips : ; Goldstein-Jackson : item .
78. Thornberg : , n. .
79. Thornberg : –.
80. Scruggs : item ; Green Bag :  (); Mosher []: .
81. Leininger : n.p.
82. I first downloaded this item in . A Google search (June , ) for “lawyer
kidney stone joke” found the story on some  web pages. Of these only three attributed
the story to Buchwald. Art Buchwald, “The Case of the Lawyer’s Kidneys,” reprinted in
Roth : . Also at Internet ; CLLH : no. ; Redneck Humor, June , .
83. Lawyer Jokes from Internet : No. .
84. Amy Singer, e-mail message to author, July , ; Stephen M. Masterson,
e-mail, Aug. , ; Ken S. Gallant, e-mail, Oct. , . The roles are reversed in e-mail
from Joseph R. Thome, Apr. , . In Britain, the joke depicts different rivalries: Dale
and Simmons :  (old Labour / new Labour); Sharpe :  (rival football sup-
porters). The story is descended from an earlier joke about a group who tease and harass
a waiter or cook; when they finally relent, their victim replies, “I’ll stop pissing in your
coffee.” Anon. b; Novak : .
85. Mindes :  discusses perceptions of the lawyer as hero. But this seems to be
a misnomer. The major loadings of his “hero” factor are self-confident, competitive,
aggressive, and energetic, a combination that includes neither the courage nor the benefi-
cence associated with the lawyer heroes in contemporary fiction, television, and film.
86. This is distinctively, if not exclusively American. Narayana Rao  notes that in
India “what is significantly absent in movies, literature and folklore are stories of lawyers
who stand out as heroes fighting for justice. India does not have hero characters like Perry
Mason. There are no stories of skillful lawyers who work for innocent people in order to
vindicate them” ().
87. Anon.  [Cole’s nd.]: –.
88. Lurie : ; Thomas : . A version placed in ninteenth-century America
appeared in an English collection (Phillips : ). Comparable stories depict the lawyer
defending a streetcar conductor against an arrogant passenger (Anon. : ), confound-
ing the schemes of an unjust seller (set in  England [Cook : ]), intimidating an
 Notes to pages –

oppressive and overbearing landlord (Keene  []: ), and a Jewish lawyer turning
the tables on a false accuser in nineteenth-century Petrograd (Rabinowitz :  []).
89. Allen : item ; Fuller : item ; Phillips :  (England); Sartor
: ; Adler : ; Streiker : ; Regan : . A similar story, in which Lin-
coln refuses to press a claim against a widow with six children, is at Fuller : item .
90. Cantor : . Wilde :  (golf lessons); McDougal :  (golf les-
sons); Phillips :  (voice lessons); Rovin :  (tennis lessons); Mital and Gupta
:  (singing lessons).
91. Knott :  [= Knott a: ]; Taubeneck : ; Davis : ; Braude
: item ; Playboy :  [= Playboy : ]; Anon. a; Wachs : ;
Austin : ; Adams :  ; Wilde :  [= Wilde : ]; Wilde : 
(lawyer and doctor—presumably she is pregnant); Rovin : ; Rovin : ; Knott
a: ; Adams : ; Adams : ; Goldstein-Jackson : ; Harvey
ca.a: ; Alvin : . While the receptionist’s leverage may originally have been that
of a scorned lover seeking “heart balm,” the lawyer’s presence takes on a different mean-
ing in the era of sexual harassment suits.

 . T   D               W       L     J    
1. See A, either side, and A, reversing course, in chap. .
2. Heinz and Laumann : , ; LoPucki .
3. Rosen :.
4. In , over  percent of lawyers worked for some governmental body (this
includes judges); about  percent worked for private industry. Less than  percent were
public defenders, legal aid, or public interest lawyers. Almost three-quarters of active
lawyers were in private practice. Curran and Carson : 
5. Heinz and Laumann : . Donald Landon did a comparable assessment of
rural practitioners in the Midwest and found that  percent of the legal effort was
devoted to individual and small business concerns. Landon : .
6. Heinz et al. : table . Since the number of lawyers in Chicago had doubled,
this meant that the total effort devoted to the personal sector had increased by  percent.
But the corporate sector grew by  percent. To the extent that lawyers serving the cor-
porate sector were able to command more staff and support services with their effort,
these figures understate the gap in services delivered.
7. U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, “Census of Legal Services,” :
table , , table ; , table ; , table ; , table . For , only total
receipts are available from the U.S. Census. Percentages for classes of clients are taken
from the estimates of Sander and Williams : .
8. Even this more-than-double rate of growth understates the growth of business
expenditures on legal services, for it includes only “outside” lawyers and does not include
in-house legal expenditures, which greatly increased during this period. For exclusion of
in-house legal services from Census of Service Industries, see the introduction to U.S.
Bureau of Census : iii–vi.
9. Heinz and Laumann : .
10. On the contrasting styles of ordinary lawyering and megalawyering, see Galanter
.
11. Heinz and Laumann : .
12. In , only  law firms in the United States had  or more lawyers and the
largest firm had about  lawyers (Smigel : ). The total number of lawyers in these
 Notes to pages – 

large firms was less than  percent of all the lawyers then in practice. By ,  firms
had  or more lawyers; the total number of lawyers in these firms was ,. Curran
and Carson : , .
13. Sander and Williams : –.
14. Firms: A, A (associate and partner versions), A, B, E, F, J, J. Clients:
A, A, D, J, J, J, J, J. This includes those where the client is identified as a
“magnate” or a “tycoon.”
15. Heinz and Laumann (: ) estimate that in  criminal defense absorbed 
percent of the effort of the Chicago bar and prosecution  percent. In Landon’s analogous
estimate for midwestern rural locales, the total effort expended on criminal law was  per-
cent on criminal defense and  percent on prosecution. Landon : .
16. The exceptions include (much of ) L.A. Law (–) and movies like The For-
tune Cookie (), Kramer versus Kramer (), The Verdict (!), Class Action (),
The Rainmaker (), The Sweet Hereafter (), A Civil Action (), and Erin Brock-
ovich ().
17. On the history of the exclusion of women, see Epstein ; Garza ; Morello
.
18. Curran and Carson : .
19. Internet collection e-mailed by Julian Killingly, Sep. , : item ; Steiger :
;  Cal.: item  [ =  Cal.: Jan.  =  Cal.: Mar. ] (female litigator);  Cal.:
Sept. ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ; Alvin : ; Alvin a: ; Pritchard :
. The same comparison is made with other “difficult” women: Wilde :  (Beverly
Hills woman); Knott a:  (woman selling used cars); Rhode ():  (woman
with PMS); Alvin :  (Hillary Clinton); Cohl :  (PMS); Dedopulos :
 [= Baddiel et al. : ] (PMS); Symans :  (Hillary Clinton); Hobbes b:
 (PMS).
20. Lawyer Jokes from Internet : no. . Again, the comparison is made about
other “difficult” women: Allen :  (JAP); Adams and Newall :  (soprano);
Pease :  (“woman with her period”); men’s rights association newsletter, quoted by
Rhode :  (women’s lib); Jewish Humor Issue no.  [e-mail from M. Weiss] (May
) (Jewish mother); Cohl :  (PMS); Marsh and Goldmark :  (vocalist);
Pietsch :  (PMS); Symons :  (Hillary Clinton); Baddiel et al. : 
(PMS); Jhumor List, Mar. ,  (Jewish woman preparing for Passover).
21. Edwards : item .
22. Thus women lawyers become protagonists in some jokes in which lawyers are out-
rageously aggressive (e.g., Steal more [A]; Poisoned you [F]).
23. Epstein :  [].
24. Epstein : –.
25. Epstein : .
26. Pierce : .
27. Cal.: Dec. . Cf. Alvin :  (cross lesbian and lawyer).
28. Rovin : ; AML : no. . This woman lawyer is the only female to be
featured recently in this widespread monomania story, which appears in Boliska []:
 (sex-obsessed female hippie); Anon. b (sex-obsessed Parisian girl); Asimov :
item  (golfer); Reader’s Digest :  (stockbroker); Wilde :  (congressman);
Wilde :  (golfer); McDougal []:  (golfer); Gardner a:  (filmmaker);
Wilde :  (congressman); Caras :  (military historian whose wife’s off-the-
shoulder outfit reminds him of Moshe Dayan); Wilde and Wozniak :  (systems
 Notes to pages –

designer); Rovin :  (football fan); Berle :  (football fan); Warner : 
(golfer); Forbes a:  (golfer); Knott :  (sports fan); Bar-Lev and Weis : 
(sex maniac); Cohl :  (sports fan).
29. Knott : . The same joke with a generic (nonlawyer?) “career woman” is at
Knott : . In other versions, the disinclination to “wear myself out” is not con-
nected with the demands of career: Asimov : item  (father/lion at zoo); Walker
:  (mother/tiger at zoo); Alvin :  (WASP socialite/gorilla at zoo); Coote
:  (Tarzan/crocodile in jungle) [= Coote : ].
30. Epstein et al. : –; Hagen and Kay : . For a nuanced account of
how these pressures and preconceptions work out on the shop floor, see Reichman and
Sterling .
31. Knott : . Other law firm versions in Grossman : ;  Cal.: item .
32. This story is intimately connected to A, another joke involving a contest, often
about hiring for exalted rather than subordinate positions. The difference is not in the
contest, but in the punch line (“How much would you like it to be?”). See the section
“Eloquence, Persuasiveness, Resourcefulness” in chap.  for a discussion of that joke.
33. Some early versions do not have a formal contest: Anderson :  (partners fix
competition for pretty girl); Golden :  (hire this girl for looking). Or they involve
nepotism: Cerf :  (hire wife’s sister); Mendelsohn :  (wife’s cousin); Wilson
:  (same); Crompton :  (wife’s sister’s daughter); Banc and Dundes : 
(Ceaucescu’s cousin); Phillips :  (wife’s cousin). Or political favoritism: Esar :
; Anon. d: .
The most typical contest is a quiz about is the sum of two and two: Allen : item
 ( + ); Taubeneck : ; McManus : ; Kern  []: ; Reader’s
Digest : ; Golden : ; Legman  []: ; Elgard : ; Murray :
; Cohen : ; Woods : item ..; Blumenfeld : ; Playboy : ;
Wilde : ; Cleveland : ; Triverton : ; Wilde : ; Caras : ;
Banc and Dundes : ; Delf : ; Warner : ; Phillips : ; Anon.
a: . The more complex contest about caring for a sum of money, found in the law
firm version listed in n.  above, appears in Shumaker : ; Pietsch :  (man
choosing wife); Knott a: ; Adams and Newall : ; Barnett and Kaiser :
 (wife); Adams and Newall a:  (wife); Coote : ; Baddiel and Stone :
 (wife); Duck  (wife); Leigh and LePine :  (wife); Dale and Simmons :
 (Bill Clinton choosing new wife); Brown b:  (wife); Keelan : ; Baddiel
et al. :  (wife); Jan Hoem, e-mail to author, Mar. ,  (wife); Lyons a: 
(wife); McFool :  (wife); Johnson  (wife); Mr. ‘K’ :  (wife); Anon.
c:  (wife); Hobbes a:  (wife); Hobbes b: .
34. One example is equally conclusive (A).
35. Auerbach : . On the exclusion from the American Bar Association until
the World War II era, see Auerbach : –, .
36. Smigel : . Cf. the account in Gould  of the obstacles to the rise of an
Irish Catholic lawyer in a large New York firm in the late s (xv–xviii).
37. The quote is from Rowe : , . The campaigns are described in Auerbach
: chap. .
38. Henry S. Drinker, quoted at Auerbach : .
39. Bloomfield : . Curiously the term “shyster,” which has been around since
the s, hardly appears in the lawyer joke corpus. See n.  below.
40. Fortune : –. Thirty years later, Jerome Carlin found that Jews made up 
 Notes to pages – 

percent of the New York City bar, but a far smaller portion of elite law practice. Carlin
: , 
41. Yale Law Journal : .
42. Smigel : .
43. Heinz and Laumann : . The authors note that “‘percentage Jewish’ had a
stronger negative correlation with prestige than did any of the other religious and ethnic
categories.”
44. In a National Opinion Research Center survey of the career plans of seniors
graduating from American colleges in , Jews made up nearly  percent of those aim-
ing to be lawyers and . percent of those planning to attend law school. Greeley :
tables ., .. At this time just over  percent of the total population of the United States
were Jews.
45. In Carnegie Commission surveys of graduate study, Jews composed nearly one-
fifth of all law students in  (and one-third of students in the twenty top-rated law
schools). By  “the proportion of students of Jewish origin dropped to twelve percent.”
Auerbach : .
46. Black and Rothman : .
47. Anon. : ; Anon. a:  (two unnamed lawyers); Heighton : 
(Choate and Jewish client); Mendelsohn :  (Choate and unnamed lawyer); Johnson
et al. :  [= Williams : item ] (young Jewish lawyer consults Rufus Choate
about fee in first important case); Fuller : item  (same, but Joseph Choate); May
: ; Brodnick : .
48. Joseph H. Choate (–), prominent lawyer, after-dinner speaker, and U.S.
Ambassador to Great Britain, was the cousin of Rufus Choate (–), an equally
famous lawyer of an earlier day, who frequently figured in the entirely professional story
(B) discussed in chap. .
49. Rosten : ; Topol []: .
50. Anon. [Anecdota] : item . “Yens” (or “yentz” or “yents”) carries the same
double meaning of “to copulate” and “to cheat or exploit” as the English “screw” and
“fuck.” See Rosten : .
51. A false etymology links the term “shyster” to Jewish lawyers. In fact, the term,
which goes back to the s, antedates the visible presence of Jews in the American bar.
On the derivation of the term from the German “scheisser,” and the shift from its origi-
nal meaning of bumbling incompetent to sleazy trickster, see Cohen . In any event,
the term “shyster” rarely appears in jokes.
52. Dornstein : , . Lawrence Mitchell argues that the  New York
statute restricting stockholder’s derivative suits was “adopted as the proximate (but almost
certainly not the sole proximate) result of deeply ingrained antisemitism in the New York
bar and corporate world” (: ).
53. See D in chap. .
54. Alvin : .
55. An outstanding older example is the young lawyer/older lawyer version of A
(Pathelin). A (ghostwriter’s revenge) anticipates the “large firm” instances discussed below.
56. On the demographic transformation of the profession and its implications, see
Galanter .
57. Rodent : . The source of this story appears to be someone young enough
not to have known that the firm in question (founded in ) was renowned many years
before Dewey (–) joined it, when it was known as Root, Ballantine.
 Notes to pages –

58. Susan Bandes, e-mail message to author, June , .

59. Dorothea Kettrukat, e-mail message to John Kidwell, Aug. , .
60. Tutt is a fictional lawyer created by Arthur Train (–), one of America’s
most popular writers in the interwar years. Tutt, head of a small Manhattan law firm, “in
almost every story . . . takes the side of a good person who is unfairly being disinherited,
or in some other fashion being treated badly. Tutt uses his technical expertise in the law
and/or his courtroom skills to come to the rescue.” (Papke : –.) Between 
and  eighty-six Tutt stories appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, the preeminent
magazine of the day. The emblematic status of Tutt is described by Papke , who
observes that, like Perry Mason, Tutt works in a small, independent law office, enjoys pro-
fessional autonomy and is “free of bureaucracy and hierarchy” ().

. B  T
1. Uslaner ; Putnam ; Fukuyama .
2. Uslaner : fig. .
3. Lipset and Schneider ; Uslaner : ff.
4. Craig : .
5. Newton : –. Presumably the meaning of trust to respondents may vary
across times and settings: for example, whether it means confidence in others’ compe-
tence, ability to help, or their allegiance and loyalty. Does trust mean I expect to be served,
sustained, cared for? Not interfered with? Not betrayed? Or some or all?
6. Califano .
7. Peters : .
8. Denby : .
9. Hurst : – (security devices); Gilson  (transaction costs); Suchman
and Cahill  (channeling and bonding).
10. The classic text on the limited role of legal controls is Macaulay .
11. Princeton Survey Research Associates, Great American TV Poll no.  (), avail-
able on Westlaw, Poll Database. This is certainly not a new phenomenon. Back in ,
when a national sample of adults was asked which of a list of professions and occupations
they trusted the most, lawyers came in at the bottom ( percent as opposed to  percent
doctors,  percent professors/ teachers). Gallup Poll (), available on Westlaw, Poll
Database.
12. Black .
13. Peter D. Hart Research Associates : table . A  survey of a much smaller
sample found a more negative view of lawyers’ devotion to clients. Fifty-seven percent of
respondents thought “most lawyers are more concerned with their own self-promotion
than their client’s best interests.” Leo J. Shapiro : .
14. Nolo’s Favorite ; other lawyer versions include Wilde : ; Shafer and
Papadakis : ; Berle : ; Rovin : ; AML : no. ;  Cal.: May ;
CLLH : no.  (= Adams and Newall : ); Ross : ;  Cal.: Oct. ;
Kahn and Boe : ; anon. Stanford law student, Mar. , ; Greene : ;
Regan : .
15. Croy  []: ; Taubeneck :  (Jew outwits Scot); Cerf : ;
Laing : ; Wachs : ; Anon. : item .; Schuster : ; Edwards ;
Streiker : .
16. Arneson :  (townie outwits preppy); Wilde :  (Irishman outwits
priest); Hornby :  (same); Howcroft :  (farmer outwits city man); Jones and
 Notes to pages – 

Wheeler (farmer outwits tourist); Phillips :  (Scotsman outwits Englishman);

Reader’s Digest :  (local outwits tourist); Johnson :  (woman outwits man);
Hobbes b:  (same).
17. May :  (rabbi outwits priest); Walker :  (same); Anon. : 
(same); Harris and Rabinovitch :  (Soviet Jewish version featuring mutual accusa-
tions by a rabbi and an Orthodox priest); Jhumor list, Jan. ,  (rabbi outwits priest);
Cohl :  (one cleric outwits another); Baddiel and Stone :  (rabbi outwits
priest); Jhumor List, May ,  (same); Jhumor List, July ,  (same); Brown
a:  (same); Dale and Simmons :  (Peter Mandelson outwits John Prescott);
Baddiel et al. :  (rabbi outwits priest); Tapper and Press :  (same); FHM
:  (same). One early version has the rabbi’s stratagem undone by the Irish cop,
who asks the priest, “Father, how fast was this little fellow with the bottle going when he
backed into your car.” O’Neal and O’Neal : . Cf. May :  (Irish cop story
without the flask).
18. Grossman : . In most versions of this popular story, the animal sighted is a
bear. Hence in the subsequent discussion, this joke is referred to as outrun bear. The first
lawyer version appears in Jones and Wheeler : ; Lowdown Disk : item ;
Nolo’s Favorite ; Berle : ; Rabin ; Lawyer Jokes from Internet : no. ;
Brallier : ;  Cal.: July ; Cohl : ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , .
19. A Nexis search in November  (something like “cougar or bear w/ outrun”)
produced some seventy-six printed versions, starting with a telling by a Harvard Business
School professor at the International Monetary Conference in Brussels (Trigaux : )
and including tellings by President Reagan (e.g., Smith ) and, by , references to
“that old joke about . . .”
20. Lawyer Jokes from Internet : no. ; Streiker : ; Greene : ;
Regan : ;  Cal.: Apr. /.
21. CLLH : lawyer humor no. . Other lawyer versions, almost identical: Ross
: ; Cohl : ;  Cal.: Jan. ; Tibballs : item ; Regan : ;
FHM : .
22. E.g., Masson [] : [= Milburn : ]; Edmund and Williams : ;
Lurie : ; Mendelsohn : ; Eastman : ; Copeland : ; Johnson et
al. :  [= Williams : item ]; Fuller : item ; Esar : ; Gerler
: ; Woods : item .; Crompton : ; B. Phillips a: ; Marquand
:  [= Pollack :  = Triverton : ]. Apart from lawyers, no other new pro-
tagonists have appeared, apart from a single appearances by Robert Maxwell (Yermonee
), “two bosses” in topical collection (Phillips : ), and accountants (Anon. a:
 = Anon. a: ).
23. AML : no. .
24. Knott, : . Other lawyer versions at Steiger : ; Behrman : ;
Rovin : ; Adler :  [= Adler : ]; Grossman : ; Nolo’s Favorite ;
Humes :  [= Knott ]; AML no. , no. ;  Cal.: July ; CLLH :
lawyer humor no. ;  Cal.: July ; Ross :  (woman lawyer);  Cal.: Oct. ;
Dedopulos : ; Greene : ;  Cal.: Jan. ; Tibballs : item ; Regan
: ; Anon. c: .
25. A precursor has a Polish Jew defining honesty as sharing overpayment with part-
ner. Knox : ; Hicks : . Anon.  () features a clothing merchant of
unspecified ethnicity, but starting with Schermerhorn  () it is overwhelmingly told
about Jewish characters, although there are some nondenominational clothiers and an
 Notes to pages –

occasional Scot: Hershfield : item  (Jewish debaters); Johnson et al. : ;
Hershfield :  (Scots debaters); Williams : item ; Wright : ; Fuller :
item ; Cerf :  [= Cerf a: ]; Allen : item  (Scots tradesman); Esar
: ; Keene []: ; Jessel : ; McCarthy : ; Youngman : ;
Gerler : ; Woods : item .; Asimov : item ; Anon. : item .;
Youngman : ; Brodnick : ; Marquand : ; Wilde : ; Walker
: ; Yarwood []: ; Aspinwall : . Since the arrival of the lawyers in ,
it has continued to flourish as a Jewish joke: Allen : ; Kramer : ; Coote :
; Coote : ; Pease : ; Coote : ; Keelan : . It appears also in a
deracinated form: B. Phillips : ; E. Phillips : ; Cohl :  (first daughter!)
Colombo :  (Winnipeg merchants), but it has not been switched to any other
group.
26. Lawyer Jokes from Internet : no. . Other lawyer versions are found in
Chariton : ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Brallier : ;  Cal.: Sept. ; Streiker :
;  Cal.: July .
27. The first appearances refer to “partners in a well-known Stock Exchange house”
(Masson : ; Mosher : ; Ernst : ), but starting with Schermerhorn 
() the characters are almost invariably Jewish and continue to be so. Copeland and
Copeland : item ; Fuller : item ; Moulton : item ; Allen :
item  (Scots); House : ; Blumenfeld : ; Woods : item .; Adams
: ; Asimov : item ; Golden : ; Anon. a; Hornby :  (Irish);
McDougal []: ; Gardner : ; Berle : , , ; Eilbirt : ; Harris
 (related as a tale about [the Jewish] Lord Grade, former head of the ATV network,
and his brother); E. Phillips : ; Vas ; Kramer : ; Mital and Gupta :
; Arya : ; Adams : ; Cohl :  (Italian restaurateurs). Again, the orig-
inal Jewish protagonists live on, but apart from a few items, no other new identities are
specified apart from lawyers.
28. Lawyer Jokes from Internet : no.  (substantially identical to Behrman :
); AML : no. . Versions with markedly less cooperation are at Knott : 
[= Knott :  = Knott a: ]; Cohl : .
29. The first version, about jewelry partners (Anecdota : item  [= Anecdota
: item ]) had none of the amity and cooperation of this version (“In their fright
each tried to lay the onus of parenthood on the other”). Of course, there has been a dra-
matic reduction in the “onus” of out-of-wedlock birth in the past seventy years, so that
the element of danger and shame is less salient. Legman :  []; Anon. :
n.p.; Davis : ; Youngman : ; Playboy : ; Marquand : ; Mr. J.
: ; Triverton : ; Pietsch : ; Harris and Rabinovich :  (Soviet
Jewish version in which the Jewish assistant director bests the factory director); Sood :
. Versions about partners in stereotypically Jewish businesses or with stereotypically
Jewish names remain current: Berle : ; Berle : ; Adams and Newall :
; Alvin a: . Again, no new protagonists have emerged other than lawyers.
30. Lawyer Jokes from Internet : no. . Other lawyer versions are Grossman
: ;  Cal.: item ; Regan : .
31. Anon. a: ; Lurie : ; Orcutt : ; Knox c.: ; Rango :
; Allen : item ; Ford et al. : ; Cagney : ; Pendleton []: item
; Wilde :  (Irish woman: “what time does your husband get home”); Martling
: ; Stangland :  (Norwegian); Berle : ; Strean : ; Jones and
Wheeler :  (patient and doctor); Subhash and Dharam a: ; Coote : ;
 Notes to pages – 

Adams : ; Pease : ; Van Munching : ; Reginald : ; Harvey
c.b: ; Leigh and Lepine : ; Anon. : ; Anon. b: ; Anon. c:
; Tibballs : item ; Sharpe : , , ; FHM : ; Hobbes a:
; Hobbes b: .
32. E.g., Jones and Wheeler :  (patient tells doctor, “By the way, you have a
nice house”); Van Munching :  (patient tells doctor, “You have a beautiful home”).
33. Shafer and Papadaikis : ; Keelan :  (Robert DeNiro).
34. Tulk :  (Newfie and E. P. Taylor); Shelley :  (young man and Pierre
Trudeau); Harris :  (young constable and M.P.); Walker :  (salesman and
Bob Hawke); Gurney : n.p. (young executive and Rupert Murdoch); Ocker 
(same); Gurney  (businessman and Sir Gordon Squire); Hill :  (youth and
Frank Sinatra); Strangland :  (Ole and Clint Eastwood); Knott :  (advertising
executive and Donald Trump); Yermonee  (Robert Maxwell and Paul Getty); Asimov
: item  (young man and Aristotle Onassis); Berle :  (man and LBJ); Strean
:  (man and JFK); Knott a:  (sales associate and Donald Trump); Knott
:  (advertising executive and Rupert Murdoch); Topol []:  (young man and
Sinatra); Phillips :  (young man and Henry Ford); Adams and Newall : 
(Paddy and Sinatra); Healey and Glanville :  (bloke and Sinatra); Coote :
 (yuppie and Rupert Murdoch); Cohl :  (young advertising executive and Bill
Gates); Lyons a:  (Jewish tailor and fictitious celebrity).
35. Knott : . Other lawyer versions are Brallier : ; Nolo’s Favorite  [=
CLLH : lawyer humor no. ];  Cal.: Sept. ; Lisa Lerman, e-mail message to
author, Dec. , ; Tibballs : item ; Regan : . The switch to the lawyer
protagonist is palpably clear here: in the similar Knott (: ) the mobster’s employee
is “a deaf-and-dumb accountant” who answers the summons “accompanied by his brother
who could speak sign language.” By  the brother has acquired a law degree and the
joke appears in a topical collection of lawyer jokes.
36. The lawyer as sign language interpreter incarnates Maureen Cain’s (: )
notion that the “day-to-day chore” of lawyers is to serve as translator between ordinary
discourse and the “meta-language” of law. The joke also implies that the lawyer will end
up with the entire stake over which the disputants are contending, an outcome celebrated
in many jokes (see section “Only the Lawyer Wins” in chap. ) and in the famous print
that depicts contending litigants pulling a cow in opposite directions while the lawyer
milks it.
37. From its initial  appearance the faithless translator has mediated between the
threatened victim and various heavies: Youngman :  (Spanish conquistador); Wilde
:  (Mafia don); Thickett :  (same); B. Phillips :  (Spanish conquista-
dor); Knott :  (mobster); Rovin :  (Mafia don, woman translator); Duncan
:  (Texas ranger); Rovin  (Russian body-builder); Telushkin :  (mob
boss); Warner :  (bank robbers); Adams and Newall :  (Mafioso); Coote
:  (Godfather); Subhash and Dharam a:  (Mafia underboss); Pease : 
(Godfather); Coote :  (Mafia boss); Baddiel and Stone :  (gambler) [= Bad-
diel :  = Anon. a:  = Anon. b: ]; Streiker :  (Pinkerton
detective); Greene :  (mafia thugs); Claro :  (Spanish conquistador); Tibballs
: item  (Texas ranger); McFool :  (mafia hood); Sharpe :  (gang
boss); FHM :  (mobster). These still outnumber the lawyer version, but the lawyer
is the only professional identity given to the interpreter, apart from a single reference to a
(Jewish) accountant (Telushkin : ).
 Notes to pages –

38. Lawyer Jokes from Internet : no. . Other lawyer versions are Behrman
:  (women lawyers) [= AML : no.  (same with name changes)]; Grossman
:  (Wall St. lawyers) [= AML : no.  with name changes];  Cal.: item ;
Regan : . A client poisons lawyer version appeared a few years earlier (Wilde :
). The “partner” version presents treachery as the modus operandi of the legal profes-
sion; in the “client” version, the treacherous lawyer is repaid in kind by his client victim,
joining the troop of jokes in which the tables are turned on the arrogant lawyer.
39. The husband poisoning wife version is in print by : Anecdota : item 
(Baron poisons wife); Hershfield : item  (Jewish husband poisons wife); Hershfield
:  (deracinated); Jones : ; Cerf : ; Playboy :  [= Playboy
:  = Humes : ]; Adams :  (Jewish); Anon. : item .; Asimov
: item  (Jewish); Marquard : ; Pollack :  (Jewish); Triverton :
; Wilde and Wozniak : ; Coote : ; Pease : ; Thomas : ;
Baddiel and Stone : ; Baddiel et al. : ; Allen :  (Jewish); FHM :
; Hobbes b: . The first wife poisoning her husband does not occur until Anon.
a; Dawson : ; Gardner : ; Savannah : ; Miller : ; Singh
: .
40. Berle []: ; Keene  []; Rezwin : ; Anon. : n.p.; Anon.
[]  (Jewish); Murdock : ; Spalding :  (Jewish); Esar : ; Pendle-
ton []: ; Wilde :  (Jewish) [= Wilde : ]; Lyons : ; Ben Eliezar
[]:  (Jewish); Rovin : ; Alverson []:  (Jewish); Topol []:  (Jew-
ish); Barley/Weis : ; Harvey c.b: ; Keelan :  (Jewish); Anon. c:
 (Jewish).
41. Rovin : ;  Cal.: Jan . Cf.  Cal.: Apr.  (“I’m here to help” = lying).
Earlier versions make the translation into various idioms: Maledicta :  () (Jew-
ish); Knott :  (Los Angeles); Pietsch :  (Yiddish); Barry :  (Yiddish);
Berle :  (agent talk); Alvin a:  (Hollywood); Keelan :  (Yiddish);
Lyons a:  (Jewish).
42. Dan Steward, e-mail message to author, Feb. , ;  Cal.: May ; Anon.
c: ;  Cal.: Apr. .
43. E.g., Johnston :  (Irishman); Cruikshank :  (Alaska greenhorn);
MacHale :  (Irishman); Barnett and Kaiser :  (Irishman); Cohl : 
(Russian); Buford and Grabowski :  (redneck); Kostick : ; Brown f: 
(Irishman); Brown d:  (same); Greene :  (blonde); Tapper and Press :
 (rabbi); Colombo :  (Newfie). This is a contemporary embodiment of tale-type
AT  [The Wishes].
44. Cal.: May .
45. Berle : ; Baddiel et al. :  (newspaper editor wants reporter and
photographer “back here right now”).
46. Oral tradition (collected by the author, Madison, WI, ).
47. The earliest version I have found is Harper’s Bazaar (: ). The trail breaks
off at this point, but the take it with you variant bears a striking resemblance to a medieval
story about a miser who wants to take his gold with him: “A certain usurer of Metz, draw-
ing near unto his death, bound his Friends by oath, that in his grave they should put a
purse full of Money, under his head; which [was] done accordingly. His sepulcher [being]
afterwards opened, that it might be taken out, there was seen a Devil pouring melting
gold down his throat with a ladle.” The Philosopher’s Banquet, , reprinted in Hazlett
: :item . (I have modernized the spelling.) Here it is the deceased that is the object
 Notes to pages – 

of derision, not the survivor(s). But it starts from the same premise: the refusal to leave
wealth to others and insistence on taking it with; the means is the same (deposit in the
grave); the result is torment by the devil, replaced by frustration/betrayal by the clever
Jew and then by the lawyer, both figures long associated with the devil in the popular
imagination.
48. May : .
49. Murdock :  [= B. Phillips : ]. This represents a major change from
earlier check in the coffin stories and seems to arrive full blown. Subsequent lawyer tellings
of the take it with you version include: Moshman, Trusts & Estates  ():  (Sept. ,
quoting James McElaney, ); Wilde : ; Wright and Wright : ; Joel Hyatt
in Playboy (April : ); Sorter : ; collected by Edward Reisner c.; Odean
n.d.: collected from David Cheit, ; Long ; Adler :  [= Adler : ]; Ari-
zona Republic, July , , C; Delf : ; Grossman : ; AML : no. ;
Kansas City Star, July , ; Kornheiser ; Lawyer Jokes from Internet. : no. ;
Clark ; Dundes and Pagter :  (collected ); CLLH  lawyer humor
no.  [= Adams and Newall : ]; Overton : ; Carter : ; Marchal
; Dan Steward, e-mail message to author, Nov. , ; Ross : ; Henson ;
letter to editor, Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. , ; anon. Univ. of Iowa law student, Feb.
, ; CLLJ : no. ; Funniest Darn Lawyer Jokes, May , ; A collection of
lawyer jokes, May , ; Lawyer Jokes ; Pierleoni, Sacramento Bee, Aug. , ,
C; Greene : ;  Cal.: Nov. ; www.jokes-for-all.com, Nov. , .
A distinctive adaptation is found in India where the lawyer who promises to transfer
the client’s assets to him in the hereafter places a check on the funeral pyre at the crema-
tion. Singh : .
50. Riesman : .
51. The analysis that follows is inspired by Richard Raskin’s wonderful Life Is like a
Glass of Tea: Studies of Classic Jewish Jokes (), in which he develops three “interpretive
frameworks” that he finds “useful for understanding many classical Jewish jokes.” The
first is role fiasco in which a character displays “outrageous incompetence in: a) perform-
ing or sustaining a given role; b) assessing what behavior or attitude a given situation calls
for; or c) thinking logically and realistically ().” A second comic perspective is tactical
manoeuvre in which the character “is essentially a player who is out to get away with some-
thing, to pull something off, to evade a responsibility, to get more than his share of some-
thing he wants, to get the better of, or turn to tables on, someone else, to get around a
prohibition, etc.” (). The third framework is exemplary deviance in which “the comic
behavior on display in the punch-line is seen as a positive model we are implicitly invited
to admire and emulate, even though it marks a break with conventional codes” (). Thus
we have outrageous failure to perform, crafty gamesmanship, and admirable deviance.
Many lawyer jokes invoke one of these directly or indirectly. Raskin thinks that jokes that
can be “understood in two (or three) of [these] perspectives . . . are the very best of the
classic . . . [Jewish jokes]” because they generate an experience of “oscillation between two
(or more) interpretive options” (). For those who embrace such experiences, jokes that
have this “open-endedness or reversibility . . . have an inexhaustible richness” (: ).
The take it with you version of the check in the coffin is the only lawyer joke I have encoun-
tered that invites analysis in all three of these perspectives.
52. Beyond the three versions discussed in the text, there are others that have not
been switched to lawyers. These include versions in which the mourners deposit money
neither as agents of the dead man (take it with you) nor as a gratuitous presentation to him
 Notes to pages –

(respectful gesture). Instead they are repaying a debt, or complying with an explicit con-
dition in his will. Yet another version involves a pact among friends that the survivor(s)
will place money in the coffin to assist the next-worldly finances of whoever should die
first. All of these apparently descend from the older take it with you story (or some com-
mon ancestor), most frequently told about Jews but also about other “canny” groups such
as Scots and Ibos (see Davies : ).
53. I have found some thirty-six appearances of take it with you as a lawyer joke since
it surfaced as one in , thirty of these since ; fifteen versions of respectful gesture as
a lawyer joke since it became one in ; and two appearances of making amends, the
first in . These fifty-three appearances are the basis for the assertions made below
about the relationships described in the several versions of the joke.
54. Knott :  [= Knott b:  = Knott a:  = Cohl : ]; Law and
Politics  [= Adler : ]. More frequently, the reason for the deposit is family tra-
dition. Brallier : ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Faine :  (Australia);  Cal.: Mar. 
[=  Cal.: Feb. ]; CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Starr, ;  Cal.: Mar. ;
anon. Univ. of Iowa law student, Feb. , ; Lawyer Jokes, Sept. , ; Dedopulos
: ; Southwell : .
55. It was established as a joke about Scots and Jews by the s. The first lawyer
telling is Knott  (), a topical collection that has been influential in defining the
canon of contemporary lawyer jokes.
56. Adler : .
57. It first surfaces in an article by law professor Ronald Rotunda that appeared in sev-
eral legal newspapers in early  (Rotunda a: ; b: ). This article was based
on a law review article dated the previous summer (Rotunda ). The newspaper arti-
cle substituted this make amends story for an entirely different lawyer joke (A, two in
grave) that was included in the law review article. When I asked Professor Rotunda where
he had heard what his newspaper article refers to as an “old joke” he could not remember
whether he had heard it in that form or modified another story (possibly another version
of the check in the coffin? ). Telephone interview with Ronald Rotunda, Feb. , . A
topical collection of lawyer jokes (Adler : ) picked it up either from Rotunda or
possibly from Rotunda’s source (the wording is identical), but it was one of the few items
omitted from the refurbished edition (Adler ) and has not surfaced since.
58. Of the thirteen Betrayal jokes discussed in this chapter, eight (check in the coffin,
collision and flask, mine died, safe unlocked, extra $ bill, poisoned you, trust me, payment
during robbery) were predominantly or frequently told about Jewish protagonists before
becoming lawyer jokes. Another (sign language) has been switched (at least once) to a
Jewish protagonist as well as to lawyers. Of the others, two (beautiful house, too and part-
ner undoes wishes) were “dumb” jokes. Greeting spurned hasn’t taken as a lawyer joke. The
remaining story (outrun bear) flourishes as a story about various sorts of outdoorsmen
(fishermen, hunters, hikers, etc.) who are sometimes given various professional, business,
and sports identities.
59. In popular imagination, the Jew is implicated in the archetypical betrayal, i.e., of
Jesus by Judas. Trachtenberg [] details the medieval “picture of the Jew as an enemy
of the people, never hesitating to betray his closest friend, or the city or nation that shel-
tered him” (). The displacement of Jews in tendentious jokes is part of a larger post-
Holocaust phenomenon of avoidance of joking about Jews, augmented by the more
recent spread of “political correctness” taboos on ethnic, racial, and other characteristics
as objects of jokes.
 Notes to pages – 

60. In two of these (payment during robbery, poisoned you) the initial switch to the legal
setting is to a client-screws-lawyer format, but eventually the joke becomes more popular
in the lawyer-screws-lawyer version.
61. In twelve of fifteen appearances of this variant, the relationship of lawyer to
deceased is described as close friend; in only one appearance is the deceased identified as
the lawyer’s client.
62. The lawyer is so described in twenty-four of thirty-six appearances of this variant.
In six, he is an “advisor” or “most trusted” friend; in six others he is characterized as a
friend.
63. This profile would not be changed if we were to include as Betrayal jokes two of
the economic/sexual Predation jokes discussed in chap. , screw partner’s wife/repay $
(B) and pay whore with client’s debt (B). In the former, the victim is the lawyer’s part-
ner once more; in the latter, the lawyer extracts sexual favors from the opposing party. He
uses the occasion of paying the client’s debt to generate personal advantage for himself,
but there is no evident harm to the client.
64. It may even be present in the insincerity of the lawyer’s confession to his partner
in the make amends story.
65. Galanter and Palay .
66. Epstein : .
67. On the literature of legal nostalgia, see Galanter .
68. Simpson : .
69. Warner .
70. “Did You Hear the One about the Lawyer . . . ?” (undated mailer, ca. late  or
early , from Indiana University School of Law); Anderson Kill Olick & Oshinsky, un-
dated brochure; “Lawyer Jokes” (newsletter from Swanson & Gieser, Santa Ana, CA, ).
A mail-order firm specializing in “products and gifts for lawyers” included in its Holiday
 catalog a large assortment of items based on lawyer jokes—for example, the shark
T-shirt in fig. , chap.  (For Counsel: the Catalog for Lawyers, Wilsonville, OR, : ).
71. Davies : .
72. Bennett : . Middleton and Moland , comparing southern white and
black university students, found, “Not only did Negroes tell more anti-Negro than anti-
White jokes, but they told significantly more anti-Negro jokes than Whites” (). In a
follow-up study, Middleton () subjected Negro and white university students to a
series of jokes including anti-Negro and anti-white ones. The Negroes, he concluded,
“found the anti-Negro jokes quite as funny as did the whites” (). Appreciation of these
jokes was higher among middle-class Negroes (). Appreciation by both Negro and
white students bore no consistent relationship with acceptance or rejection of the stereo-
types on which the jokes were based ().
73. Katz and Katz : . Cf. Bennett , who observes that “race and nationality
jokes are by far the most popular among the ‘better’ members of the ridiculed group. No
one feels the need to be superior to the thickly accented ‘ghetto’ Jew more than the eman-
cipated Jewish bourgeois, and nobody feels the need to separate himself from the ignorant,
backward drawling Southern Negro more than the educated middle-class Negro” ().
74. Ben-Amos : .
75. Telephone interview with Brent Swanson, Esq., Santa Ana, CA, January , .
76. Anderson Kill Olick & Oshinsky . The agency that produced this brochure
received a special recognition award from the Washington Advertising Club for work that
“pushed the envelope on creativity.” Myles : B. The jokes are also featured on the
 Notes to pages –

firm’s Web site. An administrator at the firm estimated that half the firm’s lawyers were
offended by the use of the jokes, but they are retained because “clients love it.” Telephone
interview with Maxa Luppi, Feb. , . More recently, the Web site shows no sign of
jokes. www.andersonkill.com (accessed Feb. , ).
77. Davies  remarks on the capacity of members of a minority to “laugh at their
own group in many different ways including those favored by the majority because of
the high degree of social . . . differentiation [within the minority] . . . and through the
ability of each individual member of a minority group to manipulate and slide between
his or her majority and minority reference groups in such a way that the joke never applies
to him or her personally” ().
78. Legman : –.
79. Brandes : .
80. Davies : . Cf. Richard Raskin, who traces the transformation of stories that
began as anti-Semitic jokes about Jews into classic Jewish jokes told by Jews. Raskin :
chap.  (“ten commandments”joke); chap.  (“he had a hat”).
81. Economist : . The examples cited are the more cement (I) and Doberman
(I) jokes.
82. Shaw : . As codified (and unintentionally caricatured) by Richard Delgado
and Jean Stefancic , joking should take aim at only higher-status targets: “Satire, sar-
casm, scorn and similar tools should only be deployed upwards” (, ).
83. Simpson : .
84. For a masterful discussion, see Luban : esp. chap. .
85. Cramton : .
86. Cramton : .
87. Cramton : , .
88. See, for example, what could he possibly say (A); two plus two (A), fight over
nothing (D).
89. The filial link to the devil was noted by Jonathan Swift and others. See chap.  at
n. .
90. Much as did the woman lawyer in The Client () who enfolds the endangered
child client in maternal protectiveness.
91. In this film too, there is an ambiguous turn away from law practice at the end,
when the hero decides that his ability to perform by identifying with his clients will even-
tually lead to his corruption. He proposes to become a legal academic, which presumably
reduces the opportunity for corruption or confers immunity to temptation. For an assess-
ment of the ethical perplexities of the film, see Mashburn and Ware .
92. The  National Law Journal survey asked people if a lawyer should represent a
client that the lawyer knows is guilty of a crime. Fifty-seven percent answered that the
lawyer should undertake the representation and  percent said the lawyer should not. But
 percent thought that it would be wrong for a lawyer to “use . . . a technicality to free
a client he knows to have committed the crime,” and only  percent thought it would be
right. Samborn : questions , .
93. Thus, it is reported that prosecutors find juries unwilling to convict “private
lawyers for getting too close to their clients’ illegal conduct.” Wittes : A. According
to one former U.S. Attorney: “Juries expect lawyers to be manipulative, creative, and devi-
ous. . . . They have an appreciation of the role defense lawyers play. They take a long, deep
breath and give these lawyers a wide berth—notwithstanding the fact that lawyers are
held in ill repute and there are lawyer jokes.”
 Notes to pages – 

94. Differentiation of ethical obligation by type of client appeals to some students of

legal ethics. Thus, David Luban proposes that lawyers should have higher duties of pro-
tection toward individual clients than toward organizational ones. Luban : chap. .

7 . T  L        M       D        
1. Anon. ca. : .
2. Sandburg :  (reprinted in Tidwell : ); Edwards : item ; Law-
son : ; Johnson et al. : ; Cook : ; Fuller : item ; Cerf :
; Esar : ; Weiherman : ; Murdock : ; Spalding : ; Bon-
ham : ; Wilde : ; Rosten : ; Wilde : ; Phillips : ; Knott
: ; Behrman : ; Brallier : ; Adler : ; Lowdown Disk : item
;  Cal.: item ; CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Dedopulos :  [=
Baddiel et al. : ]; Brunsting : ; Regan : . The confusion goes back
even earlier: Anon. :  (misplaced pity for woman whose son “turned out to be a
criminal lawyer”); Johnston : item  (lawyer described as criminal lawyer isn’t “spe-
cially so”). Finally, the difference between the lawyer and criminal may be that the former
didn’t get caught (Behrman : ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ).
3. Boliska []: ; Phillips a:  [= Phillips a: ]; Wilde : ; Rovin
: ;  Cal.: Apr. ; B. Phillips : ;  Cal.: Oct. .
4. Rovin : ; B. Phillips ;  Cal.: June .
5. Seattle Sal : ; Lowdown Disk : item ;  Cal.: July . Cf. Coote
:  (“up front”); Pease :  (“honest’).
6. Franklin : .
7. Austin : ; May : ; Adams : ; Yarwood []: . Doctor
versions abound: Murray : ; Gerler : ; Boliska []: ; Blumenfeld :
; Powers and Powers : n.p.; McElroy :  (psychiatrist); Wilde a: ; Forbes
[]: : Humes : ; Adams : ; Forbes []: ; Humes : ; Adams
: ; Goldstein-Jackson : ; Reginald : ; Anon. : . Cf. Berle :
 (husband of unspecified occupation met her in “business”); Coote :  (bank
manager). All of these husband versions are long predated by a story about the “Famous
Wit . . . ambling down Hollywood Boulevard with the Current Female Attraction” who
has an emotional reunion with another man who she describes as “a trouper I met years
ago in the profession.” Garnett : ; Spalding : .
8. Tybor : ; Warren and Kelly : .
9. Hindy Greenberg quoted in Arron : .
10. Marquand :  [= Triverton :  except that the Corpus Juris (still mis-
spelled) set is enlarged to forty volumes]. In subsequent versions the prostitute is the
daughter of an ambassador (Berle : ) and graduate of Tufts, Columbia, and Oxford
(Gruner : ). In a life-imitates-art variant of this story, the Toronto Sun reported that
“hooking paid for her law degree” (Nov. , ). A reader responded to the story by ask-
ing: “As most of our politicians are lawyers and regularly prostitute themselves by lying,
cheating, bedding down with any special interest group, etc., why would the Law Society
of Upper Canada not consider her experience operating an escort service for prostitution
as required training to become a future politician.” Toronto Sun, letter to the editor, Dec.
, . Another route is suggested in Britain, where female lawyers may be seduced into
prostitution by the possibilities of wordplay. For example: “May O’Hara became disen-
chanted with being a barrister so she dropped her briefs and started soliciting.” Cagney
: .
 Notes to pages –

11. Rovin : ; Knott :  (gay prostitute). Cf. Chariton :  (“results” to
client are same).  Cal.: Feb.  (“nothing” simpliciter).
12. Coote : ;  Cal.: Mar. ; Brallier : ; Pease : ; Duck ;
Alvin : ; Mr. “K” : ; Hobbes b: .
13. 1 Cal.: Feb.  [=  Cal: Dec. ].
14. Knott :  [= Adler :  = Adler : ]; Rovin : ; Berle :
;  Cal.: Sept. .
15. The “lower than” trope also surfaced on television in . In the opening scene
of the ABC sitcom The Naked Truth, “the lead character ends up in a bathroom and mis-
takenly assumes that two prostitutes are lawyers. And the prostitutes feel insulted.” Perga-
ment .
16. Shaw : xxx–xxxi. The play, banned from the London stage by the Lord Cham-
berlain, was first performed in .
17. Campos : .
18. Citations for this item are at n.  on p. , below.
19. Florynce Kennedy : .
20. Fried .
21. Dauer and Leff : .
22. Curtis : . This observation is accompanied by other comparisons with
bankers, priests, and poets. Curtis : –.
23. Behrman : ; E. Phillips : ; Delf : ; anon. University of South-
ern California undergraduate, Feb., ; Greene : .
24. Kieffer : ; Edmund and Williams : ; Williams : item ;
Copeland and Copeland : item ; Meier : ; Rango : ; McManus
: ; House : ; Williams : item ; Laing : ; Braude : item
 (the politician here is also a “successful lawyer”); Davis : ; Woods : item
.; True : ; Skubik and Short : ; Marquand :  [= Pollack : ];
Triverton : ; Wilde :  (Republican); Berle : ; Harvey C. a: 
(diplomat); Dale and Simmons :  (told of Tony Blair); Lyons a: .
25. Other examples are D, chaos; B, screwing somebody already; H, saved from
drowning.
26. Rovin : ; Knott : ; AML : no. ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Alvin :
 (Wasp attorney); CLLH : no. ; Ross :  (yuppie barrister); Califano ;
Streiker : ; Greene : ;  Cal.: Oct. ; Lisa Lerman, e-mail message to
author, Mar. , ; Stephen M. Masterson, e-mail, Aug. , ; Tibballs : item
; letter, ABA Journal, March , .
27. Yuppie versions: Barry : ; Knott : ; Berle : ; Edwards ;
Subhash and Dharam a: ; Economist, Dec. , :  (“new Russian”); Reader’s
Digest : ; Jhumor list, June ,  (Jewish yuppie); Keelan : ; Anon. c:
; Blue : . The term “yuppie” for young urban professional was coined around
.
28. Knott :  [= Knott b: ]; Grossman : ;  Cal.: item  [= 
Cal.: Sept.  =  Cal.: May ];  Cal.: Feb. .
29. Hershfield : ; Hefley : item ; Baker : item  (colleted );
Asimov : ; Playboy : ; Schock : ; Wilde : ; Wilde : ;
Walker : ; Tiverton : ; Anon. : ; Cruickshank : ; Strangland
: ; Blumenfeld and Blumenfeld ; Berle : ; Rovin : ; Warner :
; Subhash and Dharam a: ; Subhash and Dharam c: ; Adams and
 Notes to pages – 

Newall a: ; Pease : ; Cohl : ; Streiker : ; Brown c: ;
Jhumor List, Dec. , ; Kenworth : ; Alvin a: ; Brunsting : ;
Claro : ; Hobbes b: .
30. Grossman : .  Calendar no. . Two slightly different renderings of this
story appear in the Million Laughs collection, both identifying the lawyer as a “corporate
lawyer.” AML no. , no. .
31. In a notorious  instance two lawyers in upstate New York were led by an
accused murderer to two bodies, which they found and photographed but kept to them-
selves for six months, provoking an outpouring of public indignation and professional
soul-searching. See Freedman ; Luban .
32. Warner :  [= AML : no. ]; Nolo’s Favorite ; Alvin : ;
Adams and Newall : ; CLLH. : Lawyer humor no.  [= Adams & Newall
: ]; Coote : ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. ,  [= Streiker : ];  Cal.:
July ; Anon. a: ; Claro : ; Tibballs : item ; Anon. c: .
33. Akst and Landro  (agent Michael Ovitz); Barry :  (commodity trader);
Tucket :  (golfer); Berle :  (agent); Keelan :  (lawyer working as Holly-
wood agent); Blue : .
34. Novak and Waldoks : ; Knott : ; Steiger : ; Behrman : ;
Brallier : ; Rovin : ; Lowdown Disk : item ;  Cal: Aug. ; 
Cal.: June ; Alan Lerner, e-mail message to author, Oct. , .
35. Other displays of indifference to wives are Wilde : ; Grossman :  [=
AML : no. ];  Cal.: items , .
36. CLLH : lawyer humor no. . Other lawyer versions are Wilde : ;
Behrman : ; Rovin :  [= AML : no. ];  Cal.: May  [=  Cal.:
Nov. ]; Ross : ; Cohl : .
37. The story is a variant of AT  (rich man allowed to stay in heaven for single
deed of charity, sometimes repaid and sent to hell). Jewish versions are discussed by
Schwartzbaum : . The story surfaces in Anon. :  (Wall Street broker);
Masson : : (rich miser); Cobb :  (rich miser); Copeland and Copeland
: item  (Wall Street broker); Berle []:  (Wall Street broker); Kern 
[]:  (Wall Street broker); Murray :  (millionaire); Cohen :  (dress
manufacturer); Gingras :  (rich man); Morecroft []:  (stock broker);
McNeil  []:  (miser); Woods : item . (miser); Spalding : 
(miser dress goods manufacturer); Rabinowitz  []:  (miser); Humes []: 
(prominent businessman); Bonfanti :  (Italian); Yarwood :  (stockbroker);
Dickson :  (stockbroker); Anon. :  (businessman); Hill :  (Ballymena
man); Breslin :  (Brian Mulroney) [= Colombo : ]; Stangland : 
(skinflint); Coote :  (stingy man); Subhash and Dharam c:  (millionaire);
Singh :  (wealthy man); Streiker :  (stockbroker); FHM :  (Man-
chester United fan).
38. Lawyer Jokes from Internet : no.  [= e-mail from Richard Gordon, Feb. ,
]; Behrman :  [= AML : no. ]; anon. Stanford law student, Mar. ,
;  Cal.: Mar. ; Greene : ; Lauren Edelman, e-mail message to author,
May , ; Alan Dundes, e-mail, Nov. , .
39. Neches :  (rabbi anticipates line and extracts contribution from rich miser);
Mendelsohn : ; Learsi : ; Grossman : ; Teitelbaum : ; Rywell
: ; Learsi : ; Eilburt : . All of these explicitly or possibly take place
in the Old Country. The same a fortiori trope is present in Ferguson :  (Scot tells
 Notes to pages –

hotel porter if he didn’t tip bonnie chambermaid “what sort o’ chance dae ye think ye’ve
got”). Americanization sets in with Levenson :  (collector is United Jewish Appeal
representative); Cerf : ; Youngman :  [= Youngman :  = Youngman
: ]; Asimov : ; Alvin : ; Telushkin : ; Kramer : ; Jhumor
List, Aug. , . The Jewish element is effaced in Woods : item .; Murdock :
; Adams :  [= Adams : ]; Adams : ; Playboy : ; Humes
: ; Wilde  (Republican): ; Anon. : ; Rovin : ; Fraser : .
40. In , the Hart Survey found that  percent of respondents thought that
lawyers “make too much money.” Only  percent disagreed and  percent were neutral.
Fifty-nine percent thought lawyers were greedy and only  percent disagreed (). (Curi-
ously, the pollsters found “no relationship between unfavorable opinions of lawyers and
perceptions of how much lawyers earn.” Peter D. Hart Research Associates : .)
Although there was wide variation in respondents’ estimates of lawyers’ earnings, the
median guess of the public fell very close to the median revealed by a concurrent  sur-
vey of ABA members’ income (about $,).
41. I do not regard this as a joke about a “Jewish lawyer” for the Jewishness enters
through the attribution of thoroughness to Jewish communal fundraising; the qualities
displayed by the lawyer (rich, clever, self-serving) are exactly those attributed to lawyers
in general and derive nothing from the lawyer’s Jewishness.
42. Jhumor List, Dec. , .
43. Along with what’s the catch? (G), this joke echoes the themes present in many
of the jokes in chap. , which emphasize betrayal of those to whom there are special
obligations.
44. Amy Singer, e-mail message to author, Apr. , ; Clode :  (housewife);
Anon. a:  (Republican).
45. Collected from Nancy Reichman, Phoenix, AZ, June . It took five years for
this to turn up in print as a lawyer joke. Alvin : ; Tibballs : item ; 
Cal.: Oct. . The story appeared earlier with other protagonists: Adams and Newall :
 (economist); Jhumor List, July ,  (rabbi); Adams and Newall a:  (rabbi);
Van Munching :  (golfer); Pietsch :  (golfer). The story seems to derive
from an earlier story about a golf enthusiast who accepts the challenge of a blind golfer
and asks when they tee off, to be told “Two o’clock in the morning.” Wilde : 
[= Wilde : ] (attributed to Bob Hope); Simpson :  (Bob Hope); E. Phillips
[]: ; Coote : ; Barnett and Kaiser : ; Anon. b: .
46. Cf. the observations by Riesman  in chap. , p. .
47. Knott : . Other lawyers versions are Wilde :  (also incompletely
switched); Rovin : ; AML : no. ;  Cal.: item .
48. Anon. (Anecdota) : item  (bookkeeper); Ferguson : ; Cerf a
(partner in fruit business); Ford :  (bookkeeper); Golden :  (partner); Elgart
:  (bookkeeper); Masin :  (football player); Cohen :  (accountant);
Anon.  (bookkeeper) [= Anon. a: ; Roberts : ; Anon. :  (account-
ant); Anon. : item .; Jessel :  (accountant); Gardner a:  (movie
director).
49. Rovin : ; Wilde : ; Rafferty : ; Berle : ; Knott : ;
Behrman : ; Breslin : ; Miller : ; Rovin :  [= AML : no.
]; Rovin : ; Berle : ; Subhash and Dharam c: ; Adams : ;
Lauren Edelman, e-mail message to author, May , ; Anon. c: ; Brunsting
: ;  Cal.: Sept. . One possible ancestor is a story attributed to a New York
 Notes to pages – 

entertainment lawyer who claimed to have attended a correspondence law school that
insured that its graduates would be good lawyers by cheating them out of the last three les-
sons. “The student would sue them, and if he won the case, they sent him the diploma.”
Fredericks : .
50. Knott :  = Cohl : ; Wilde :  (not divorce lawyer); Brallier
: . A nonlawyer version is Berle : .
51. Collected by the author in Madison, WI, . Also (in addition to the various
versions in nn. , , , , ,  below) Kinchen : sec. , p. ; Hunter and Weaver
; Blair b; Blair a (told by Attorney General Ed Meese to Kiwanis Club);
Pietsch :  [= AML : no. ]; Lyons :  [= Lyons : ]; Rafferty :
; Lafee ; collected by Leslie Millett, Berkeley, CA, Sept. , ; Johnson :
 (attributed to Harvard Law Professor Martha Minow); Jones and Wheeler :
; Chariton : ; Steiger : ; Novak and Waldoks : ; Carman :
 (citing Barron’s); Behrman : ; Jack Germond, “McLaughlin Group,” Aug. ,
; Adler :  [= Adler : ]; Lowdown Disk : item ; Brallier : ;
Warner ; Star Tribune, Apr. ,  (told by former Surgeon-General C. Everett
Koop; reporter describes it as “well worn joke”); Nolo’s Favorite ; AML : no. ;
Metcalf : ; Berle : ; Nash et al. : ;  Cal.: Feb. ; Populus Jokes,
Oct. , ; Cohl : ; Streiker : ; Lyons a; Greene : ; Claro
: ; Tibballs : item .
52. E.g., Alvin :  (pig won’t mate with Puerto Rican).
53. Strasser : .
54. Taylor : .
55. Nolo’s Favorite ; Adams and Newall : ; CLLH : lawyer humor
no. , no. ; Pease : ;  Cal.: Apr. , Sept. ; Dedopulos : ; Baddiel et
al. : ; Southwell : .
56.  Cal.: Jan , Feb. , Mar. , Apr. , July , Aug. , Sept. , Oct. , Oct.
, Dec. .
57. CLLH : lawyer humor no. .
58. Randy’s Favorite Lawyer Jokes.
59. Pierce : –.
60. Anon. : ; Times, Mar. , ; Financial Times, Jan. , ,: :; Jerusalem
Post, July , ; Johnstone ; South China Morning Post ; Fotheringham : ;
Herald (Glasgow), July , : ; The Independent, Jan. , : ; Donaldson :
; Adams and Newall : ; Macleans, Dec. , ; Subhash and Dharam a: 
(politicians); Adams and Newall :  (politicans); Ross : ; Pease : .
61. Rodent .
62. Glaberson .
63. Washingtonian .
64. Lyons :  (Mexicans) [= Lyons : ]; Odean :  (Wall Streeters);
Alvin :  (Polacks); Jones and Wheeler :  (politicians as well as lawyers); Rovin
:  (hockey players); Adams and Newall :  (symphonic conductors); Adams
and Newall :  (politicians); Marsh and Goldmark :  (guitarists).

8 . L         O         S   
1. Mensa Philosophica ca. : no. . This story is Motif X. The same theme is
the opening cartoon sequence of Wiley  (sympathetic crowd gathers about body lying
in gutter, but disperses when his business card reveals he is a lawyer).
 Notes to pages –

2. Johnson : –.

3. Pietsch : ; Los Angeles Times, Dec. , ; Wilde : ; Rafferty :
; Johnson : ; Knott : ; Novak and Waldoks : ; collected by Andrew
Green, Berkeley, CA, October , ; collected by Paul C. Korn, Los Altos, CA, Nov.
, ; Behrman : ; Lowdown Disk : item ; Adler : ; Rovin :
; Grossman : ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Berle : ; Adler : ; Bachman :
;  Cal.: Jan  [=  Cal.: Jan ]; Ross : ; Coote : ; Cohl : ;
 Cal.: Sept. ; Baddiel and Stone : ; anon. informant at Center for Advanced
Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, CA, Jan. , ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ;
anon. Stanford law student, Mar. , ;  Cal.: Jan. ; Greene : , ; Bad-
diel et al. : ; Anon. c: ; Mr. “K” : . All of these are in riddle form,
but one student collector encountered and transcribed an equivalent narrative: “Well,
there was an insurance investigator that went to investigate an accident—actually there
were two accidents, one in which a lawyer had been run over and another was a dog that
had been run over. And, um, he got there after they had, uh, removed the, the carcasses
and he was trying to sort out what had happened. And he said which one was—uh, which
one was it where the—where was the, the accident where the lawyer was run over and
which one was the dog. And the people said, well the one with the, where the dog was hit
is the one where there was skid marks.” Collected and transcribed by Storm Watkins,
Berkeley, CA, Nov. , .
It has occasionally been switched: Rovin :  (IRS agent and pothole); Rovin
 (Howard Cosell and pothole); Knott a:  (brunette and blonde); Coote :
 (politician and kangaroo); Coote :  (same). Several of these appear to be
heroic responses to the need to produce material for a topical book of jokes.
4. Rovin :  (IRS agent); Rovin :  (Howard Cosell); Knott a: 
(brunette); Coote :  (politician); Southwell :  (guitar player).
5. Collected by Dana Gerstein in Berkeley, CA, Nov. , . During the follow-
ing weeks, similar versions were collected by Anna Berge, Catherine Corten, and Rachel
Gerstein.
6. Cantor :  [= Adams : ]; Larsen :  (Khrushchev hijacked). In
earlier versions the recipient responded that he/she did not have the money but was inter-
ested in the proposition, counted on the kidnappers to do their part, etc. Croy :
 []; Edmund and Williams : ; Johnston : item ; Schermerhorn
: ; Lurie : ; Ernst : ; Fuller : ; Meier : ; Cerf a:
; Levenson : ; Adams  []: ; Powes ; Dines : ; Hochwald
[]: .
7. Gulf War versions: Adler : ; Knott .
8. Brallier : ; CLLH : riddles no. ; Ross : ; Populus: Jokes, Oct.
, ; Streiker : ; Alvin a: ; Greene : ; Baddiel et al. : ;
Michael Saks, e-mail message to author, Jan. , ; Tibballs : item .
9. Warner : ; Steiger : ; Johnson : item ; Rovin : ; Gross-
man : ; Bachman : ; Brallier : ;  Cal.: Aug. ; Cohl : ; 
Cal.: Apr. ; Populus Jokes, Dec. , ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ; Streiker :
; Greene : ;  Cal.: Dec. ; Tibballs : item ; Tapper and Press
: .
10. Wilde a: ; Spalding :  (mayo men); Pietsch : . Cf. Phillips
a:  (sheep come down from mountain because of smell of Smogarian). The theme
is shared with this bit of late nineteenth-century Mormon antidrink propaganda: “In one
 Notes to pages – 

gutter I saw a pig; in another the semblance of a man. The pig was sober; the man was
drunk. The pig had a ring in its nose; the other animal had one on his finger. The pig
grunted, so did the man, and I said, aloud, ‘We are known by the company we keep.’ The
pig heard me and walked away, ashamed to be seen in the company of a drunken man.”
Smith :  (reproducing Autumn Leaves, Sept. ); also Williams  (rhyming
version).
11. Anon. a:  (fund raiser); Berle :  (politician); B. Phillips  (politi-
cian); Coote :  [= Coote :  = Coote :  ] (Australian); Adams and Newall
:  (economist); Pease :  (Frenchman); Adams and Newall :  (Aus-
tralian premier Paul Keating); Jhumor List, May ,  (Bill Clinton); Simon Chap-
man, e-mail message to author, Nov. , ; Brown a:  (Scotsman); Southwell
:  (Baptist); Colombo :  (Newfie).
12. Levine : ; Rovin : ; Nolo’s Favorite ;  Cal.: Sept. ; CLLH
: riddles no. ; CLLH : riddles no. ; Brallier : ;  Cal.: May ; Ross
: ;  Cal.: Oct ; Pietsch : ; Alvin : ; Tibballs : item .
13. Stokker :  (Norwegian joke about Quisling during World War II occupa-
tion); Braude :  (Balkan communist politician); Hershfield :  (Mussolini);
Peterson :  (unnamed dictator); Orso :  (Papadopoulos); Beckman : 
(Novotny); Zand :  (Brezhnev); Raskin :  (s joke about Israeli politi-
cian); Ruksenas :  (Stalin); Rabinowitz  []:  (Hitler); Seigal : 
(Zia); Lukes and Galnoor :  (Papadopoulos); Rovin :  (Mussolini); Phillips
:  (Hitler); Anon. d:  (Rákosi); Martling :  (Al Sharpton); Gordon
Baldwin, e-mail message to author, Aug. ,  (Bill and Hilary Clinton); Dale and
Simmons :  (Tony Blair); Alvin a:  (Louis Farrakhan); Colombo : 
(Trudeau).
14. Rovin : ;  Cal.: Feb. .
15. Lurie :  (army captain); Ernst :  (naval officer); Raskin :  (s
German, Hitler); Wortsman :  (Bobby Kennedy); Winick :  (Stalin); Braude
: item  (naval officer); Blumenfeld :  (Nasser); Asimov : item  (Hitler);
Rabinowitz  []:  (Sadat); Wilde :  (Nixon); Benton and Loomes 
[]:  (Franco); Parker  (mayor of city); Pollack :  (Nasser) [= Triverton
: ]; Larson :  (Hitler); Lukes and Galnoor :  (Franco); Berle :
 (Hitler); MacHale a:  (Margaret Thatcher); Eilbirt :  (Hitler); Breslin
 (Brian Mulroney); Yermonee  (Robert Maxwell); Faine :  (Paul Keating);
B. Phillips  (Clinton); Adams and Newall :  (Clinton); e-mail from Lawrence
G. Kahn, Nov. ,  (Clinton); Coote :  (Clinton); Jhumor, Nov. , 
(Arafat); Streiker :  (Clinton); Dale and Simmons :  (same); Symons :
 (same); Jan Hoem, e-mail message to author, Apr. ,  (same); Dale and Simmons
:  (Tony Blair); Columbo :  (Trudeau).
16. See A, A, A, A.
17. Kieffer : ; Anon. : ; Aye :  (told as anecdote about Plowden,
as in text above); Braude : item ; Wilde : ; Philips : ; Anon. a:
.
18. Green Bag :  () (actor); Morton and Malloch :  (told as anecdote
about minstrel George Clarke); Edwards : item  (minstrel); Heighton : 
(Clarke); Scruggs : item  (minstrel); Hershfield :  (“blueblood lawyer”
browbeats calciminer); Hershfield :  (hod carrier); Lupton : item  (Clarke
minstrel anecdote); Hershfield :  (calciminer); Adams :  (smuggler); Golden
 Notes to pages –

:  (stripper); Marquand :  (day laborer); Triverton :  (ditchdigger);
Wilde :  (short-order cook); Wilde :  (bricklayer); Adler :  (stripper).
The only switch out of the lawyer category is Berle :  (garbageman challenging
congressman says father was “cheap politician”).
19. Wilde : ; Pietsch : ; Chariton :  (bumper sticker); Knott :
 [= Knott : ]; Rovin : ; Adler : ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Berle : ;
CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Ross : ; Alvin a: ; Tibballs : item .
A mail order house specializing in merchandise for lawyers offered a sign with the inscrip-
tion “Please don’t tell my mother I’m a lawyer. She thinks I play the piano at the local bor-
dello.” For Counsel, Product and Gift Catalog : .
20. Benton and Loomes  []:  [= Lukes and Galnoor : ] (Hungarian
secret police major); Walker :  (philosophy chair).
21. Odean :  (bond salesman); Tucket :  (“Don’t tell my mother I’m in
politics. She thinks I’m a prostitute”); Faine :  (politician); Marsh and Goldmark
:  (record company). Curiously, a very similar joke with a longer history in the U.S.
has not been enlisted as a lawyer joke. That is the story about the person with a long list
of discreditable traits or associations who asks whether he is obligated to tell his fiancée
about this brother or cousin who is a Republican (or whatever). Youngman :  (used
car dealer); Dundes and Pagter :  (Republican); Tomlinson :  (Democrat);
Coote :  (“Pom,” i.e., Englishwoman, in this case).
22. Knott : ; Wilde : ; Behrman : ; Brallier : ; Rovin :
; Humes : ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Faine : ; Ross : ; Alvin a: .
23. Burma : .
24. CLLH : lawyer humor no. .
25. Rafferty : ; Newman  (queers); Maledicta :  (); collected by
Kim Nguyen, Berkeley, CA, Oct. , ; Novak and Waldoks : ; Knott :
; Behrman : ; Rovin : ; Lowdown Disk : item ; Adler : ;
Bachman : ;  Cal.: Apr.  [=  Cal.: Nov. ]; CLLH : riddle no. ;
Streiker : ; Green : ;  Cal.: Aug. ; Claro : ; Anon. a: ;
Tibballs : item .
26. Clements  []:  (Negroes chosen over Polacks); Larkin :  (blacks
chosen over Italians); Dalton :  (Frenchmen chosen over North Dakotans); Knott
a:  (earthquakes chosen over blacks); Wilde :  (mules chosen over Swedes);
Thickett :  (herpes chosen over real estate agents); Barry :  (earthquakes
chosen over blacks); Shocked and Harted :  (toxic dumps chosen over stock bro-
kers); Lyons a:  (earthquake chosen over blacks).
27. The single exception is an Australian version (Ross : ) (flies).
28. Nolo’s Favorites ; Knott : ; Adler : ; Brallier : ;  Cal.:
Apr.  [=  Cal.: Apr.  =  Cal.: Nov. ]; Kahn and Boe : ;  Cal.:
Apr. ; Tibballs : item .
29. Cerf :  (sage); Wachs :  (wise man); Draitser :  (Brezhnev);
Zand  (same); Dickson :  (senator); Ben Eliezer [] (rabbi); Terrell and
Buchanan :  (politician); Ruksenas :  (Khruschev); Davidson []: 
(sage); Berle :  (umpire); Breslin :  (Brian Mulroney); Delf :  (rabbi);
MacHale :  (Irishman); Topol []:  (rabbi); Bar-Lev and Weis : 
(Sammy Davis Jr.); Goldstein-Jackson :  (clergyman); Reginald :  (same);
Kostick et al. :  (same); Southwell :  (politician); Colombo : 
(Trudeau); Blue :  (rabbi).
 Notes to pages – 

30. Veall : , .

31. Anon. : ; Merryman : ; Hupfeld []: .
32. Grossman :  (old lawyer retires to snake farm to be among friends); Gross-
man :  (zoo director summons lawyer to retrieve escaped snakes because “you need
someone who speaks their language”);  Cal.: item  (difference of snake and lawyer
is that snake keeps dropping [shedding?] his briefcase);  Cal.: item  (retire to snake
farm); Funny Times fax from Bill Breslin, Apr. ,  (“you don’t know difference
either?”); Brallier :  (crossing snake with lawyer is incest).
33. 1 Cal.: May  [=  Cal.: May ]; Rafferty : ; Knott :  [= Knott
b:  = Knott : ]; Steiger : ; Adler :  [= Adler : ]; Delf :
; Grossman : ; Humes : ; CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Brallier :
; Albert Alshuler, e-mail message to author, May , ; Cohl : ; Van Munch-
ing : ; Greene : .
34. Only a few nonlawyer versions have appeared: Knott :  (Puerto Rican);
Adams and Newall :  (conductor); Pietsch :  (record company executive).
35. Rovin : ; Ignelzi ; Grossman : ; Nolo’s Favorite ;  Cal.:
Oct. ; Brallier : . This version was earlier applied to blacks: Knott : ; Alvin
: .
36. 1 Cal.: item ;  Cal.: Apr. ;  Cal.: Oct. ;  Cal.: Nov..
37. Lynne Henderson, e-mail message to author, Aug. , ; Bachman : ;
 Cal.: Aug. ; Rees : ;  Cal.: Aug. ; Ross : ; Baddiel and Stone
: ; Marsh and Goldmark :  (concert promoter); anon. informant at Center
for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Jan. , ; Dedopulos ; Pietsch
: ; Greene : ; Keelan : ; Alvin : ; Baddiel et al. : ;
Tibballs : item . A “bloke” version is at Johnson : .
38. See “Why Death Wish Jokes Flourish” in chap. .
39. Grossman : ; Warner ; Berle : ; Ross : ; Pease : ;
Barnett and Kaiser : . Cf.  Cal: Feb.  (female lawyer “slimy and has
whiskers,” etc.);  Cal.: Mar.  (jellyfish); Tibballs : item  (haddock). Other
applications include Bill Clinton (Dale and Simmons : ) and blokes (Dedopulos
: ; Hobbes a: ). The same form is used in a comparison of a lawyer to a vam-
pire bat (“One’s a diseased, bloodsucking predator and the other is a mouselike creature
with wings”  Cal.: Oct. ).
40. Ross Cheit, e-mail message to author, Dec. , ; Lisa Lerman, e-mail, Nov. ,
; Deja News Viagra jokes, Feb. , ; Alan Dundes, e-mail, Aug. , ; Sarah
Galanter, e-mail, Aug. , . A bloke version is at Johnson : .
41. Lawyer Jokes from Internet : no. .
42. Asimov : item ; Wilde a: ; Gardner : ; Pietsch : ;
Rovin : ; Lyons : ; Lanigan : ; Novak and Waldoks : ; Berle
: ; Adams and Newall : ; Barnett and Kaiser : – (genie’s defective
lamp produces ducks instead of bucks, etc.); Lyons : ; Keelan : ; Anon.
c: ; FHM :  (ducks); Hobbes a: ; Jan Hoem, e-mail message to
author, Apr. ,  (ducks, -inch Bic).
43. Rafferty : ; Steiger : ; Lowdown Disk : item ; Brallier : ;
Rovin : ; Grossman : ; Nolo’s Favorite ;  Cal.: Jan  [=  Cal.: June
]; Populus Jokes, Dec. , ; Greene : . This seems to be a switch from a rid-
dle: “Why don’t their mothers let little black kids play in the sandbox?” Knott : ;
Aman : ; Lyons :  [= Lyons : ].
 Notes to pages –

44. Lawyer Jokes from Internet : no. ; collected by Thomas Hunt in Moraga,
CA, Oct. , ; Maledicta :  (–); AML : no. ; Alvin a: ; 
Cal.: June ; Richard M. Jaeger, e-mail message to author, Apr. , ; Alvin a: ;
Dedopulos : ; Baddiel et al. : ; Mr. “K” : ; Pritchard : . Cf.
Adams and Newall :  (same answer to child’s question “Do prostitutes have babies?”)
45. Legman :  [] (bartenders, second lieutenants). More frequently the
question was about birth from prostitutes rather than ex ano: Anon. : n.p. (bar-
tenders); Woods : item . (traveling salesmen); Wilde b:  (bartenders);
Shumaker : ; Adams and Newall :  (conductors); Goldstein-Jackson :
; Baddiel and Stone : ; Baddiel et al. : ; Tibballs : item .
46. Knott : .
47. Kelly :  (Irishman); Fredericks :  (Texans); Legman  []: ;
Anon.  (Texan); Legman  []:  (Texan); Wilde :  (Texas conservative
politician); Mr. “J” :  (Texan); Knott a:  (Texan); Gurney  (Australian);
Knott :  (Irishman); Duncan :  (Texan); Dover and Fish  (Robert
Maxwell); Trevor :  (Australian); Adams and Newall :  (Australian); Adams
and Newall a:  (Australian politician Russ Hinze); Goldstein-Jackson : ;
Colombo :  (Ontario premier Mike Harris).
48. Knott : .
49. Rovin : .
50. CLLH : riddle no. ; Pease : ;  Cal.: Mar. .
51. Collected by Andrew Green, Berkeley, CA, Oct. , ; Lowdown Disk :
item ;  Cal.: item ; CLLH : riddles no. ; Ross : ; Alvin a: ;
Greene : ;  Cal.: June . Nonlawyer versions include Legman  []:
 (Polack/Texan); Clements :  [] (Polack); Knott :  (mother-in-law);
Thickett :  (Libyan); Rovin :  (mother-in-law); Knott a:  (Pole);
Dover and Fish  (Robert Maxwell); Alvin :  (Iraqi); Lyons a:  (Libyan);
Kuipers :  (Turk in Netherlands).
52. Nolo’s Favorites  [=  Cal.: Feb. ];  Cal.: Mar. ; Alvin b: ;
Alvin a: . Nonlawyer versions include Clements :  [] (Polack); Knott
:  (black); Stangland :  (Norwegian); Pietsch :  (Hollywood agent);
Lyons a:  (Negro kid); Kuipers :  (Negro in Netherlands).
53. CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Grossman : ; AML : no. ; 
Cal.: item ; CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Brallier : ; Jhumor list, May ,
; Southwell : ; Tibballs : item ; Regan : .
54. Legman  []:  (Texan); Wilde :  (Pole); Brodnick :  (Jew);
Alvin a:  (Mexican); Knott :  (blacks); Lyons :  [= Lyons : ]
(African); Knott :  (African); Coote :  (Australian) [= Coote :  = Coote
: ]; Pease :  (Englishman).
55. O’Neal and O’Neal : . In Herron and Ivy (: ) the dog “is a profes-
sional trained dog against politicians.”
56. CLLH : lawyer humor no. . A slightly modified version is at Adams and
Newall : .
57. In early versions, the subject, advised to quit show business, objects “I’m a big
star.” Cerf : ; McCarthy : ; Blumenfeld : . The standard punch line
arrives in a version about a Kennedy aide assigned to care for pet animals who asks
“What? And give up politics?” Wortsman : . Asimov : item ; Legman 
[]: ; Kowalski : ; Scott : ; Wilde : ; Berle : ; Knott
 Notes to pages – 

:  [= Knott b: ]; Forbes : ; Claro : ; Dunn : ; Barnett
and Kaiser : ; Cohl : ; Menchin : ; Martling : ; Baddiel and
Stone : ; Keelan : . Cf. Braude : item  (despondent tramp won’t
seek job thus admitting he’s a failure).
58. House counsel are present in J and J.
59. Marks : .
60. Luntz ?: – (emphasis in original). According to a report in Roll Call,
“House Republicans and like-minded interest groups are listening.” Eilperin and Vande
Hei . One “GOP source” was quoted as saying, “We’ll unleash an attack on the trial
lawyers never seen before. . . . The time is right to move from kicking the unions to hit-
ting the lawyers.” Eilperin and Vande Hei .
61. Donohue .
62. W. Miller : . As it emerged the antilawyer campaign generated some mis-
givings, leading Donohue to specify that his problem was only with half of  percent of
the nation’s lawyers. Carter : , .

 . “A G   S    !” D    W   J   
1. E. Phillips : . The guinea, an English gold coin minted until , valued at
twenty-one shillings, was replaced by the sovereign (pound), valued at twenty shillings, in
. But the guinea lived on as an honorific unit of measure for professional fees, race
horses, works of art, landed property, and other transactions transcending commerce.
2. John Toler, Lord Norbury (–), chief justice of the Irish Court of Common
Pleas from  to , was known as a “hanging judge” who “spared not his coarse jests
to dying men.” Engelbach : .
3. Norbury (not always named) is the speaker in most instances: Lemon : ;
Anon. : ; Hood et al. : ; Hazlitt : ; Willock : ; Burnette :
; Mosher : ; Knox : ; Milburn : ; Copeland : ; Eastman
: ; Fuller : item ; Spalding : ; Yarwood []: ; Wilde : xii;
Sortor : ; E. Phillips : ; Asimov : ; Brallier : ; Rovin : ;
AML : no. ; CLLH : lawyer humor no. ; Ross : ; Dedopulos : 
[= Baddiel et al. : ]; Regan : .
The joke predates the Norbury attribution. The earliest recorded cause of such expan-
siveness was a barrister’s worry about the increased number of practitioners (Carrick et al.
: ; Anon. : ). Later it was the eagerness of barristers to bury attorneys, i.e.,
solicitors (Engelbach : ; Aye : ).
4. Werner :  (college porter, Dutch); Anon. :  (police force); Edwards
: item  (bailiff ); Schermerhorn :  (politician); Meier :  (violinist);
Boliska []:  (politician); Adams :  (agent); Wachs :  (hobo: take
four friends away); Tulk :  (Newfie: take four more); Baker :  (Kentuckian
in Indiana, collected ); Powers  (doctor); Larkin :  (Puerto Rican); Adams
:  (generic); Benton and Loomes  []:  (foreman); Kravitz : 
(Pakistani); Hornby :  (Englishman); Wilde a:  (Pole); Wilde a: 
(doctor); MacHale a:  [= MacHale : ] (labor MP); Wilde :  (Repub-
lican); Forster  (doctors); Bonham and Gullidge :  (doctor); Knott a: 
(Nigerian); Miller :  (rap musician); Miller :  (mother-in-law); Phillips :
 (foreman); B. Phillips  (Democrat); Mital and Gupta :  (politician); Adams
and Newall :  (economist); Wilde :  (doctor); Bonham and Gulledge :
 (doctor).
 Notes to pages –

5. Landon : . Other stories about bounties for killing undesirables are Ginger
:  (Swede); Scott :  (politician).
6. Sprague : .
7. Hupfeld []: . This is tale-type AT A. Motif J... It appears in Kish-
tani :  (citing Ibn Mammati [d. ], hang cage-maker, spare smith); Copley []
in Zall :  (hang weaver, spare smith); K . . . :  (same); Hood et al. : ;
Freud [] :  (hang tailor, spare smith); Lurie :  (hang weaver, spare
smith); Richman :  (hang tailor, spare cobbler); Kumove :  (same, con-
densed in reference to “Kulikov trial”).
8. Chariton : .
9. Shafer and Papadakis : .
10. Clode : ; Mosher : ; Lawson : ; Lurie : ; Johnson et
al. : ; Dionne ca. : ; Anon. [ca.]; Fuller : item ; Knox ca.:
; Rango :  (daughter wants boyfriend to replace her father’s partner); Esar :
; Lehr et al. :  (bystander wants apartment); Fredericks : ; Braude :
item ; Walser :  [ item]; Adams : ; Phillips a: ; Shelley :
; Wilde :  (Republican); Pendleton []: item ; Bonham : ; Rossiter
:  (told as anecdote about Woodrow Wilson and would-be senatorial appointee);
Terrell and Buchanan : ; Claro :  [= Claro : ]; Tomlinson : 
(Wilson anecdote); Delf : ; Warner : ; E. Phillips : ; Adams : 
(daughter’s boyfriend); E. Phillips : ; Goldstein-Jackson : item ; Baddiel
and Stone : ; Kostick et al. : ; Brown b: ; Dole []:  (Wilson
anecdote); Baddiel et al. : ; Anon. a: .
11. Hershfield : ; Adams : ; Shafer and Papadakis : ; Brallier :
;  Cal.: Feb. ;  Cal. Nov. ; Regan : .
12. Braude : item ; Adams :  (President Roosevelt); MacHale :
 (English construction job already given to fellow who pushed him); Claro : 
[= Claro : ] (Lincoln); Phillips :  (English mine job given to fellow who
pushed him); Phillips :  (English factory job given to fellow who pushed him);
Dunn :  (scarce room let to gentlemen who pushed her in). This seems to be that
rare instance in which the English version is more violent than the American.
13. Pietsch : ; Rafferty : ; Conners ; Knott : ; Steiger :
; Phillips : ; collected by Andrew Green, ; collected by Jerry Salzman, ;
Behrman : ; Nolo’s Favorite ; Adler : ;  Cal: June ; CLLH :
riddle no. ; Brallier : ;  Cal.: Oct. ; Ross : ; Kahn and Boe : ;
Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ; Lyons :  (entertainment lawyers); Alvin : ; 
Cal.: Apr. ; Anon. a: ; Claro : ; Tibballs : item .
14. Rovin :  (IRS auditor); Phillips :  (same); Rovin :  (Howard
Cosell); Dover and Fish  (Robert Maxwell); Theaker :  (conductors),  (banjo
players). Cf. Pease :  (“What do you call ten accountants buried up to their necks
in sand? Soccer practice.”).
15. Rafferty : .
16. Maledicta :  () (feminists); Knott :  (blacks); Thickett :  (Ira-
nians); Dundes :  (JAPs, collected ).
17. Phillips : ; Shapiro :  (citing  source); collected by Kim Nguyer,
Hilary Ivancovich, Mark Caudill, Amy M. Emrich, Melinda Van der Reis, Meegan Amen,
all in ; Behrman : ; Adler :  [= Adler : ]; Brallier : ; Rovin
: ; Grossman : ; Nick Larsen ; Alvin a: ; Bachman : ; Funny
 Notes to pages – 

Times  (May):  ( lawyers in unemployment office);  Cal.: Jan ; Rees :
; Coote : ; Barnett and Kaiser : ; anon. informant at Center for
Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Jan. ; anon. Stanford law student, Mar.
, ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ; Tibballs : item .
18. Rovin :  (sportscasters); Barnett and Kaiser :  (men); Two Fun
Guys  (accountants); Marsh and Goldmark :  (harmonicas); Theaker : 
(baritones).
19. Phillips : .
20. Before the lawyer version appeared in print in  (Chariton : ), the bus
was occupied by Pakistanis (for Enoch Powell [Kravitz : ]) or trade unionists (for
Margaret Thatcher [MacHale a:  = MacHale : ]). It resembles, and may have
derived from, an earlier story about the difference between a misfortune and a calamity
(Disraeli answers, “Well, if Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But
if anybody dragged him out, ah! that would be a calamity!” Henry : ). It has flour-
ished as a lawyer joke: Collected by Paul Korn, Nov. , ; Low Down Disk : item
 (difference between a pity and a shame); Brallier : ; Adler :  = Adler
: ; Metcalf : ; Grossman : ;  Cal: Apr. ; CLLH : riddle no.
 (difference between a shame and a crying shame); Barnett and Kaiser : ; Ross
:  (two versions turning on difference between shame and crying shame); anon.
informant at Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Jan. , ; Pietsch
: . The Disraeli-Gladstone story is still around: Claro :  (Mario Cuomo says
of Al D’Amato . . . ).
21. Grossman : ; Nolo News  [= Nolo’s Favorites ]; AML : no. ;
 Cal.: item  [=  Cal.: Mar.  =  Cal.: July  =  Cal.: Nov. ]; Ross
: ; Cohl : ; Alvin b: ; Keelan : ; Anon. a:  (caller is
former junior); Tibballs : item ; Regan : .
22. Lurie : .
23. Periodicals: Beckman :  [= Beckman : ]; Lipman []:  (Nazi
papers); Davies :  (collected ); Jhumor List, July , . Resignation: Bermant
: ; Jhumor List, July ,  (rabbi); Hochwald []:  (Ben Gurion).
24. Draitser  (Stalin, collected ); Benton and Loomes  []: .
25. Shinkler :  (bank manager); Coote :  (same); Adams and Newall
:  (conductor); Adams & Newall :  (bank manager); Theaker :  (con-
ductor); Marsh and Goldmark :  (band leader); Southwell :  (stockbroker);
Mason :  (bank manager); Colombo :  (CBC producer).
26. Grossman :  [= AML : no. ];  Cal.: item .
27. Pietsch : . Cf. Anon. :  (black doctors, white patient, in Capetown).
28. B. Phillips  (liberal democrats); Two Fun Guys  (accountants); Marsh
and Goldmark :  (Tupac); Theaker :  (trumpet players); Theaker : 
(conductors).
29. Lowdown Disk : item ; Steiger : ; Phillips : ; collected by
Lucy Leong, Oct. , ; Adler : ; collected from Eve Galanter, ;  Cal:
Oct ; CLLH : riddle no. ; Coote : ; Brallier : ;  Cal: Apr. ;
Pease : ; Kahn and Boe : ; Greene : ; Keelan : ; Alvin a:
; Tibballs : item ;  Cal.: Apr. . A few musician versions have appeared:
Marsh and Goldmark : ; Theaker : ; Theaker : .
30. Milburn :  (Jew becomes Christian); Schnur :  (Jew becomes Chris-
tian); Richman :  (Jew becomes Mohammedan); Randolph :  (Democrat
 Notes to pages –

becomes Republican); Anon. :  (Labour man becomes Conservative); Wilde :
 (Catholic becomes Protestant); Skubik and Short :  (Republican becomes
Democrat); Benton and Loomes  []:  (Irish Catholic becomes Orangeman);
Schock :  (man becomes Communist); Hornby :  (Irish Catholic becomes
Protestant); Gurney :  (Irish Catholic becomes Mason); Pietsch :  (Irish
Catholic becomes Protestant); Knott :  [= Knott b: ] (same); Lukes and Gal-
noor :  (same); Rovin :  (same); Eilbirt :  (Jew becomes Christian);
Asimov : item  (Jew becomes Catholic); Rees :  (Ulster Protestant becomes
Catholic); Coote :  (Irish Catholic becomes Protestant); Jhumor List, Apr. ,
 (Jew becomes Christian); Goldstein-Jackson : item  (socialist becomes
Tory); Singh :  (Irish Protestant becomes Catholic); Barnett and Kaiser : 
(American becomes Communist); Cohl :  (Irish Catholic becomes Protestant);
Jhumor List, Sept. ,  (Jew becomes Catholic); Colombo :  (Quebecois
becomes Anglo).
31. Lawyer Jokes, Dec. ,  [= Randy’s Favorite Lawyer Jokes, July ,  =
Generic Lawyer Jokes, Sept. ,  = Kahn and Boe : ]; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. ,
;  Cal.: Feb. . Notice the little dig about the lawyer “making sure his bill would
be paid,” a feature which does not appear in any of the older conversion jokes.
32. Act , scene . Apparently, Shakespeare modeled the targeting of lawyers on events
in Wat Tyler’s  rebellion, two centuries earlier.
33. Steiger :  (noted as “adapted from Henny Youngman”); Grossman : ;
AML : no. ; Warner : ;  Cal: item ; Brallier : ; Lawyer Jokes,
Jan. , ;  Cal.: Sept. –; Tibballs : item .
34. Copeland and Copeland : item ; Cerf : ; House : ; Braude
: item ; Gerler : ; Murdock : ; Jessel :  [= Sortor : ];
Wilde :  (dog); Walker : ; Triverton : ; Alvin a: ; Martling :
; Anon. : ; Pietsch : ; Phillips : ; Ocker ; Wilde : ; Berle
: ; Asimov : item ; Millar and Keane : ; Adams and Newall :
; Cohl : ; Buford and Grabowski : ; Dedopulos : ; Dedopulos
: ; Greene : ; Jan Hoem, e-mail message to author, Mar. , ; Baddiel
et al. : ; Baddiel et al. : ; Gross : ; Mr. “K” : ; FHM :
; Hobbes a: . Cf. B. Phillips  (Ronald Reagan’s bear ate liberal congressmen).
35. Lodovico Carbone () in Bowen : . Bowen  ( n. ) traces this joke
back to Cicero and the Gesta Romanorum and also supplies a modern Irish version.
Thompson  assigns this motif J. (the cynic and the fig tree).
36. Doberman was directed at blacks (Thickett : ); alligator was directed at Jews
(Anon. []: ), Englishmen (Hornby : ; Ocker ), Irish Protestants (Hill
: ), blacks (Knott : ; Alvin :  [black customer]; Dedopulos : ),
Kiwis (Trevor : ), IRS agents (Reader’s Digest : ), Scots (Vas ), Catho-
lics (Blue : ).
37. Rovin : ; Peas : ; Barnett and Kaiser : ; Ross : ;  Cal.:
Sept. ; Pietsch : ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan. , ; Alvin a: ; Greene : ;
 Cal.: Aug. ; Tibballs : item . The only other new subjects for this easily
switchable item seem to be politicians (Alvin : ) and conductors (Theaker : ).
38. Brallier : ; Grossman : ;  Cal: item  [=  Cal.: Nov. ];
Ross : ; Reader’s Digest : ; Southwell : ; Regan : .
39. Gotta Love Them Lawyer Jokes (last modified //); CLLH : lawyer
humor no.  (man asks attorney genie to be beaten half to death); Dundes and Pagter
 Notes to pages – 

:  (kidney, collected ); Lawyer Jokes, Jan. ,  (kidney); Tibballs :
item  (same); Regan :  (same);  Cal.: Feb.  (same); Jan Hoem, e-mail, May
, .
40. AT . Some modern examples are: Drake : item  (Irishman asks for one
glass eye); Van Munching :  (man asks for “mild heart attack”); Reader’s Digest
:  (mate to get double, woman asks “scare me half to death”).
41. CLLH : lawyer humor no.  [= Adams and Newall : ]; Lawyer Jokes,
Jan. , ; Greene : ; Tibballs : item .
42. Alvin : . The joke is directed against Chukchis in Russia (Draitser :
) and Turks in Holland (Kuipers : ). A recent version targets talk-show hosts
(Norrick : ).
43. John Kidwell, e-mail message to author, Nov. , . A version about nerds is at
Tapper and Press : .
44. A four-item list of “regulations for the  attorney season,” including “The use
of currency as bait is prohibited,” was collected by Leslie Millett in Berkeley, CA, Oct. ,
. A more elaborated eleven-item list entitled “Washington State Attorney Season and
Bag Limits” is found on many Internet sites and includes both the “currency” item noted
above and those that follow in the text.
45. Lawyer Jokes, Dec. , . The same item was found at Gotta Love Them Lawyer
Jokes July ,  (last modified //). Further variants: e-mail messages to author
from Lisa Lerman, Nov. , ; Alison Dundes Renteln, Oct. , ; Laura Macaulay,
Aug. , .
46. Daniel White quoted in Peterson ; Silber : ; Walker ; Beckham,
: ; Sandra Day O’Connor as reported in Crawford, et al. ; Franklin ;
Stephen G. Breyer in Rooney .
47. Lawyer Jokes from Internet  no.  [= CLLH : lawyer humor no.  =
Adams and Newall :  = Ross : ] (switched from American to Australian) =
e-mail from Richard Gordon, Feb. , . Also, collected by Marc Louderback, Berke-
ley, CA, Nov. , ; Warner :  [= AML : no. ]; Grossman : ; 
Cal: item ;  Cal.: Apr. .
48. Heinrich Bebel (–) in Bowen : ; Ludovico Demenichi (–)
in Speroni : ; Robert Armin [] in Zall : ; Copley [] in Zall :
. The Renaissance story appears to be descended from a Roman joke about the passen-
gers asked to lighten the ship in distress by throwing things overboard and the “egghead”
takes his bank draft for  myriads and snips off the  (i.e., “L,” I assume). Baldwin :
item  [ca. CE ].
49. Murdock : ; Adams :  [= Adams : ]; Berle : ; Knott
a:  [= Knott b: ]; Rovin : ; Alvin : . By , when the venue
has shifted to a rafting expedition, the Mexican, anticipating the American’s move, says,
“Don’t even think about it.” Cohl : .
50. Baker :  [collected ]; Humes  []:  (Englishman throws
Greek); Shelley :  (Quebecker throws Ontarian); MacHale :  (Englishman
throws Irishman); Orso :  (Greek throws American); Dalton :  (Montanan
throws North Dakotan); Dolgopolova :  (Jew throws Arab); MacHale a: 
(Thatcher throws Irish PM); Stangland :  (Norwegian throws Swede); Hochwald
[]:  (Israeli throws Russian); Jones and Wheeler :  (hillbilly throws social
worker); Adams and Newall :  (Oregonian throws Californian); Barnett and Kaiser
:  (New Zealander throws Australian); Barnett and Kaiser :  (Maori throws
 Notes to pages –

Japanese); Readers Digest Aug.  (Seattle native shoots Californian and catches falling
bottle. When asked why he did it, he replies, “We have lots of Californians . . . but I really
feel I should recycle this bottle”); Kahn and Boe :  (similar).
51. Steiner :  (Israeli ministers); Mendelsohn :  (same); Learsi : 
(same); Murdock :  (politician); Benton and Looms :  [] (Edward
Heath and Margaret Thatcher); Kravitz :  (Ian Paisley throws pope); Orso :
 (Greek Junta); Lukes and Galnoor :  [] (Assad and brothers); Schuster :
 (president of Turkey); Adler and Adler :  (Bush throws Quayle); Adams and
Newall :  (Clintons and Gore); Laurence G. Kahn, e-mail to author, Nov. , 
(Clinton, Dole, Perot); Jhumor list, May ,  (Israeli ministers).
52. Julian Killingley, Birmingham, England, e-mail to author, Sept. ,  (who
reports that he had it from a U.S. internet site); Knott : ; Brallier : ; Adler
:  [= Adler : ]; Grossman : ; AML : no. ; Lawyer Jokes from
Internet : no. ; Killingley  [= CLLH : lawyer humor no.  = e-mail from
Len Riskin, May , ]; collected by Lara Kemper, Nov. ;  Cal.: Mar. ; pres-
entation by Wilfred M. McKay at Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, Dec. , ;
Ross : ;  Cal.: Mar. ; Cohl : ;  Cal.: Apr. ; Lawyer Jokes, Jan.
, ; Streiker : ; Dedopulos :  (first publication in UK); Greene :
;  Cal.: Feb. ; Baddiel et al. : .
53. Parry : ; Bregman : ; Banc and Dundes : . Its first appearances
on these shores were about Democrats (Pietsch : ) and “Niggers” (Knott :  );
Alvin a: . In these stories as in the Eastern European ones (but unlike the Ameri-
can lawyer joke), the “decoy” rat has a Pied Piper-like human proprietor.
54. Cited in Veall : –. “Caterpillar” at the time was used figuratively to des-
ignate “a rapacious person, an extortioner; one who preys upon society.” Oxford English
Dictionary, nd ed. .
55. J. Jones () quoted in Veall : .
56. Murray : . The  percent item is discussed in detail in the next section,
“The  Percent Legend.”
57. Burger .
58. Gergen : . Earlier, Colorado Governor Richard Lamm put forth various
proposals to “de-lawyer” the American system. Larsen ; Sanko .
59. Dee : .
60. McCracken .
61. Adelman .
62. Wiemer .
63. Viner et a.: unpaginated first page of text.
64. Quayle , reprinted in Quayle []. Quayle and his ample chorus were antic-
ipated over five hundred years earlier by William Caxton (ca. –ca. , England’s
first printer), who used the same trope to express his exasperation with lawyers: “I sup-
pose that in all Christendom are not so many pleaders, attorneys and men of the law as
be in England only, for if they were numbered all that belong to the courts of the
Chancery, King’s Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer, Receipt and Hell [record repository
in Westminster Hall], and the bag-bearers of the same, it should amount to a great mul-
titude. And how all these live, and of whom, if it should be uttered and told it should not
be believed.” W. Caxton, Game and Playe of the Chesse (), quoted by Baker : .
65. The basis of this calculation and supporting documentation is presented in Galan-
ter : –, –.
 Notes to pages – 

66. For example, cabinet members Robert Mosbacher and Louis Sullivan and Sena-
tors Robert Dole, Mitch McConnell, and Charles Grassley, among many others. See
Galanter . This figure was also solemnly reported as fact by several media experts,
such as David Gergen in Gergen : . In the case of the knowledgeable William Buck-
ley, Quayle’s speech “reminded [!] us that  percent of the lawyers in the world are
American.” Buckley . In the May  issue of Commentary, Francis Fukuyama wrote
that “there is something wrong with an economy that employs  percent of the world’s
lawyers.” Berger et al. .
Quayle’s vice-presidential acceptance speech highlighted the  percent figure (Quayle
a), while the Republican platform inexplicably reverted to the two-thirds figure.
Republican Party : .
67. Quayle was presenting proposals of the Council on Competitiveness, of which he
was chair. The council did not include the  percent figure in its Agenda (President’s
Council on Competitiveness ), but apparently there had been some consideration of
it in the preparation of Quayle’s ABA speech, for a week earlier “a Quayle spokesman” was
reported as having “noted that the United States has  percent of the world’s lawyers,
and that the rising tide of litigation ‘is a burden on our economy.’” Terry .
68. Among the earliest sightings was a news magazine report that “the U.S. has ,
lawyers, two thirds of the world’s total. . . . About  percent are in private practice.” U.S.
News and World Report : . (Could this be the origin of the  percent figure?) A few
months earlier, James Spensley, a practitioner and lecturer at the University of Denver Law
School, was quoted as saying, “The U.S. has become the world’s most litigious society,
employing over two thirds of the world’s lawyers.” Salisbury : . When I spoke with
Spensley by telephone in January , he could not recall the source of this information.
69. “It has been reported that about two-thirds of all the lawyers in the world are in
the United States and of those, one-third have come into practice in the past five years.”
Burger : . A very similar item appeared a few months earlier in a contribution to
Legal Times by New York lawyer Peter Megargee Brown: “Two-thirds of all lawyers in the
world are in the United States. One-third of the lawyers in this country have been in prac-
tice less than five years.” Brown : .
70. McLean . Cf. a law school dean’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that “two-
thirds of the world’s lawyers now practice in this country, and one-third of these were
graduated during the past five years.” Gellhorn : .
71. E.g., Sanko ; Larsen .
72. Quoted in Kleinfield : .
73. On page  of the Agenda, there is an approving reference to “a recent report by a[n
unnamed] Professor of Finance at the University of Texas . . . [that] estimated that the
average lawyer takes $ million a year from the country’s output of goods and services.”
The report referred to is chap.  of Magee et al. : –. That source contains an
incomplete listing of the number of lawyers in some thirty-four countries as of .
Magee et al. : –. Even this partial list enumerated enough lawyers that Ameri-
can lawyers could not have been more than  percent of the total. Magee et al. . One
can conclude that the council staff either did not examine the source they approvingly
cite, or that they were aware that the  percent figure was spurious.
74. Quayle : .
75. Quayle []: , –. A few years later, Quayle enlarged his indictment:
lawyers not only burden the nation with excessive litigation, but the “aristocracy” of
lawyers and judges is responsible for the nation’s “cultural decline.” Marinucci .
 Notes to pages –

76. Galanter .

77. Columnist George Will noted as one of “the nation’s most pressing problems . . .
the suffocation of economic and social energies by regulations, and by litigation from
the  per cent of the world’s lawyers who are Americans.” Will . News host Barbara
Walters solemnly reported that “ percent of all the lawyers in the entire world are in
this country.” Night-line . The president of Americans for Tax Reform concurred
(Norquist ), as did columnist Herb Jaffe , editorialist Bob Wiemer , com-
puter executive Charles Wang (Wintrob ), and an editorial “Really Stupid Lawyers’
Tricks” (Roanoke Times and World News ). Even its citation by the left-wing Monthly
Review as an explanation of why “in the United States, class struggle is expressed in legal
terms” (Ehrenberg ) has not diminished its appeal to the right. Thus Rep. Bill Archer,
proudly announcing the creation of “ new taxpayer rights, including the right to sue
the IRS for damages caused by negligence,” expresses astonishment that in a country with
 percent of the world’s lawyers “anybody can complain that this may be adding a little
bit more litigation.” Federal News Service : .
78. See the quotation from British commentator Ian Murray : , above at
note .
79. Banker .
80. Cornwell : ; Carlin : . A commentator in the same paper recently cited
it in connection with dire warnings about the “litigation crazy” U.S. Puddephatt : .
81. Nicoll : ; Johnson : ; Leslie and Gordon : ; Coleman : .
82. Esler : . The author’s diatribe about America’s legal morass (–) relies
heavily on Olson . Esler : .
83. Totten : .
84. Lim .
85. De Alvarado : . I am indebted to Lawrence Friedman for this reference.
86. See chap. , n. .
87. Much of the survey data reported in this section is derived from three national
sample surveys, each conducted by telephone. Two of these surveys were conducted for
the National Law Journal, the first in  and the second in . The third major sur-
vey was conducted for the American Bar Association in .
The first of the National Law Journal surveys (n=) was published in Kaplan .
A second survey (n=), which largely replicates the  survey and thus provides a use-
ful reading of recent changes, was conducted for the National Law Journal and the West
Publishing Company by Penn & Schoen Associates, Inc. (Samborn : ).
The other  survey (n=) was conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates,
Inc., for the American Bar Association. It was reported in Hengstler : . More exten-
sive data can be found in Peter D. Hart Research Associates .
88. Samborn : . But this may not be very intense: when the ABA survey asked
people to volunteer criticism of lawyers, only  percent volunteered that they were too
numerous. Peter D. Hart Research Associates : .
89. Samborn : Question . A  percent majority thought lawyers had “too
much influence and power in society.” Samborn : Question . Both public opinion
and TV depictions attribute more power to lawyers than lawyers believe they have. Pfau
et al. : .
90. Hart Survey, –. This pattern is not unique to present-day America. In early
modern England, antagonism to lawyers and blaming them for excessive litigation was
highest among top people. Brooks : ; Prest : .
 Notes to pages – 

91. Kaplan : table . In regard to lawyers’ having too much power, the distribu-
tion again was skewed with more prosperous and powerful groups high (college gradu-
ates,  percent; professionals,  percent) and outsider groups low (blacks,  percent).
Id. at table . The former were also among the most knowledgeable, least enthusiastic
about mandatory pro bono service for lawyers, and most opposed to an elective federal
judiciary. Id.
92. Overton : .
93. Trotter : . Others concur that the intensity of abuse in the jokes is a direct
reflection of ethical abuses by lawyers. Kolbe ; Puma : ; Drinan : .
94. “The lack of attorney professionalism is a cause of both lawyer jokes and violence
against lawyers.” Puma : . Often the notion of public outrage at lawyer behavior
is combined with an assertion (or assumption) that lawyers behave more poorly than they
did in the past (the premise of much recent writing on the profession). That there has
been a significant decline in lawyer behavior seems doubtful, but such a development is
not required, for an increase in public discontent could be produced by () the multipli-
cation of contacts with lawyers; () greater visibility and salience of lawyer offenses; and
() higher expectations of lawyer conduct. The first two of these have certainly occurred
and probably the third as well.
95. Kaplan : table .
96. Kaplan : table .
97. Samborn : graphs –.
98. Samborn  (containing a steady number of “very satisfied” responses).
99. Peter D. Hart Research Associates : . More recent surveys in  and 
report the same range of levels of satisfaction. Leo J. Shapiro : .
100. A number of the narrative Death Wish jokes depict a recoil by client against “his”
lawyer after (presumably satisfactory) continuing relations (I, love to hear it; I, make sure
he’s dead ). As far as we can tell these people were using the system with satisfactory results,
they are unhappy not with bad or abusive lawyering but with good lawyering. As Art
Buchwald quipped, it is not the bad lawyers who are the problem but the good lawyers.
101. Trachtenberg : . This explanation raises the expectation that there would
be jokes targeting divorce lawyers, but there only a few and they have experienced no
noticeable increase over the period in question.
102. Lipset and Schneider ; Uslaner : ff.
103. As one distressed and indignant lawyer points out, the “fundamentally disturb-
ing difference” between jokes about lawyers and those about other occupational groups is
“the death of the lawyer” and its celebration—that is, the Death Wish and Object of Scorn
jokes. Skladony : .
104. Lewis : .
105. See Dundes : chaps. , ; Sutton-Smith ; Abrahams : .
106. Simon, .
107. McDowell .
108. A minority of the jokes switched to lawyers were previously directed principally
at these no longer correct targets, including a number of those examined in this chapter:
I, good start (blacks); I, bus over cliff (Pakistanis in UK); I, love to hear it (wife); I,
deathbed conversion (religious groups); I, get in line (wife/mother-in-law); I, Doberman
(blacks); I, alligator (Jews, blacks); I, throw out of train (Mexican); H, hostages (wife/
mother in law); H, sperm (blacks). Once established as lawyer jokes, some of those dis-
cussed here switched to such targets: I, bury twenty-one (unwanted immigrants); but most
 Notes to pages –

of the switching has been to other occupational groups: I, more concrete; I, bottom of sea;
I, love to hear it; I, bury deep down; I, Doberman; G, rats. It is possible that this
imbalance reflects a widespread inhibition of placing such material in the written record.
109. Wiley .
110. Egan .
111. Finer : . The literary antecedents are traced in Tucker : ff.
112. Bloomfield .
113. [Jesse Higgins], Sampson against the Philistines, nd ed. (Philadelphia, ), ,
as quoted by Bloomfield : . A late twentieth-century rendition, a drawing cap-
tioned “and on the eighth day God invented lawyers . . . and screwed it all up” displays
less confidence in divine design. Bond : .
114. G. Wistanley, quoted in Veall : 
115. MacIntyre : –.
116. Cf. Bachman : –: “The ugly turn in lawyer jokes is more a reflection of
a mass feeling of self-revulsion towards certain trends in our society than a reaction to any
change in lawyers’ behavior or even to lawyers themselves.”
117. Many of these were seemingly moribund but restored to life by the great out-
pouring of kindred jokes that started flowing in the mid-s.

  . E        J      
1. Davies : .
2. Esar : .
3. Of the sixty-some instances of appeal at once that I have collected, the phrase is
uttered by the client in almost two-thirds. Other client tellings are: Knox :  (UK,
but told of U.S.); Aye :  (UK); Copeland : ; Droke : ; Golden []:
; Richman : ; Lieberman : ; Bowker :  (UK); Jackson : 
(UK); Woods : item .; Wachs : ; Golden : ; Bodine  (told as
anecdote); Los Angeles Times, Nov. ,  (reverse: lawyer tells client); Foster : 
(UK); Accountancy Age, May ,  (UK, accountant in tax case, told as anecdote at
retirement dinner); Rafferty : ; Knott : ; Behrman : ; Dover and Fish
 (UK, client is Robert Maxwell); Rovin : ; Adler :  [= Adler :
]; Berle : ; AML : ; AML : no. ; Murray  (reversed); Courier
Journal, Jan. , , reporting Barbara Jordan’s  convocation address, citing Alan
Dershowitz); Adams & Newall :  (Australia); Coote :  (Australia); CLLH
: lawyer humor no. ; Subhash and Dharam b:  (India, client is politician);
Adams and Newall :  (Australia); Ross :  (Australia, woman lawyer);
Streiker : ; Harvey ca.a:  (India).
4. Anon. c.: ; Bigelow : ; Brown []: ; Landon : ; John-
ston : item ; Wood : ; Aye : ; Copeland : ; Esar : . Cf.
Aye :  (counsel agrees with convicted client that he has not received justice, but
“you’ll get it all right tomorrow”).
5. Mosher []:  [= Milburn : ].
6. Ernst : ; Johnston : item .
7. Edwards : item ; Wilde : .
8. Green Bag :  (). On the role of American lawyers and judges in inter-
vention in Latin America in the era in which the joke emerged, see Noonan ; Lisagor
and Lipsius  (describing the notorious intervention of William Nelson Cromwell in
securing the secession of Panama from Colombia in ).
 Notes to pages – 

9. The term is used, and very likely coined, by Roscoe Pound in . “The leaders
of the American bars are not primarily practitioners in the courts. They are chiefly client
caretakers. . . . Their best work is done in the office, not in the forum. They devote them-
selves to study of the interests of particular clients, urging and defending those interests
in all their varying forms, before legislatures, councils, administrative boards and com-
missions quite as much as in the courts. Their interest centers wholly in an individual
client or set of clients, not in the general administration of justice.” Pound : .
10. Strong : .
11. Strong : –.
12. E.g., D, fair to both, where the client reproaches the lawyer for insufficiently serv-
ing his aggressive desires.
13. Shillaber : ; Avery . Comparable tales appear in Gilbert []:  (Irish
lawyer in nineteenth-century England), and Engelbach :  (Australian barrister).
14. Landon : .
15. Behrman : ; Eastman : ; Lupton : item ; Goldon []: ;
O’Neal and O’Neal : ; Rovin : ; Arya : ;  Cal.: Nov. .
16. Edwards : item .
17. Dunne : – [].
18. Clode : ; Milburn : ; Wilde : ; Knott : .
19. Leo Cullum cartoon, New Yorker, July , , .
20. The lawyer’s readiness and ability to switch sides are also addressed in the sections
“Lying and Dishonsty” and “Eloquence, Persuasiveness, Resourcefulness,” chap. .
21. Sprague : ; Green Bag :  (); Regan :  (reappearing in print
after more than  years!).
22. Esar : ; Edwards : item ; Mosher []:  (“railway magnate
and prominent Philadelphia lawyer”); Milburn :  (railway magnate and prominent
attorney).
23. See Paul ; Shamir .
24. David Corn, “Starr’s Grand (Self-) Illusion,” Loyal Opposition [http://www.
american-politics.com/Corn.html].
25. Edmund and Williams : – [= Lawson : ]; Green Bag :  ();
Anon. :  (secretary); Masson []: ; Lurie : ; Henry : ; Wilson
: .
26. This theme is addressed in “Headed for Hell,” chap. .
27. In a curious cognate (or spin-off?) of this story, the magnate arrives at St. Peter’s
gate but refuses to answer questions about his life “by advice of counsel,” whereupon Peter
dispatches him to consult with counsel by dropping him “into the sulphurous depths.”
Green Bag :  ().
28. See text at notes – below.
29. Thus in two plus two (A) the joke is intensified by the pointed contrast between
the lawyer’s elasticity and the fruitless literal-mindedness of the other candidates.
30. Marchal : C. Other “partner” versions are: Cerf :  [= Cerf : ];
Allen : ; Adams : ; Jessel : ; Gillespie-Jones :  (Australia, told
of U.S.); Walker :  (Australia); Wilde : ; Rosten :  (U.S., told of
UK); Judicial Conference ( F.R.D.  ()); Phillips :  (UK); Shulman 
(UK, told of U.S.); Charleston Gazette, Nov. , ; Coote :  (Australia); Coote
:  (Australia, first fax).
31. Oral tradition, India .
 Notes to pages –

32. Wilde : ; Gardner : .

33. Wilde : ; Wilde : ; Chariton : ; Knott : ; Berle : ;
 Cal.: item . Cf. Rovin :  (baseball umpire). Other prostitute comparisons are
in chap. , “A Suspect Profession.”
34. Johnston : item ; Kiser : ; Esar : ; May : ; MacDon-
ald :  (told by Canadian attorney as anecdote about  U.S. criminal case); Kahn
:  (South Africa). Cf. Silbey :  (comment allegedly made by Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes to young lawyer: “Young man . . . never forget that this is not a court of
justice, it is a court of law”).
35. Jackson : . Deflecting the cynical message, the author labels the story one
“which all laymen—particularly unsuccessful litigants—will relish.” John Duke Cole-
ridge, st Baron (–), grandnephew of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was Lord
Chief Justice of England from  until his death.
36. Gary J. Aichele () in Herz : .
37. Robert Bork () in Herz : .
38. Herz : . “I explore the ways in which people telling the story get it wrong.”
Herz : .
39. I happened to be at the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme
Court of India in New Delhi in January . On the occasion, the president of India,
K. Narayanan, recounted a story told by the first president of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad
(–), who left his law practice in  to devote himself to the independence
movement. Prasad “was appearing in a Patna court and told the judge, ‘My Lord, justice
in this case requires that etc.’ The judge intervened and said, ‘Judges are not here to do
justice, but to decide cases according to evidence on record.’” Times of India, Jan. ,
, ; Hindustan Times, Jan. , .
40. Landon : ; Bigelow :  (elaborated English story told as anecdote
about veteran lawyer responding to “new-fledged barrister”).
41. Johnson et al. : ; Mosher []: ; Williams : item ; Esar :
; Droke : ; Humes []: item ; Pendleton []: item ; Yarwood []:
.
42. Edwards : item .
43. Mendelsohn : . According to one account, Steuer (–) was reputed
to charge so much that “people began to suspect that anyone desperate enough to pay
Steuer’s going rate must have a shaky case, to say the least.” Evans : . But this
theme antedated Steuer: Miles ?:  (if not guilty I would have defended myself );
Green Bag :  () (juror attributes conviction to defendant’s hiring of lawyer).
44. Joe Miller : No. , reproduced in Hazlitt :  [= Anon. : II, .];
Anon. : ; Lemon : ; Lean : : (attributed to Sydney Smith [–
]). John Horne Tooke (–) was a radical British politician who was tried for
high treason in , acquitted, and became a Member of Parliament in .
45. Hazlitt : .
46. Lord Birkett in Jackson : .
47. Lemon : ; Cole : ; Green Bag :  (); Encyclopaedia Britan-
nica : a (); Engelbach : ; Heighton : –; Aye : ; Alvarez :
; Hay : .
48. Encyclopaedia Britannica : a () (“final impetus”); Alvarez : 
(“precipitated”).
49. Barrie :  (aphorism). Others refer to a “saying” (Brazin : ) or an “adage”
 Notes to pages – 

(Anolik : ). Simmons :  (libraries). Dershowitz : . (“the cynical cartoon
that now hangs in many a lawyer’s office”); Hammel :  (misremembered).
50. Goodman .
51. Janofsky and Raven .
52. Ladendorf .
53. Morgan .
54. Julius . In the version given, the client is “Mr. Smith” as he is in Deborah
Rhode’s recollection of the cartoon several years earlier. Rhode : .
55. Curran : .
56. ABC News/Washington Post Survey  (USACWP..R) (on file with author).
57. U.S. News & World Report, news release, Jan. ,  (on file with author).
58. Robust majorities in a  survey affirmed that “lawyers are more interested in
winning than in seeing that justice is served” ( percent), “lawyers spend too much time
finding technicalities to get criminals released” ( percent), and “lawyers are more inter-
ested in making money than in serving their clients” ( percent). Leo J. Shapiro survey.
59. A comparable skepticism is displayed in surveys from other common law coun-
tries. In England, most of those with a view of the matter agreed that “the poor usually
get the raw end of the stick in legal matters.” Heavy majorities viewed lawyers as merce-
naries: “Lawyers are mainly interested in making money” and “for a price lawyers will use
every trick in the book to help their clients.” Abel-Smith et al. : –). A quarter
century later,  percent of English respondents agreed that “The legal system works bet-
ter for rich people than for poor people.” Only  percent disagreed. Genn : .
Canadian respondents agreed that “higher paid lawyers get better results for their clients;
that lawyers are always finding loopholes to get around the law; that lawyers get too many
guilty people off . . . that lawyers do not work as hard for poor clients as for clients who
are rich; that lawyers are more interested in making money than in helping their clients.”
Moore : . Comparable views in Australia are analyzed in Tomasic .
60. Best : .
61. In addition to the drop-outs listed in the Register of Jokes (appendix), the old
() version of A, pound the table, can be accounted a lost Justice joke.

. O  A?

1. Where Grisham’s book () has the hero abandon the law and become a com-
fortable emigre as the price of his victory, the screenwriters devised a clever legal solution
that enabled him to triumph and remain a lawyer.
2. Peter D. Hart Research Associates : .
3. Samborn : .
4. The “genuine” qualifier is needed because a great deal of the visible support for the
jaundiced view is generated by simulated grassroots groups that promote “reforms” of the
civil justice system. Thus Neal Cohen, of Apco Associates, a specialist in creating spuri-
ous “grassroots” tort reform organizations, gained notoriety when it was disclosed that he
exhorted fellow lobbyists about “the importance of keeping the public in the dark about
who the clients really are.” Fritsch ; O’Dwyer’s PR Services .
5. Organized programmatic expression of popular, non-special-interest grievances
is relatively uncommon. My characterization here is drawn from an examination of the
publications of HALT, a reform organization founded in , which indicate the sort
of issues that engage that small section of the public that devotes attention and energy
to challenging lawyers’ practices. The name HALT was originally an acronym for Help
 Notes to pages –

Abolish Legal Tyranny, but this was displaced by the less combative An Organization of
Americans for Legal Reform. In early , it was reported that the organization had a
staff of  and nearly , “members.” Washington Post, Jan. , . Subsequently,
economic constraints led to closing of field offices and cutting the staff to about a dozen;
in , membership was said to be about ,. Middleton : , . Grassroots
and militant offshoots such as Justice for All and the National Congress for Legal Reform
charged HALT with being unresponsive to its membership and too amicable with the bar.
In , the organization’s Web site (http://www.halt.org) claimed , members.
6. Yankelovich : question .
7. Roper Report no. –, July , on file with author.
8. See Glendon , Kronman , Linowitz and Mayer , and many other
sources cited in Galanter . Dissent from this frame breaks into print only rarely. See
Galanter :  n. .
9. As in the reaction to Charles Curtis’s  article, which frankly describes the ways
in which advocates shade and obscure the truth. See “Workers in the Mills of Deceit,”
chap. .
10. Foster ; E. Phillips ; Mason .
11. E. Phillips . Bury twenty-one is at .
12. Webster : .
13. Anon. . Check in the coffin (F) is also told of accountants in Britain.
14. Adams and Newall .
15. Ross . The author acknowledges the American provenance of the jokes (“our
main source for jokes about lawyers came from the United States”) and that he has
“modified them to fit our local context” ().
16. Subhash and Dharam a: .
17. In , the number of solicitors and barristers in England and Wales was ,.
By , it has grown to ,, an increase of some  percent. In the United States
the number of lawyers grew from , in  to , in , an increase of 
percent.
18. Atiyah and Summers .
19. Prest : , .
20. Prest : .
21. Kagan ; Kritzer ; Kritzer .
22. Golluch  (translation by the author). Contrasting with Witze in the first line,
the word “jokes” is in English.
23. Giselinde Kuipers, e-mail message to the author, Aug. , .
24. Banks : .
25. Porsdam : .
26. Porsdam : xii.
27. De Tocqueville: :; Auerbach b: ; Miller . See chap. , p. .
28. Porsdam : .
29. Bogart : .
30. Gawalt : vii.
31. Galanter : , . A calculation (August : ) that the U.S. has fewer
“law providers” per capita than many other nations is seriously flawed. Based on interna-
tional data on enrollment in law courses, it makes insufficient adjustment for differential
rates at which students in various countries graduate and graduates become and remain
suppliers of legal services. Galanter a: .
 Notes to pages – 

32. Kagan : –.

33. Osiel observes, “The especially stringent duties of client loyalty now widely taken
for granted by American lawyers, and embodied in their ethics codes, developed from the
alliance struck in the late th century between large law firms and large companies.”
Osiel .
34. Osiel . See also Osiel : , –.
35. Atiyah and Summers  regard the quest for substantive justice as a characteris-
tic distinguishing American law from English law. Cf. Kagan : ,  (observing the
inherent mismatch of attempting “to articulate and implement the socially transformative
policies of an activist, regulatory welfare state through the legal structures of a reactive,
decentralized, nonhierarchical governmental system”).
36. Post .
37. As in the familiar hymn “Farther Along”:
Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder
How it can be so all the day long
While there are others living about us
Never molested, though in the wrong
Farther along, we’ll know all about it
Farther along, we’ll understand why
Cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand it all by and by.
38. L. M. Friedman .
39. Cf. Shklar .
 

Note: Dates are years of edition examined and, unless otherwise indicated, of original
publication. Dates in brackets are years of original publication. I follow the title page in
designating authors as editor or compiler.

Aarne, Antti. . The types of the folktale: A classification and bibliography. Trans. Stith
Thompson. nd rev. ed. Helsinki: Academia Scientarum Fennica.  pp.
ABC News/Washington Post Survey. . Question ID: USACWP..R. Available in
Westlaw Poll Database.
Abel, Richard L. . American lawyers. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. xv +  pp.
Abel-Smith, Brian, Michael Zander, and Rosalind Brooke Ross. . Legal problems and
the citizen. London: Heineman. xiv +  pp.
Abrahams, Roger D. –. Ghastly commands: The cruel jokes revisited. Midwest Folk-
lore :–.
———. . Deep down in the jungle: Negro narrative folklore from the streets of Philadel-
phia. nd ed. New York: Aldine. ix +  pp.
Adams, Joey. . Joey Adams’ joke book. New York: Popular Library.  pp.
———. . Strictly for laughs. New York: Frederick Fell.  pp.
———. . Encyclopedia of humor. New York: Bonanza Books.  +  pp.
———. . It takes one to know one: The Joey Adams do-it-yourself laugh kit. New York:
G. P. Putnam.  pp.
———. . The Joey Adams joke dictionary. New York: Citadel.  pp.
———. . Son of encyclopedia of humor. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.  pp.
———. . Joey Adams’ ethnic humor. New York: Manor Books.  pp.
———. . Joey Adams’ complete encyclopedia of laughter. Comp. Robert W. Cabell.
West Hollywood, CA: Dove Books.  pp.
Adams, John Quincy. . [–]. Diary of John Quincy Adams. Proceedings of the
Massachusetts Historical Society, nd ser., :–
Adams, Phillip, and Patrice Newall. . The Penguin book of Australian jokes. Ringwood,
Victoria: Penguin Books Australia.  pp.


 References

———, comps. . The Penguin book of jokes from cyberspace. (ingwood, Victoria: Pen-
guin Books Australia.  pp.
———, comps. . Pocket jokes. Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin Books Australia.  pp.
———, comps. a. The Penguin book of more Australian jokes. Ringwood, Victoria:
Penguin Books Australia.  pp.
Adelman, Ken. . Litigious society in and out of court. Washington Times. Oct. .
Adler, Bill. . Jewish wit and wisdom. New York: Dell.  pp.
———. . Great lawyer stories: From courthouse to jailhouse, tall tales, jokes and anec-
dotes. New York: Citadel.  pp.
———. . First, kill all the lawyers: Legal proverbs, epitaphs, jokes and anecdotes. New
York: Citadel. viii + pp. (A republication of Adler  with some slight variations.)
———, and Bill Adler Jr. . Quayle hunting: The Dan Quayle joke book. New York:
Carroll & Graf. xiv +  pp.
Adler, Eric. . Trendy gags poke fun at professions; Lawyer jokes are part of latest cruel
humor. Kansas City Star. July .
Adler, Larry. . Jokes and how to tell them. New York: Doubleday.  pp.
Agarwal, Charu, comp. . The pocket book of funny jokes. New Delhi: Hind Pocket
Books.  pp.
Akst, Daniel, and Laura Landro. . Preying for gain: In Hollywood’s jungle the pred-
ators are out and feasting on stars. Wall Street Journal, June .
Allday, Richard. . Letter to the editor. Daily Telegraph. Oct. .
Allen, Edward Frank, ed. . Modern humor for effective speaking. New York: Dover. xii
+  pp.
Allen, Jay. .  Great Jewish jokes. New York: Signet Books.  pp.
Allen, Steve. . Steve Allen’s private joke file. New York: Three Rivers Press. xvi + 
pp.
Althouse, Ann, Rob Atkinson, Burnele V. Powell, William H. Simon, and Randolph N.
Stone. . Responses to Lubet (). Michigan Law Review :–.
Altman, Sig. . The comic image of the Jew: Explorations of a pop culture phenomenon.
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Alverson, Charles. . []. The world’s best business jokes. London: Fontana.  pp.
Alvin, Julius. . Gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. a. Totally gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Utterly gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Doubly gross joke. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Awesomely gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Painfully gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Agonizingly gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Excruciatingly gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Intensely gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Infinitely gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Terribly gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. a. Savagely gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Insanely gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Brutally gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. a. Unbelievably gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Obnoxiously gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. a. Hilariously gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
 References 

———. b. Frightfully gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Fiendishly gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. a. Offensively gross jokes. New York: Zebra Books.  pp.
———. . Grossly gross jokes. New York: Pinnacle Books.  pp.
———. a. Twistedly gross jokes. New York: Pinnacle Books.  pp.
Aman, Reinhold. . Kakologia: A chronicle of nasty riddles and naughty wordplays.
Maledicta :–.
American Bar Association. . Perceptions of the U.S. justice system. Chicago: American
Bar Association.  +  pp.
American Bar Association Commission on Advertising. . Lawyer advertising at the cross-
roads: Professional policy considerations. Chicago: American Bar Association. vi +  pp.
American Lawyer. . The commercialization of the profession. Mar., –.
Amsterdam, Morey. . Keep laughing. New York: Citadel.  pp.
Anderson, Jack. . U.S. has become a nation of lawsuits. Washington Post, Jan. .
Anderson, Stewart, comp. . Sparks of laughter: Suggestions to toastmasters how to tell a
funny story. nd ed. New York: Stewart Anderson.  pp.
———, comp. . Sparks of laughter. rd ed. Newark, NJ: Stewart Anderson.  pp.
———, comp. . Sparks of laughter. th annual comp. Newark, NJ: Stewart Ander-
son.  pp. (Items from p.  on are “Selections from Previous Editions.”)
———, comp. . Sparks of laughter. th annual comp. Newark, NJ: Stewart Anderson.
 pp.
———, comp. . Sparks of laughter. th annual comp. Newark, NJ: Stewart Ander-
son.  pp.
Anderson Kill Olick & Oshinsky. ? We are not the enemy. Unpaginated brochure.
Andrews, William. . The lawyer in history, literature and humour. London: William
Andrews.  pp.
Anolik, Alexander. . Caveat emptor: Old saying also applied to those selling their
travel agencies. Travel Weekly, Mar. , .
Anon. . The tell-tale: or, Anecdotes expressive of the characters of persons eminent for rank,
learning, wit, or humour.  vols. London: R. Baldwin. x +  pp.
———. . Anecdote library; Being the largest collection of anecdotes ever assembled in a
single volume by the editor of the “Vocal Library.” London: Whittaker.  pp.
———. . The London jester; or, Museum of mirth, wit and humour (London: Orlando
Hodgson)  pp.
———. ? Jestiana, or joke upon joke, comprising rich gems of humour and smart bon
mots, extracted from the records of Momus. London: D. Hodgson.  pp.
———. . The flowers of anecdote, wit, humour, gaiety, and genius London: Charles Tilt.
iv +  pp.
———. . The American jest book, being a chaste collection of anecdotes, bon mots, and
epigrams, original and selected, for the amusement of the young and old of both sexes: By
the author of the American Chesterfield. Philadelphia: J. Howe.  pp.
———. . The American Joe Miller: or, The jester’s own book, being a choice collection of
anecdotes and witticisms. Philadelphia: Leary & Getz.  pp.
———. . Law and lawyers.—by the editor. No. III. Debow’s Review :–.
———. [ca.]. Chips from Uncle Sam’s Jack-Knife; or Slices from the New York Picayune.
New York: Dick & Fitzgerald.  pp.
———. . The book of humour. wit and wisdom: A manual of table-talk. London:
George Routledge. vii +  pp.
 References

———. .  Jokes and jests: Wit, humor and anecdote, native and foreign, classic and
otherwise. Chicago: Rhodes & McClure.  pp.
———. . The legend of Saint Yves, the lawyers’ patron saint. Green Bag :–.
———. . [W. H. Howe?, comp.]. English wit and humor. Philadephia: George W.
Jacobs.  pp.
———. . American wit and humor. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs.  pp.
———. a. Hebrew yarns and dialect humor. New York: Popular Publishing.  pp.
(Copyright by T. J. Carey.)
———. . “The Man in the Street” stories from the New York Times. New York: J. S.
Ogilvie.  pp.
———. a. Irish wit and humor. Chicago: Frederick J. Drake.  pp.
———. . New jokes and monologues by the best jokers, no. . Baltimore: I&M Otten-
heimer.  pp.
———. . Wit and humor of the American bar. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs.
 pp. (Librarian’s notation: “Henry Frederic Reddall.”)
———. a. New Hebrew jokes by the best jokers; Hebrew song parodies. Baltimore: I&M
Ottenheimer.  pp.
———. . Wit and humor of the physician. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs.  pp.
———. a. Wehman Bros. Hebrew jokes no.  containing side-splitting jokes, stories and
dialect humor, as delivered by the celebrated humorists of the day. New York: Wehman
Bros.  pp.
———. b. Wehman Bros.’ combination prize joker no. : Containing a collection of the
latest and best vaudeville, Irish, Dutch and Hebrew dialect jokes. New York: Wehman
Bros.  pp.
———. . Wit and humor of women. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs.  pp.
———. . That reminds me: A book of after dinner stories. New York: H. M. Caldwell.
 pp.
———. . New drummer’s yarns, no.  by a “knight of the grip.” Baltimore: I&M
Ottenheimer.  pp.
———. . Anecdotes of the hour: By famous men. New York: Hearst’s International
Library.  pp.
———. [ca.]. Toasts and after-dinner stories. New York: Barse & Hopkins.  pp.
———. . Bestlaffs of the year. New York: Harper. xxvii (not numbered) +  pp.
———. []. Anecdota Americana. The original “dirty” Anecdota, republished “in
slightly different form” as Anon., The classic book of dirty jokes: Anecdota Americana
(New York: Bell, ) xi +  pp. (William Passemon is identified at vii as the col-
lector of the anecdotes. According to Legman : , the original publication was
in New York, printed by “Guy D’Isere”/Joseoph Gavorse for David Moss, Gotham
Book Mart, –, and Passemon is a pseud. for Joseph Fliesler.)
———. ca. . Dr. Miles joke book. Elkhart, IN: Dr. Miles Laboratories.  pp.
———. . Anecdota Americana: Five hundred stories for the amusement of the five hun-
dred nations that comprise America. New York: William Faro.  pp. (An edition pub-
lished in  [New York: Nesor Publishing House,  pp.] is identical except that
the introduction and prologue at pp. – of the  edition have been replaced by
a different introduction at pp. –. According to Legman, this volume was “expur-
gated and revised by Samuel Roth.”)
———. []. Anecdota Americana: Series two. (The original sequel to the  Anecdota,
republished “in a slightly different form” as Anon.,  World’s worst dirty jokes [New
 References 

York: Bell, ], vii +  pp. The preface is initialed by “J. M. H.” [identified by Leg-
man as J. Mortimer Hall, pseud. of Vincent Smith]. Some items appear to have been
updated, e.g., p. , “watching the football game on T.V.”)
———. Before . Snappy jokes: A new collection of rich and rare jokes compiled by a jolly
bartender for stag parties, smokers, etc. Detroit: Johnson Smith.  pp. (Unpaginated,
bound together with catalog material copyrighted .)
———. . Laughter for the millions. Rev. ed. New York: Larch Publications.  pp.
(Original copyright by Louis Shomer, .)
———. . The new Anecdota Americana: Five hundred stories for America’s amusement.
New York: Greyson. vii +  pp. (According to Legman, a further revision by Samuel
Roth of Anon. a.)
———. n.d. ? Humour and counter humour. Shrewsbury, UK: Wilding.  pp.
———. . Sextra special. New York: Scylla.
———. . Extra sextra special. New York: Scylla.
———. . Open at your own risque. New York: Scylla.  pp.
———. . Are you under sexty? New York: Olympia House.  pp.
———. . The little joke book. Mt. Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press.  pp.
———. . Jokes for the john. New York: Kanrom.
———. a. That passing laughter: Stories of the Central South. Birmingham, AL: Cen-
tral South.  pp.
———. . More jokes for the john. New York: Kanrom.
———. a. “It only hurts when I laugh”: Cartoon classics from “Medical Economics” mag-
azine. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett.
———. . Laughsville U.S.A. New York: Scholastic Press Services.  pp.
———. a. Jokes for the head. New York: Kanrom.
———. a. The joke is wild. Kansas City, MO: Hallmark Editions.  pp.
———. b. Can-a-rama: The john companion. North Palm Beach, FL: Kamron.
———. ?  best Irish jokes and limericks. New York: Wings Books. ii +  pp.
———. . Executive’s handbook of humor for speakers. Waterford, CT: Bureau of Busi-
ness Practice.
———. . Hillbilly laugh book. Amarillo, TX: Baxter Lane.
———. a. []. Jewish jokes for the john. New York: Pocket Books.  pp. (Orig-
inally published by Kanrom.)
———. . Cowboy laugh book. Amarillo, TX: Baxter Lane.
———. a. Fisherman’s laugh book. Amarillo, TX: Baxter Lane.
———. [Nasreddin Hodja]. ca. .  jokes of Nasreddin Hodja. Istanbul: Minyatur
Yayinlari.
———. n.d., ca. ? Tell me another. St. Ives, UK.: Colourmaster International.
 pp.
———. . Union dogs. Maledicta, Summer, .
———. . []. What rugby jokes did next. Repr., London: Sphere Books.  pp.
———. . Rugby jokes score again. London: Sphere Books.  pp. (Copyright  by
E. L. Ranelagh.)
———. . Hands up for rugby jokes. London: Sphere Books.  pp. (Copyright 
by E. L. Ranelagh.)
———. a. Accent on humor: A look at the lighter side of philanthropy. Washington:
Philanthropic Service for Institutions.  pp.
———. . []. Son of rugby jokes. Repr., London: Sphere Books.  pp.
 References

———. . []. More rugby jokes. Repr., London: Sphere Books.  pp. (Copyright
 by E. L. Ranelagh.)
———. . The Maxwell joke book. London: Blake Paperbacks.  pp. (Also published
as Yermonee .)
———. . []. Even more rugby jokes. New York: Warner Books.  pp. (Copy-
right  by E. L. Ranelagh.)
———. . []. Rugby jokes. Repr., New York: Warner Books.  pp.
———. . Disorder in the court: Legal laughs, court jests and just jokes culled from the
nation’s justice system. Vienna, VA: National Court Reporters Assoc. vii +  pp.
———. [Four Anonymous Wall St. Guys]. . The Wall Street joke book: Raunchy
humor from fast-lane financiers. New York: St. Martin’s.  pp.
———. a. Best of marriage jokes. Bombay: Jaico Publishing House. pp.
———. b. The funny side of the law: Cop’s clangers and courtroom classics. London:
Stevenson.  pp.
———. c. The best pub joke book ever. London: Carlton Books.  pp.
———. d. Jokes of the (not so) humorous struggle against communism in Hungary.
Budapest: z+ Ltd.  pp.
———. . []. Favourite Yorkshire humour. Skipton, UK: Dalesman.  pp.
———. . The raunchy joke book, vol. . Mumbai, India: Magna.  pp.
———. a. A Prairie Home Companion pretty good joke book. St. Paul, MN: High-
bridge.  pp.
———. [The Laughter Lines Team]. b. Dirty jokes in a dinner jacket: After-dinner
stories for speakers. London: Foulsham.  pp.
———. c. E-tales: The best and worst of Internet humour. London: Cassell.  pp.
———. d. E-tales two: More of the best and worst of Internet humour. London: Cas-
sell.  pp.
———. . Jokes, quotes and bar-toons. Liberty Corner, NJ: Foley.  pp. (Copyright
Raymond Peter Foley.)
———. a. A Prairie Home Companion pretty good joke book. Rev. and exp. ed. St.
Paul, MN: Highbridge.  pp.
———. b. The most outrageous after-dinner jokes and stories. London: PPGS.  pp.
———. . The best doctor jokes ever. New York: MetroBooks.  pp.
———. a. The best lawyer jokes ever. New York: MetroBooks.  pp.
Applbaum, Arthur Isak. . Are lawyers liars? The argument of redescription. Working
Papers, Politics Research Group, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Univ.,
July .  pp.
Arizona Republic. . Short takes: You want more lawyer-bashing jokes?? (We thought
so). July .
———. . Hero or rogue?; J. J. gets celebrity-style justice. June .
Arneson, D. J. . The original preppy jokebook. New York: Dell.  pp.
Arnold, Thurman. . []. The symbols of government. New York: Harcourt Brace &
World. xv +  pp. (Originally published by Yale Univ. Press.)
Arron, Deborah L. . Running from the law. Law Practice Management  (Sept.):
–.
Arrowood, Charles F. . There’s a geography of humorous anecdotes. In In the Shadow
of History, ed. J. Frank Dobit, Mody C. Boatright, and Harry H. Ransom, –.
Austin, TX: Folk-Lore Society.
Arya, Sunil, ed. . Really funny jokes. Delhi: Hind Pocket Books.  pp.
 References 

———, comp. . The really fantastic joke book. Delhi: Hind Pocket Books.  pp.
———, comp. a. More really funny jokes. Delhi: Hind Pocket Books. x +  pp.
Ashmore, A. C. Stevenson, comp. . Jokes from the courts. London: T. Werner Laurie.
 pp.
Ashton, John. . Humour, wit and satire of the seventeenth century. New York: J. W.
Bouton. viii +  pp.
Asimov, Isaac. . Isaac Asimov’s treasury of humor. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. xi +
 pp.
———. . Asimov laughs again: More than  favorite jokes, limericks, and anecdotes.
New York: HarperCollins.  pp.
Asimow, Michael. . When lawyers were heroes. Univ. of San Francisco Law Review
:–.
———, and Shannon Mader. . Law and popular culture: A course book. New York:
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Atiyah, Patrick, and Robert Summers. . Form and substance in Anglo-American law.
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Atkinson, Rob. . Liberating lawyers: Divergent parallels in Intruder in the Dust and
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Attardo, Salvatore, and Jean-Charles Chabanne. . Jokes as a text type. Humor
:–.
Auerbach, Carl A. . Legal education and some of its discontents. Journal of Legal Edu-
cation :–.
———, comp. . Historical statistics of legal education. Chicago: American Bar Foun-
dation.  pp.
Auerbach, Jerold S. . Unequal justice: Lawyers and social change in modern America.
New York: Oxford Univ. Press. xv +  pp.
———. a. From rags to robes: The legal profession, social mobility and the Ameri-
can Jewish experience. American Jewish Historical Quarterly :–.
———. b. A plague of lawyers. Harper’s, Oct., –.
August, Ray. . The mythical kingdom of lawyers. ABA Journal, Sept., .
Aurand, A. Monroe, Jr. . Wit and humor of the Pennsylvania Germans. Harrisburg,
PA: Aurand Press.  pp.
Austin, Jerry, comp. . Sock it to me. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett.  pp.
Avery, Samuel Putnam. . Laughing gas: An encyclopaedia of wit, wisdom and wind.
 pp. (The copy I examined was bound together with Avery  and lists no author
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———. . The book of  comical stories; An endless repast of fun. New York: Dick &
Fitzgerald.  pp. (Also listed under Shillaber. The copy that I examined had no
author’s name on the title page, but Avery’s name was pencilled in by a librarian. It
was bound together with Avery , which also had no author’s name on title page,
but was copyright in Avery’s name. A second copy of these was identically bound.)
Aye, John [John Atkinson]. . Humour among the lawyers. London: Universal Press.
 pp.
———. . I am the joker: A collection of quaint and humourous incidents in the history
of the tradesman. London: Universal Publications.  pp.
———. a. Humour in our streets. London: Universal Publications.  pp.
 References

Bachman, Walt. . Law v. life: What lawyers are afraid to say about the legal profession.
Rhinebeck, NY: Four Directions Press.  pp.
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bledon Press. xxvii +  pp.
Baker, Ronald C. . Jokelore: Humorous folktales from Indiana. Bloomington: Indiana
Univ. Press. xiii +  pp.
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Baker, Tom. . On the genealogy of moral hazard. Texas Law Review :–.
Baldwin, Barry, trans. and ed. . The philogelos or laughter-lover. Amsterdam: J. C.
Gieben. xii +  pp.
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Baldwin, Joseph G. . []. The flush times of Alabama and Mississippi: A series of
sketches. New York: Sagamore Press. xii +  pp.
Banc, C., and Alan Dundes. . First prize: Fifteen years! An annotated collection of Rou-
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———. . You call this living? A collection of East European political jokes. Athens:
Univ. of Georgia Press.  pp. (Republication of Banc and Dundes  with new
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Bander, Edward J. . Legal humor dissected. Law Library Journal :–.
———. . A survey of legal humor books. Suffolk University Law Review :–.
Banker. . The bottom line. June, .
Banks, Louis. . The crisis in the courts. Fortune, Dec., .
Bar-Hebraeus, Gregory John. . []. Oriental wit and wisdom or the “laughable sto-
ries.” Trans. E. Wallis Budge. London: Luzac. xxvii +  pp. (Text as in .)
Bar-Lev, Omri, and Joe Weis. . Jokes for your john. New York: Barricade Books.  pp.
Barnett, John, and Lesley Kaiser in association with Brian Schaab, collectors. . The
Penguin book of New Zealand jokes. Auckland: Penguin Books.  pp.
Barrie, Joseph R., M.D. . Letter to the editor. New York Times, Apr. . (Dated
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Barron, Milton L. . A content analysis of intergroup humor. American Sociological
Review :–.
Barry, Marc. . Jokes my mother never told me. New York: Shapolsky.  pp.
Barton, John. . Beyond the legal explosion. Stanford Law Review :–.
Baughman, M. Dale. . Baughman’s handbook of humor in education. West Nyack, NY:
Parker.  pp.
Beckham, Diane Burch. . The lawyer machine. Texas Lawyer, May .
Beckmann, Petr. . Whispered anecdotes: Humor from behind the Iron Curtain. Boulder,
CO: Golem Press.  pp.
———. . Hammer and tickle: Clandestine laughter in the Soviet Empire. Boulder, CO:
Golem Press.  pp.
Beeton, Samuel Orchart. . Beeton’s book of anecdote, wit, and humour. London: Ward,
Lock & Tyler.  pp.
 References 

Behrman, Sid. . The lawyer joke book. New York: Dorset Press.  pp.
———. . The doctor joke book. New York: Barnes & Noble.  pp. (Cover lists
author as “Behrman,” but title page reads “Berman.”)
Bell, Aaron. . The meaning of laughter in Jewish jokes. In Laughter down the centuries,
ed. Siegfried Jakel and Asko Timonen, :–. Turku, Finland: Turun Yliopist.
Bell, J. J. . Hoots. Dundee, Scot.: Valentine.  pp.
Ben Amos, Dan. . The “myth” of Jewish humor. Western Folklore :–.
Bennett, D. J. . The psychological meaning of anti-Negro jokes. Fact  (Mar.–Apr.):
–.
Benton, Greg, and Graham Loomes. . []. Big red joke book: Laughs from the left.
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Berger, Arthur Asa. . The genius of the Jewish joke. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. xvi
+  pp.
Berger, Bill, and Ricardo Martinez. . What to do with a dead lawyer. Berkeley: Ten
Speed Press. Unpaginated.
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Bergin, Edward, ed. . The definitive guide to underground humor. Waterbury, CT:
Offbeat Publishing.  pp.
Bergstrom, Randolph E. . Courting danger: Injury and law in New York City,
–. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press. xi +  pp.
Berle, Milton. . []. Out of my trunk. Garden City, NY: Blue Ribbon Books.  pp.
———. . Milton Berle’s private joke file. Ed. Milt Rosen. New York: Crown Trade
Paperbacks. xxiv +  pp.
———. . More of the best of Milton Berle’s private joke file. Ed. Milt Rosen. New York:
William Morrow.  pp.
Bermant, Chaim. . What’s the joke? A study of Jewish humour through the ages. Lon-
don: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. vii +  pp.
Bernhard, Edgar. . Speakers on the spot: A treasury of anecdotes for coping with sticky sit-
uations. West Nyack, NY: Parker.  pp.
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Bigelow, Lafayette J. . Bench and bar: A complete digest of the wit, humor, asperities and
amenities of the law. New York: Harper.  pp. (Reprinted  by Johnson Reprint
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Black, Amy E., and Stanley Rothman. . Shall we kill all the lawyers first?: Insider
and outsider views of the legal profession. Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy
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Blair, Tom. . Tom Blair column. San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. , B-.
———. a. Tom Blair column. San Diego Union-Tribune, Sept. , B-.
———. b. Tom Blair column. San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. , B-.
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Bloomfield, Maxwell H. . American lawyers in a changing society, –. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press. ix +  pp.
 References

———. . Law and lawyers in American popular culture. In Law and American liter-
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Blue, Lionel. . Blue’s jokes: Ancient and modern, sacred and profane. London: Hodder
& Stoughton.  pp.
Bluestein, Gene. . Poplore: Folk and pop in American culture. Amherst: Univ. of Mass-
achusetts Press. xiii +  pp.
Blum, Andy. . Victim group has crusader as its leader. National Law Journal, Mar. .
Blumberg, Abraham. . The practice of law as a confidence game. Law & Society
Review : –.
Blumenfeld, Gerry. . Tales from the bagel lancers: Everyman’s book of Jewish humor.
Cleveland: World.  pp.
———. . []. Some of my best jokes are Jewish. New York: Popular Library.  pp.
———. . Rx: Doctor’s orders: Laugh! New York: Popular Library.  pp.
———, and Harold Blumenfeld. . Hit the ball and drag Charlie and other great golf
jokes. Los Angeles: Price Stern Sloan. Unpaginated.
Boatright, Mody C. . Law and laughter on the frontier. Southwest Review  ():
–.
———. . Folk laughter on the American frontier. New York: MacMillan. vii +  pp.
Boccaccio, Giovanni. . []. Decameron.  vols. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
Bodker, Lauritz. . Folk literature (Germanic). Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger.
Bogart, William A. . Consequences: The impact of law and its complexity. Toronto:
Univ. of Toronto Press. xii +  pp.
Boliska, Al. . []. The world’s worst jokes. New York: Pocket Books.  pp. (Orig-
inally published by McClelland and Stewart.)
Bond, Donald F. . The law and lawyers in English proverbs. ABA Journal :–.
———. . English legal maxims. PMLA :–.
Bond, Simon. . Battered lawyers and other good ideas. Toronto: HarperCollins.  pp.
Bonfanti, Joe. . Italian jokes. New York: Nordon.  pp.
Bonham, Tal D. . The treasury of clean jokes. Nashville, TN: Broadman Press.  pp.
———. . The treasury of clean country jokes Nashville, TN: Broadman Press.  pp.
———. a. The treasury of clean sports jokes. Nashville, TN: Broadman Press.  pp.
———. . The treasury of clean church jokes. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman. xii
+  pp.
———. a. The treasury of clean country jokes. nd ed. Nashville, TN: Broadman &
Holman.  pp.
———, and Jack Gulledge. . The treasury of clean senior adult jokes. Nashville, TN:
Broadman Press.  pp.
———. . The treasury of clean seniors jokes. nd ed. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Hol-
man. x +  pp.
Boskin, Joseph. . Rebellious laughter: People’s humor in American culture. Syracuse, NY:
Syracuse Univ. Press. xii +  pp.
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Books. xxix +  pp.
Bouquet, Betty Jane. . B. J.’s joke book. Graham, WA.: Systems Company. vii +  pp.
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 References 

Bowen, Barbara C. . Roman jokes and the Renaissance prince, –. Illinois
Classical Studies :–.
———, ed. . One hundred Renaissance jokes: An anthology. Birmingham, AL: Summa.
xx +  pp.
Bowker, A[rchibald] E[dward]. . A lifetime with the law. London: W. H. Allen.  pp.
Brallier, Jess M. . Lawyers and other reptiles. Chicago: Contemporary Books.  pp.
———. . Lawyers and other reptiles II: The appeal. Chicago: Contemporary Books.
 pp.
Brandes, Stanley. . Jewish-American dialect jokes and Jewish-American identity. Jew-
ish Social Studies :–.
Brandreth, Gyles. . Cockburn’s A-Z of after-dinner entertainment. London: Pelham
Books. viii +  pp.
———. . The ultimate joke encyclopedia. Enfield: Guiness.  pp.
Brant, Sebastian. . []. The ship of fools. New York: Columbia Univ. Press. ix +
 pp.
Braude, Jacob M. . Speaker’s encyclopedia of stories, quotations and anecdotes. Engle-
wood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.  pp.
———. . Braude’s handbook of humor for all occasions. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-
Hall.  pp.
———. . Braude’s treasury of wit and humor. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. viii
+  pp.
Brazin, Lionel I. . Letter. Illinois Legal Times, July, .
Bregman, Alexander. . Poking fun at Mao. East Europe  (): –.
Bremmer, Jan, and Herman Roodenburg, eds. . A cultural history of humor. Cam-
bridge, UK: Polity Press. xii +  pp.
Breslin, Mark, ed. . Son of a Meech: The best Brian Mulroney jokes. Toronto: Ballan-
tine Books.  pp.
Brill, Steven. . The law business in the year . American Lawyer, June, pull-out
supplement.
———, and James Lyons. . The not-so-simple crisis. American Lawyer, May, , –.
British Museum. –. Catalog of political and personal satires preserved in the depart-
ment of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Vols. – by Frederick George
Stephens; vols. – by M. Dorothy George.  vols. London: The British Museum.
Brodnick, Max, comp. and ed. . The international joke book #. New York: Leisure
Books.  pp.
———, comp. and ed. a. The Jerry Ford joke book. New York: Leisure Press. Unpag-
inated.
Brooks, C. W. . Pettifoggers and vipers of the commonwealth: The “lower branch” of the
legal profession in early modern England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. xiii
+  pp.
Brower, Bill. . The complete traveling salesman’s joke book. New York: Stravon.  pp.
Brown, David, comp. . Really wicked dirty jokes. London: Michael O’Mara Books.
 pp.
———, comp. a. Really wicked drinking jokes. London: Michael O’Mara Books.  pp.
———, comp. b. Really wicked football jokes. London: Michael O’Mara Books.  pp.
———, comp. c. Really wicked golf jokes. London: Michael O’Mara Books.  pp.
———, comp. d. Really wicked Irish jokes. London: Michael O’Mara Books.  pp.
———, comp. e. Really wicked Scottish jokes. London: Michael O’Mara Books.  pp.
 References

———, comp. f. The truly terrible joke book. London: Michael O’Mara Books.
 pp.
Brown, Marshall. . []. Wit and humor: A choice collection. th ed., Chicago: S. C.
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Brown, Ronald L., comp. . Juris-jocular: An anthology of modern American legal
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Brown, Yorick, and Mike Flynn. . The best book of urban myths ever. London: Carl-
ton Books.  pp.
Browne, Irving. . Humorous phases of the law. San Francisco: Sumner Whitney.  pp.
———. . Law and lawyers in literature. Boston: Soule and Bugbee. xv +  pp.
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Brundage, James A. . The ethics of the legal profession: Medieval canonists and their
clients. Jurist :–.
———. . The profits of the law: Legal fees of university-trained advocates. American
Journal of Legal History :–.
———. a. The medieval advocate’s profession. Law and History Review :–.
Brunsting, Bernard. . The ultimate guide to good clean humor. Uhrichsville, OH: Bar-
bour.  pp.
Brunvand, Jan Harold. . The study of contemporary folklore: jokes. Fabula :–.
———. . The study of American folklore: An introduction. nd ed. New York: W. W.
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Buckley, William. . Invisible hand tripped up by burden of lawyer glut. Austin
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Budiansky, Steve, et al. . How lawyers abuse the law. U.S. News & World Report, Jan.
, –.
Buford, Jim Bob, and “Shotgun” Jack Grabowski. . The redneck joke book. New York:
Barnes & Noble Books.  pp.
———. . More redneck jokes. New York: Barnes & Noble Books.  pp.
Buhler, Warren. . Calculating the Full Costs of Governmental Regulation. Washington,
D.C.: Office of the Librarian, Federal Register.
Burd, A. Harry. . New locker room humor. Rev. ed. Chicago: Burd.  pp.
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Reference Library.  pp.
Burger, Warren E. . Agenda for  A.D.—A need for systematic anticipation. Fed-
eral Rules Decisions : – (Address, National Conference on the Causes of Popu-
lar Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice, Apr. –, .)
———. . Remarks . . . American Bar Association Minor Disputes Resolution Con-
ference, Columbia University, New York, NY, May .
———. . Annual Message on the Administration of Justice at the midyear meeting
of the American Bar Association, Las Vegas, NV, Feb. .
Burke, J. C., comp. a. Five hundred years of Newfie humour (from Cabot to Crosbie).
Ottawa, Can.: Hermitage.  pp.
———, comp. b. Laughs from the rock: A collection of Newfoundland’s funniest stories.
Ottawa, Can.: Hermitage.  pp.
Burma, John H. . Humor as a technique in race conflict. American Sociological Review
:–.
 References 

Burnett, W. B. . Scotland laughing: The humour of the Scot. Edinburgh: Albyn Press.
 pp.
Burns, Thomas A., with Inger H. Burns. . Doing the wash: An expressive culture and
personality study of a joke and its tellers. Norwood, PA: Norwood Editions. xvi +  pp.
Byrn, M. Lafayette. . []. The repository of wit and humor; Comprising more than
one thousand anecdotes, odd scraps, off-hand bits, and humorous sketches. Boston: John
P. Jewett.  pp.
Cagney, Peter, ed. . []. The official Irish joke book no. . Repr., London: Futura.
 pp.
———, ed. . [a]. Positively the last official Irish joke book. Repr., London: Futura.
 pp.
Cahill, F[rancis]. J. . Rare bits of humor: After-dinner stories, convivial toasts and
humorous anecdotes. New York: George Sully.  pp. (Also published in that year by
Sully under the title A bunch of yarns and rare bits of humor.)
Cain, Maureen. . The general practice lawyer and the client: Towards a radical
conception. In The sociology of the professions: Lawyers, doctors and others, ed. Robert
Dingwall and Philip S. C. Lewis, –. London: MacMillan.
Califano, Joseph A., Jr. . The law: Once a noble profession. Washington Post, Jan. .
Calve, Joseph. . The mock-pop-psycho-social-lawyer-joke-study article. Connecticut
Law Tribune, Jan. , .
Campos, Paul F. . Jurismania: The madness of American law. New York: Oxford Univ.
Press. x +  pp.
Cantor, Eddie, ed. . World’s book of best jokes. Cleveland: World.  pp.
Caplow, Theodore, Louis Hicks, and Ben J. Wattenberg. . The first measured century:
An illustrated guide to trends in America, –. Washington, DC: AEI Press. xv +
 pp.
Cappelletti, Mauro, ed. –. Access to justice.  vols. in . Milan: A. Giuffrè; Alphen
aan den Rijn, Neth.: Sijthoff and Noordhoff.
———, ed. . Access to justice and the welfare state. With the assistance of John Weis-
ner and Monica Seccombe. Alphen aan den Rijn, Neth.: Sijthoff. xiv +  pp.
Caras, Quentin. . Naughty jokes to make you blush. Bombay: India Book House. vi +
 pp.
Carlin, Jerome E. . Lawyers on their own: A study of individual practitioners in Chicago.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press. x +  pp.
———. . Lawyers’ ethics: A survey of the New York City Bar. New York: Russell Sage
Foundation. xxix +  pp.
———, Jan Howard, and Sheldon L. Messinger. . Civil justice and the poor: Issues
for sociological research. Law & Society Review :–.
Carlin, John. . Last chance in America’s ludicrous legal lottery. Independent, Mar. , .
Carrick, John Donald, William Motherwell, and Andrew Henderson, eds. . The laird
of Logan, being anecdotes and tales illustrative of the wit and humour of Scotland. Lon-
don: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent. .  pp.
Carter, James E. . Addresses of Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter), Governor of Georgia,
–. Comp. Frank Daniel. Atlanta: Ben W. Fortson Jr., Sec’y of State.  pp.
———. . Address at the th anniversary dinner of the Los Angeles Bar Associa-
tion, May . Repr. in President Carter’s attack on lawyers, President Spann’s response,
and Chief Justice Burger’s remarks.  ABAJ .
Carter, Stephen L. . Integrity. New York: Basic Books. x +  pp.
 References

Carter, Terry. . A lesson learned. ABAJ, May, , .

Case, Carleton B. . The big joke-book (new edition). Chicago: Shrewsbury.  pp.
Casey, Gregory. . The Supreme Court and myth: An empirical investigation. Law &
Society Review :–.
Cerf, Bennett, ed. . The pocket book of war humor. New York: Pocket Books. xi +
 pp.
———. . Try and stop me: A collection of anecdotes and stories, mostly humorous. New
York: Simon & Schuster. ix +  pp.
———, ed., . Laughing stock: Over six-hundred jokes and anecdotes of uncertain vin-
tage. New York: Grosset and Dunlap. viii +  pp.
———, ed. a. The pocket book of jokes. New York: Pocket Books. vi +  pp.
———, ed. . Anything for a laugh. New York: Bantam Books.  pp.
———, ed. . Shake well before using. New York: Random House. viii +  pp. (Also
bound in Bennett Cerf ’s bumper crop, vol. , Garden City, NY: Garden City Books,
n.d.)
———, ed. . Laughter incorporated, bound in Bennett Cerf ’s bumper crop, vol. , Gar-
den City, NY: Garden City Books, n.d.
———, ed. . Good for a laugh. Garden City, NY: Hanover House.  pp. (Also
bound in Bennett Cerf ’s bumper crop, vol. , Garden City, NY: Garden City Books,
n.d.)
———. . The life of the party. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.  pp.
———. a. Bennett Cerf ’s vest pocket book of jokes for all occasions. New York: Random
House.  pp.
———. . The laugh’s on me. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.  pp.
———. . Laugh day: A new treasury of over  humorous stories and anecdotes. Gar-
den City, NY: Doubleday. xii +  pp.
———. . The sound of laughter. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. xii +  pp.
Chambers, Garry, comp. . The complete Irish gag book. London: W. H. Allen.  pp.
Chance, Norman H. . Chance hits. Chicago: Saalfield.  pp.
Chariton, Wallace O. . Texas wit and wisdom. Plano, TX: Wordware. xvii +  pp.
Chase, Anthony. . Lawyers and popular culture: A review of mass media portrayals
of American attorneys. American Bar Foundation Research Journal :–.
Chesebro, Kenneth. . Galileo’s retort: Peter Huber’s junk scholarship. American Univ.
Law Review :–.
Chroust, Anton-Hermann. . The rise of the legal profession in America.  vols. Norman:
Univ. of Oklahoma Press. xxiii + ,  pp.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. . [ca.  BCE.] Cicero on oratory and orators. Ed. J. S. Watson.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press. li + pp.
Clark, Geoff. . Officer can’t claim spring break fame. Orlando Sentinel, Mar. 
(Osceola Sentinel ).
Clark, Gerald J. . Fear and loathing in New Orleans: The sorry fate of the Kutak
Commission’s rules. Suffolk Univ. Law Review :–.
Claro, Joe, ed. . Random House book of jokes and anecdotes. New York: Random
House. vii +  pp.
———, ed. . Random House book of jokes and anecdotes. nd. ed. New York: Random
House. vi +  pp.
———, ed. . Get a laugh! Over  jokes and anecdotes about modern life. New York:
Random House. vii +  pp.
 References 

Clemens, Will M., ed. . The Depew story book. Chicago: Thompson and Thomas. x
+  pp.
Clements, William M. . The types of the Polack joke. Folklore Forum: A Bibliographic
and Special Series, no. , .
Cleveland, Andrew L. . Dirty stories for all occasions. New York: Galahad Books. 
pp.
Clode, Edward J. . Jokes for all occasions: Selected and edited by one of America’s fore-
most public speakers. New York: Edward J. Clode.  pp. (No author listed; Clode
listed as publisher and copyright holder.)
Clouston, Al. . “Come ’ere till I tells ya”: A collection of Newfoundland humor. St. John’s,
NF: Dicks.  pp.
———. . “When I grow too old to laugh, shoot me!”: A collection of Newfoundland
humour. St. John’s, NF: Al Clouston.  pp.
Cobb, Irvin S. . A laugh a day keeps the doctor away. Garden City, NY: Garden City.
 pp.
———. . Many laughs for many days. Garden City, NY: Garden City.  pp.
Cochrane, Timothy. . The concept of ecotypes in American folklore. Journal of Folk-
lore Research :–.
Cohen, Gerald Leonard. . The origin of the term “shyster.” Frankfurt am Main: Verlag
Peter Lang.  pp.
Cohen, Myron. . Laughing out loud. New York: Citadel.  pp.
———. . More laughing out loud. New York: Gramercy.  pp.
Cohen, Sarah Blacher, ed. . Jewish wry: Essays on Jewish humor. Bloomington: Indiana
Univ. Press. ix +  pp.
Cohl, H. Aaron. . The Friars Club encyclopedia of jokes. New York: Black Dog & Lev-
enthal.  pp.
Cohn, Ted. . Jokes: Philosophical thoughts on joking matters. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago
Press. xi +  pp.
Cole, Edward William. ? Cole’s fun doctor: The funniest book in the world. st ser.
Melbourne: E. W. Cole.  +  pp.
———. ? Cole’s fun doctor: The funniest book in the world. nd ser. Toronto: McClel-
land & Goodchild. viii +  pp. (This is a sequel to the preceding entry. The preface
to the second series volume notes that “fifteen years have passed away” since the pro-
duction of the first volume.)
Coleman, James S. . Power and the structure of society. New York: W. W. Norton.
 pp.
———. . Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press. xvi +
 pp.
———. . The rational reconstruction of society:  presidential address. American
Sociological Review  (Feb.): –.
Coleman, Vernon. . Don’t swallow this butchered report! The People, Nov. , .
———. a. Just what’s going on in Britain with the long harm of the law? The People,
Mar. , .
Colombo, John Robert. . The Penguin book of Canadian jokes. Toronto: Penguin
Books Canada. xv +  pp.
Connors, Tom. . Up to their necks in sand. Journal of Commerce, Apr. , A.
Cook, Lyman E. . Comics in the law. Chicago: Universal.  pp.
Cooper, Anna R. . Notes and queries. Guardian, Oct. , .
 References

Coote, George. . The serious joke book. Kangaroo Pt., Qld., Austl.: Herron.  pp.
———. . The seriously rude joke book. Norman Park, Qld., Austl.: Gap. xiv +  pp.
———. . The politically incorrect joke book. Norman Park, Qld., Austl.: Gap. ix +
 pp.
Cornwell, Rupert. . Gingrich targets greedy lawyers. Independent, Mar. , .
Copeland, Lewis, ed. . The world’s best jokes. New York: Blue Ribbon Books. (Repr.,
Garden City, NY: Halcyon House, , vii +  pp.
———, and Faye Copeland, eds. . , jokes, toasts and stories. Garden City,
NY: Garden City Books. xi +  pp. (The apparently identical volume published
under the imprint of Doubleday in  omits the “Negro” and “Jewish” sections [
items] and substitutes a “Quotation Dictionary.” Citations here are to the 
edition.)
Council for Public Interest Law. . Balancing the scales of justice: Financing public inter-
est law in America. Washington: Council for Public Interest Law.
Council on the Role of Courts (principal editor, Jethro K. Lieberman). . The role of
courts in American society: The final report of the Council on the Role of Courts. St. Paul,
MN: West. xiii +  pp.
Craig, Steven C. . The malevolent leaders: Popular discontent in America. Boulder, CO:
Westview. xv +  pp.
Cramton, Roger C. . What do lawyer jokes tell us about lawyers and lawyering? Cor-
nell Law Forum  (): –.
Crawford, Jan, William Grady, and John O’Brien. . Legal highlights of a lesser sort.
Chicago Tribune, Dec. , Business, .
Cray, Ed. . The rabbi trickster. Journal of American Folklore :–.
Crompton, Colin, comp. . More best Jewish jokes. London: Wolfe.  pp.
Cross, Frank. . The first thing we do, let’s kill all the economists: An empirical eval-
uation of the effect of lawyers on the United States economy and political system.
Texas Law Review :–.
Croy, Homer. . What grandpa laughed at. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce.  pp.
Cruikshank, Hugh, Jr. . The Alaska book of jokes. Bird Creek, AK: Fourth and Feather
Productions.  pp.
Curran, Barbara A. . The legal needs of the public: The final report of a national survey.
Chicago: American Bar Foundation. xxxvi +  pp.
———. . The lawyer statistical report: A statistical profile of the U.S. legal profession in
the s. With Katherine J. Rosich, Clara N. Carson, and Mark C. Puccetti. Chicago:
American Bar Foundation. xvii +  pp.
———. . Supplement to the lawyer statistical report: The U.S. legal profession in .
With Katherine J. Rosich, Clara N. Carson, and Mark C. Puccetti. Chicago: Ameri-
can Bar Foundation. vii +  pp.
———, and Clara N. Carson. . The lawyer statistical report: The U.S. legal profession
in the s. Chicago: American Bar Foundation. vii +  pp.
Curtis, Charles P. . The ethics of advocacy. Stanford Law Review :–.
Dale, Iain, and John Simmons, comps. . The Bill Clinton joke book: Uncensored. Lon-
don: Robson Books. ii +  pp.
———, comps. . The Tony Blair new Labour joke book. London: Robson Books.
 pp.
Dalton, Mike. . []. The North Dakota joke book. New York: Carol Publishing
Group.  pp.
 References 

Dance, Daryl Cumber, ed. . Honey, hush! An anthology of African American women’s
humor. New York: W. W. Norton. xxxix +  pp.
Daniels, Stephen. . The question of jury competence and the politics of civil justice re-
form: Symbols, rhetoric and agenda-building. Law & Contemporary Problems :–.
———, and Joanne Martin. . Civil juries and the politics of reform. Evanston, IL:
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 References

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 References 

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 References

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 References 

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 References

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 References 

———. a. The official rednecks joke book. New York: Bantam Books.  pp.
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 References

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O -L   C          
A collection of lawyer jokes. . http://www.wfu.edu/~anderna/laugh/lawyer.html.
Last visited May , .
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medical.humor. Last modified Mar. , .
 References 

Canonical list of lawyer jokes. . http://wpi.edu/~tanis/lawyer.html. Last visited May

, .
Canonical list of medical humor (funny bone). . http://www.im.pw.edu.pl/jokes/
medical.html. Last modified Mar. , . Could not be located Mar. , .
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Accessed June .
The funniest darn lawyer jokes in the WDWW (Whole Darn Wide World). .
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.
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Lawyer jokes. . http://rever.nmsu.edu/~ras/lawyer.htm. Accessed Dec. , .
———. . http://www.conductor.com/lalas/kls/jokes.html. Accessed July , .
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———. . http://www.mpx.com.au/~danieln.lawyer.html. Accessed Jan. , .
———. . http://www.comedy.clari.net/rhj/jokes/q/colph.html. Accessed Jan. ,
.
———. . http://www.oipaz.net/V_LawyerJokes.html. Dated Dec. , .
Long lawyer jokes. . . http://hem.passagen.se/stenshmn/lawyer.htm. Accessed Aug.
, .
Movie/TV news—studio briefing. . http://www.imdb.com/news/sb. Accessed Mar.
, .
O. J. Simpson: Canonical O.bligatory J.okes list. . http://members.tripod.com/~
Mysterium/ser.html. Dated Dec. , .
POPULUS jokes. . http://www.POPULUS.net. Accessed Oct. , , Dec. , .
Randy’s favorite lawyer jokes. . http://rever.nmsu.edu/~ras/lawyer.html. Accessed July
, .
Lawyer jokes from Internet. . Unnamed collection. On file with author.
———. Sept. . Unnamed collection. On file with author.
 

“Access to Justice” movement, – African-Americans: appreciation of “anti-

Accidentally on Purpose,  Negro” jokes, n; as characters in
accident faking. See injuries, feigned lawyer jokes, , , ; exclusion
accidents: alcohol offered after, ; from legal profession, ; jokes about
ambulance chasing and, , , – omitted in republished book, ,
; as bait for lawyers, , –; bus Copeland reference; race relations
accident, ; feigned injuries and, , revealed through jokes, –; stereo-
; intentional hit and run, ; typic presentations in jokes, , n;
materialism of lawyers after, ; plane switching and, , , n,
crashes, –; train wrecks, , , n. See also race
– age, ; rivalry between junior and senior
accordions, law as abused instrument, lawyers, , , –
 aggression. See combativeness; hostility
accountants, , , , n alcohol: Baptist minister and, ; car
Adams, John Quincy, – accidents and, , ; drunken
adapted jokes, . See also switching lawyers, ; law as a commodity similar
Ade, George,  to, ; miniature lawyer consumes,
Adelman, Ken,  ; rumseller sued for damages,
advertising, –, , –, n, –; switching from anti-drink
–n jokes, –n; vodka to throw
advice: from clergy, –; to clergy, away, 
–; creating conflict with, ; Aleichem, Sholem (Sholem Rabinowitz),
fees for, , , –; as useless 
information, – Allies of the Devil jokes: demonization of
advocacy: as the devil’s work, , , lawyers and, ; described, ; religion
–; loyalty to clients, , –, abandoned by lawyers in favor of gain,
; lying and, –n; substantive . See also devils; hell
justice vs., ; truthseeking vs., alligators, 
– alternative dispute resolution (ADR), 


 Index

ambulance chasing: accident faking audience: doctors as carriers of lawyer

tied to, ; campaign against, ; jokes, ; for ethnic jokes, ,
Jewish connection to, ; open season nn–; function of jokes and, ;
on lawyers, –; term defined, law schools as forums for jokes, , ,
– , ; lawyers as joke audience, ,
ambulance jokes,  –; for racist jokes, n
anal jokes, – Auerbach, Jerold, 
An American Dilemma, – Australia, , –, –
Anderson, Jack, 
Anderson, Kill, Olick & Oshinsky, , Bachman, Walt, n
, –n bailiffs, 
anecdotes, , , n balloonists, –, –
animals: alligators, ; apes, ; attack bank robberies, , 
lawyers, , ; bears, nn–, bankruptcy, –
n, n; birds of prey, ; bastards, 
bulls, ; catfish, ; cats, , ; Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, –
cougars, ; cows, , , –, bears, nn–, n, n
; crocodiles, ; dogs, –, –, beggars, 
, , , ; ducks, –, –, The Beggar’s Opera, 
; elephants, –; endangered Begin, Menachem, 
species, ; foxes, , ; goats, ; Belli, Melvin, 
gorillas, ; laboratory rats, –; Ben-Gurion, David, 
maggots, ; pigs, , –n; Bergstrom, Randolph, 
rabbits, ; rats, –, , –; Best, Joel, 
roosters, ; scorn jokes and compari- Betrayers of Trust jokes: context for
son to, –; sharks, –, , ; emergence of, –; described, ;
sheep, –, –; snakes, –, families betrayed by lawyers, ;
, , , , n; tigers, ; Jewish jokes switched to, –, ;
vultures, ,  partners or peers betrayed, , –,
anthropologists,  ; prostitution comparisons and the
anti-lawyerism, –, n, n, betrayal of justice, ; resourcefulness
n; historical perspectives, , , and, –; sexploitation and, –;
; violence toward lawyers, , . solicitude, betrayal disguised as, ;
See also Death Wish jokes switching of, –, –; trust
apes,  relationships in, . See also trust
appeals: as costly, , –, ; heaven Bierce, Ambrose, , 
as final court of appeal, ; winners bigamy, 
demand, –, – billable hours, illustrations about, ,
Archer, Bill, n 
architects, –,  birds of prey, illustrations depicting
arms: feigned injury and, ; lost in lawyers as, 
accident, ; prosthetic arms,  “Blessings of Britain,” 
arson, , ,  blindness: blind golfers, ; blind rabbit
“artificial” law, ,  and blind snake, ; justice without
artists, – blindfold, 
Asimow, Michael,  blondes, , 
associates. See junior lawyers blood sucking, 
Atiyah, Patrick,  Bloomfield, Maxwell, 
 Index 

bluffing, , , – charity, lack of, –; betrayal disguised
Blumberg, Abraham,  as charity, ; self-interest and charity,
Boccaccio, Giovanni,  –, –
Bogart, William,  Chaucer, Geoffrey, 
bombast, – A Cheap Beating, 
Bouwsma, William,  “check in the coffin” jokes, ; make
Brandes, Stanley,  amends (debt repaid) version, , ;
Brezhnev, Leonid,  respectful gesture version, –, ;
bribes, ,  take it with you version, –, 
brothers: banker and lawyer brothers, Chicago Lawyers Study, , n,
–; brother betrayed, ; doctor –n, nn–, n
and lawyer brothers,  children: baby eaten by gorilla, ;
Buchwald, Art, –, n bastards, ; child support, ;
Buckley, William F., n destined to be lawyers, –, , –
Burger, Warren, , , , ,  , ; father’s occupation as source
burials. See funerals of shame, ; illustration depicting
Burrows, John Henry, n litigious child, ; as joke protagonists,
Burton, Harold H., n –, , –, , , ; parents
bus accidents,  sued by, ; rescue lawyer, 
Bush, George H. W.,  Chinese restaurant, 
businessmen: as clients, ; MBAs, ; chiropractors, 
secretary outsmarts boss, ; switching Choate, Joseph H., , –, , n
from business jokes,  Choate, Rufus, , n
butchers,  cigars, , , 
Butler, Nicholas Murray,  civil litigation, 
Civil Litigation Research Project, 
Cade, Jack (fictional character), ,  civil rights movement, 
Califano, Joseph (Democratic ex-cabinet clairvoyants, 
secretary),  Class Action, 
Campos, Paul,  clergy: advice from, –; as antagonists
Canada, n, n. See also United of lawyers, –, , –; Baptist
Kingdom minister and alcohol, ; “check in the
capital punishment, – coffin,” –; as clients, –; in
car accidents. See accidents heaven, –; illustrations depicting,
Carter, Jimmy, , , n, n , , ; kills lawyer with truck
cartoons. See visual jokes and door, ; lawyer neighbor charges for
illustrations advice, –; minister and sharks, ;
Casey, Gregory, n railroad men seek entrance to heaven,
castaways,  ; as target of jokes, –, . See also
categories of jokes, – professional triad (the Triple Plea)
catfish,  clients: betrayal of, –; celebrate
cats, ,  death of lawyer, ; coaching of, –,
Caxton, William, n , –; as conniving, –,
celebrities, ,  –; as contentious, –;
cement,  corporate clients, ; as dispensable,
censorship, , , n ; empowered by lawyers, –;
certainty, legal, – encouraged to commit crimes, ;
chaos or destruction, –, –,  encouraged to feign injury, ; guilty
 Index

clients (continued ) for lawyer jokes, –. See also historical

clients abetted by lawyers, –, , contexts; popular culture
, , nn–, n; illustra- contingency fees, –, , n
tions depicting, , , , , , conversion jokes: dying man becomes
, , , , ; as litigious, lawyer, ; religious, –, , n
–; loyalty to, –, , , Corleone, Don (fictional character), 
n; “more than justice” expected corporate lawyers, –, –, –,
by, –; outsmart lawyers, –; –, , , n, nn–
perspective in jokes, ; persuaded of cougars, 
innocence by lawyer, –; poison cows, , –, 
lawyer in joke, n; rich clients, Cramton, Roger, 
lawyers’ subservience to, , –, ; Crevecoeur, H. St. John, 
ruined by legal fees, ; satisfaction criminals: burglar superior to lawyer as
with lawyer’s services, , ; as husband, ; “criminal lawyer” word
victims, –, ; as yokels (See play, –; guilty clients abetted by
yokels) lawyers, –, , , nn–,
Clinton, Bill,  n; hanging lawyers in lieu of
clusters of jokes, – criminals, , ; lawyers lower than,
coal merchants, n , . See also thieves
coats-of-arms, ,  crocodiles, 
Cochrane, Johnny, , – Cromwell, William Nelson, n
Coleridge, John Duke, st Baron of, , crutches, 
n Cubans, 
combativeness: conflict instigated by Curran, John Philpott, 
lawyers, –; illustrations depicting, Curtis, Charles P., , 
, ; insufficient combativeness as
professional failing, –; lawyer damages, , , 
offers to refute God’s arguments, ; dancing girls, –, 
metaphorical fixation on, ; as trait of Darrow, Clarence, n
lawyers, –; of women lawyers, Dauer, Edward (“lawyer as friend” critic),
–. See also hostility 
comedy and professional comedians, – Davies, Christie, 
Communism, , , . See also Soviet Davis, Eddie, –
and communist East-European jokes Davy, William (Serjeant Davy), n,
confidentiality, , –, , , ,  n
Conflict jokes: described, ; lawyers as Dead Lawyers and Other Pleasant
“hired guns” or mercenaries, –, Thoughts, 
, n; metaphors of adversarial death: “check in the coffin” stories,
combat, ; self-interest of lawyers and –; confessions before, –;
instigation of conflict, – Doctor’s diagnosis, ; dying man
contests in jokes: hiring contests, –, becomes lawyer, ; farmer requests
nn–; at Pearly Gates, ; lawyers to attend his death, ; last
smartest dog, –; “two plus two” requests, , –, ; “Lawyer’s
stories, – Last Circuit,” ; response to
contexts: American legal culture, –; impending death, ; wills and
for betrayal of trust jokes, –; property, –. See also funerals;
demographic changes, –, ; heaven; hell
“litigation explosion,” ; social contexts “death of law,” 
 Index 

death penalty, – diminishment, , –

Death Wish jokes: “concrete complaints” Discourse jokes: bombast and fakery in,
explanation for, –; contexts for –; described, ; eloquence and
origins of, –, , –; persuasion, –; fees and the
described, ; excess of lawyers and, complexity of legal discourse, , ;
–, –; function of, –; jargon, , ; language as tool of
history of, –; “legalization” of lawyers, ; language corrupted by
society and, –; Objects of Scorn lawyers, , –; legal language as
jokes and, ; removal of lawyers empty, –; switching and, . See
and, –; Shakespeare quote, ; also lying
switching and, –; uselessness of Disraeli, Benjamin, n
lawyers and, ; What to Do with a divorces: client in love with lawyer, ;
Dead Lawyer,  fees for, , ; in heaven, ; increase
debts: “check in the coffin,” , ; in, ; lawyers urge settlement,
education loan repaid, ; fee equals –
recovered debt, ; Lincoln pays client’s doctors: animosity toward lawyers, ,
debt, ; receipt required for final –; as carriers of lawyer jokes, ;
judgment, –; repaying of,  “check in the coffin,” –, ;
The Defenders, ,  concede diagnosis of injury to lawyers,
definition jokes, , ,  ; diagnosis of death, , –;
demographics: increase in number of fees for advice, ; in heaven, –;
lawyers, –; Jewish lawyers, , illustrations depicting, , , ,
nn–; of legal profession, –, ; jokes shared with lawyers, , ,
, ; of U.S., . See also excess of , , , n; lawyers compared
lawyers or contrasted with, , –, ;
Demography jokes: age and, –; lawyers fear of retribution from, –
changes in legal profession and, –; ; lying jokes and, ; malpractice
described, ; firms as setting for, – litigation, ; professional rivalry and
; generic nature of lawyer jokes, ; animosity toward lawyers, –, ,
race or ethnic identity of protagonists ; as witnesses, , , –
in, –; women lawyers, – documents, as tools to be “sharpened,” 
Denby, David (movie critic),  dogs, –, , , , , 
Denmark,  Donahue, Thomas J., 
destruction, lawyers as destructive, –, Dooley, Martin (fictional character),
–,  –
devils: Allies of the Devil jokes, , , Dornstein, Ken, 
; bargains with, ; illustrations “double discharge” jokes, –
depicting, , , , , ; lawyers Dow, Lorenzo, 
as, –, –, –, –n. Drinker, Henry S., 
See also hell dropouts (expired jokes): “check in the
The Devil’s Advocate (book and film), , coffin” variation, ; conniving
– claimant jokes, , ; corporate law
Dewey, Thomas,  as subject, ; Death Wish jokes,
Dickens, Charles,  –; defined and described, –;
Dick the Butcher (fictional character), , fee related, –; heroic lawyers in,
 –; justice jokes, , –, ;
“difference” riddles, , , , , listed in registry of jokes, –; social
n and economic changes related to,
 Index

dropouts (continued ) engineers, –, , –, 

–, n; subservience to rich Englishmen, as ethnic type in jokes, ,
clients in,  –
ducks, –, –,  epitaphs, , 
Dundes, Alan, , ,  Epstein, Cynthia, 
Dunne, Finley Peter,  equality, legal, , n
duplicity, –; coats-of arms with ethics, legal: advocacy vs. truthseeking,
symbols of, , ; justice and, ; –; jokes correlated with ethical
lawyer argues wrong side, ; Sir Bull- abuses, n; Kutak Commission, ;
face Double-fee plays both sides, . loyalty to clients and, , n;
See also Betrayers of Trust jokes; lying obligation to types of clients, n;
poll on honesty and ethical standards
Economic Predator jokes: betrayal and, of lawyers, ; tolerance for unethical
–; conflict as in the economic behavior, 
interest of lawyers, –; described, ethnic jokes: audience for, ,
; justice jokes and, –; within nn–; Chinese as plague, ;
legal profession, ; piracy and, –; Davies on “untold” jokes, ; ethnicity
“professional courtesy” jokes as, –; of lawyers in jokes, , –; naive
professions known for economic preda- ethnics, –; political correctness
tion, , ; respect of fellow predators and, , , n; switching and,
as theme, –; sexploitation theme , , , , –, ,  (See
in, –; switching and, . See also also specific ethnic groups)
fees Evarts, William M., , , n
economics: costs of legal representation, evidence: concealed by lawyers, n;
–; economic contexts for legal fabrication of, ; illustrations about,
culture in U.S., –; gross national ; missing body in murder case, ;
product, nn–, nn–; law receipts as, , –; of switching of
as economic sector, –, , , jokes, 
n, n; perceived “social costs” Ewick, Patricia, n
of lawyers, –, , n, n; excess of lawyers: American perceptions
unequal ability to invoke the law, of, , –, ; cultural ascen-
–, n. See also Economic dancy, ; demographic data and,
Predator jokes –; historical perceptions of, n;
“Eighty Uses for Dead Lawyers,”  illustrations about, , , , ;
elephants, – laboratory rats jokes and, ; %
eloquence, – figure, –, n, nn–,
enemas, –, – n; sperm compared to lawyers,
Enemies of Justice jokes: appeals demanded 
for just decisions, –, –; cor- Exon, James, –
porate law jokes and, –; decline in
justice jokes, –; described, ; Facetiae of the Mensa Philosophica, 
expired jokes, –, –; “how fake victims. See injuries, feigned
much can you afford?” jokes, , – family: anti-family jokes, –; Betrayal
, ; lawyers as enemies of justice, of Trust jokes and, , ; indifference
–; legal system as obstacle to to, , , –, , ; legal
justice in, , –, –, ; occupation as source of shame to, 
replaced by Object of Scorn and Death The Farce of the Worthy Master, Pierre
Wish jokes, . See also justice Pathelin, the Lawyer, 
 Index 

farmers or ranchers: as clients, ; death firing squads, 

attended by lawyers, ; Johnny The Firm, , 
Cochrane and three-kicks law, –; firms. See law firms, relationships within
on law and religion, ; as naive and fortune tellers, 
confused, ; outsmart lawyers, –; foxes, , 
ruined by legal fees, ; travelers spend Franklin, Benjamin, , 
night in barn,  fraud: client fraud and loyalty, ; law as,
fathers: as client of lawyer son, ; fired . See also injuries, feigned
from firm, ; occupation as source of Fried, Charles (“lawyer as friend” concept),
shame,  
feces: anal sex and birth of lawyers, ; Friedman, Lawrence, 
cats bury lawyers, ; elephants, frivolous claims and defenses, –;
–; enemas, –, –; reaction efforts to avoid, –; liability shifted
of lawyer unable to sue himself, ; to victims, –, , ; Lincoln’s
taste of lawyer worse than,  opposition to, ; as the norm, .
fees: for advice, , , –; billable See also injuries, feigned
hours, , –, , , , ; clients Fukuyama, Francis, n
ruined by legal fees, , ; consume function of jokes, , , –, 
entire proceeds, –, –; contin- funerals: “check in the coffin” stories,
gency fees, –, , n; for –; clients at lawyer’s funeral,
divorces, , ; evaded by client with ; clients billed for flowers at their
lawyer’s ruse, , –; for evading funerals, ; deep burial of lawyers, ;
justice, ; hourly billing, –, ; epitaphs, , ; no need to bury
illustrations depicting, , , , ; lawyers, ; as reward for child who
income of lawyers, n; “innocent rescues lawyer, ; subscription to
until proven broke,” ; installment bury lawyer, 
payments, –; Jewish lawyers and,
; justice as commodity, –, , game laws, –, –
–, –, –; “justice tariff,” Gandhi, Mohandas K., n
–; maximum fees as professional garbage collectors, 
obligation, –; “milking” the Gay, John, 
clients, ; minimum fee schedules, ; genies, , , –
as motivation for lawyers, –; pock- Gergen, David, 
ets, lawyer’s hands in client’s pockets, Germany, , 
–; for services to clergy, –; Sir Getty, J. Paul, –
Bullface Double-fee plays both sides, Gigot, Paul, –
; social exchanges and, –; survey Gladstone, William, n
on, ; thinking as billable, . See also goats, 
Economic Predator jokes God as character in jokes, , , –,
Felstiner, William,  –, 
films: censorship of, n; devotion to The Godfather, 
clients as motif in, –; lawyers as gold diggers, 
characters in, –, , –, , , Goldstein, Tom, 
n, n, n; negative golf, , , , 
portrayals in, –, n good news/bad news jokes, 
Final Exit for Lawyers,  Gordon, Richard, 
Finch, Atticus (fictional character), –, Gore, Al, 
 gorillas, 
 Index

government workers, – much law” critique of justice system,

Grant, Ulysses S.,  –; United States, post-revolutionary
Great Britain: anti-lawyerism in, –; attitudes toward lawyers, 
jokes originating in, –; legal Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., –
culture in, –; nature of jokes in, homophones, –, , , n
, , , – homosexuality, 
Grisham, John, –, –, n honesty, ; advocacy vs. truthseeking,
Gulf War, ,  –; corporate law and, ; poll
Gypsies,  on ethical standards and, ; poll on
truthfulness, ; as professional failing,
Hale, Matthew,  –, , n; scarcity of honest
Halpert, Herbert,  lawyers, –. See also lying; truth
HALT, –n hostages, –
Hamlin, Hannibal, – hostility: anti-lawyerism, , , –,
Hand, Learned, – n, n; discourse jokes and,
Handelsman, J. B., ,  ; revealed through jokes, , , ,
hanging, , , ; illustration –; shift from racist to lawyer jokes,
depicting hanging of lawyers,  , ; violence in popular culture,
Harlan, John Marshall,  –
Haunch, Paunch and Jowl,  “How much justice can you afford?”, ,
Hazard, Geoffrey,  –, 
Hazlitt, W. Carew,  hunting, –; game laws, –, –;
heart attacks,  open season on lawyers, –;
heaven, , , –; as fitting reward, smartest hunting dog, 
–; St. Ives as patron saint of husbands (spouses), switches from, ,
lawyers, –; St. Peter and the Pearly 
Gates, ; scarcity of lawyers in, , Hussain, Saddam, 
–, , –, ; suit between
hell and, –,  indeterminacy, –
Heinz, John, , n, –n, India, , , , –, , , n,
nn–, n n
hell: abundance of lawyers in, ; as Indians (Native Americans), –
court of last resort, ; as destination indifference: to client’s interest, ; to
of lawyers, –, , , ; family family, , , –, , ; to
sent to hell, ; improved by engineers, law, –; to social obligations, –,
–; suit between heaven and, –, ; to welfare of others, –,
; tour of, . See also devils –
heroes: lawyers as champions of the inequality, unequal ability to invoke the
weak, –, ; popular culture and law, –, n
portrayals of lawyers as heroic, –, , inhumanity of lawyers, lawyers as
n, n subhuman, –, , –
Hertzon, Robert, ,  injuries, feigned: discovered through
The High Priests of American Politics,  clever cross examination, ;
“hired guns,” –, , n illustrations depicting, ; Jewish
historical contexts: attitudes toward car accident, ; lawyer’s diagnosis vs.
lawyers, –; medieval attitudes toward doctor’s diagnosis, ; lawyer’s
lawyers, –, , ; “public justice” encouragement of, ; malingering
critique of justice system, –; “too and, ; miraculous cures, –
 Index 

insanity, caused by lawyer’s inability to sue ; comedians and, –; defined and
himself,  described, –; drop-outs, –; as
insanity defense, – easily forgotten, ; evolution of, ,
insurance: arson and, , ; for cigars, ; as folklore, ; functions of, ,
; fire insurance, , –; flood , –, –; as individual
insurance, –; life insurance, rather than corporate product, ; as
–; uninsured liability,  institution, ; jokographies, ,
Irish characters in jokes, , , –, –; language as barrier to, n;
, , –,  lawyer jokes, defined and described, ;
Ives, E. W.,  oral tradition and, ; origins of, , ,
, , –, –; persistence
jargon, , ,  of, ; punchlines, , , n;
jaundiced view of legal system, , , recording of, –; registry of, –;
–, n representitiveness of sample, , ;
Jefferson, Thomas, n social landscape revealed through, –
Jerrold, Douglas,  , –; tracing changes through
Jesus,  time, ; transmission of, –, –,
Jewish jokes: about litigiousness, , , n, n; versions of, . See
–; analyzed by R. Raskin, , also audience; switching; specific joke
n, n; arson stereotype in, clusters; specific topics
, , n; Jews as audience for, jokographies, , –
, , nn–, n; omitted Jones, William, 
in republished book, , Copeland Jonson, Ben, 
reference; switched to lawyers, , judges: as applying law, not justice,
–, –, , , –, n –; bribes and, , ; God as
Jewish lawyers: accused of unethical judge, –, –; hostility to
practices, ; conflicting images of, lawyers, ; illustrations depicting,
; demographics, , nn–; , , ; replacement of dead judges,
discrimination against, in elite law –
practice, ; exclusion from law junior lawyers: exploitation by senior
practice, –; jokes about, –; partners, , –; hierarchy in firms
lack of prestige, n and, , –; overcommitment to
Jews: accident faking associated with, , justice, –; turn tables on seniors,
–; clannish outsider stereotype, –, , –; unethical behavior,
; in conniving claimant jokes, , 
, –; medieval stereotypes of, Jurassic Park, n
, , n; perceived as litigious, juries: illustrations depicting, ; in Indian
, , n; Talmudic reasoning, jokes, ; intimidation of, –;
–, –, –, n; as users outsmart lawyers, –; as school of
of legal system, n. See also Jewish cheating, ; selection of, , –;
jokes; Jewish lawyers tolerance of lawyers’ tactics, n
Johnson, Lyndon B.,  justice: access to, –, –; “applying
joke books, , , , –, –; law” vs. “doing justice,” –; vs.
lawyer’s collection of, ; switching and, Chief Justice, ; as commodity, ,
. See also specific titles , , –, –, –, ;
jokes: in advertising or promotion, , guilty clients abetted by lawyers,
–n; boom in lawyer jokes, , , –, , , nn–, n;
, , , ; censorship and, , illustrations depicting, , , ;
 Index

justice (continued ) –; tension between partners and

individual interest in conflict with, junior lawyers, . See also partners
–; as joke subject, ; law law schools: as education in lying, n;
distinct from, ; legal system as as forum for jokes, , , ; in jokes,
arcane or obstacle to justice, , –, , , –n
–, ; natural justice, , ; “The Lawsuit,” 
obstruction of justice, ; prostitution lawyer jokes: acquire prominence, ;
comparisons and the betrayal of justice, defined and described, ; illustrations
; spheres of justice and injustice about, , ; indigenous jokes vs.
increasing, –; truth unrelated to, switched jokes, ; vs. jokes about
; unequal ability to invoke the law, lawyers, ; meta jokes, ; number in
–, –, n circulation, ; told by lawyers, ,
–
Kagan, Robert,  “lawyer’s creed,” 
Karsten, Peter,  “Lawyer’s Last Circuit,” 
Kennedy, Florynce (critic of legal The Lawyer Winding Up His Accounts,
profession),  
Kermartin, Ives de. See St. Ives (Yves de Lee, Harper, 
Kermartin, patron saint of lawyers) Leff, Arthur (“lawyer as friend” critic),
Knott, Blanche, ,  
Kuipers, Giselinde,  legal culture: defined, ; life and relation-
Kutak Commission,  ships as “legalized,” –, –;
nostalgia for Golden Age, ; popular
L.A. Law, ,  culture as expression of, , ;
laboratory rats, –, ; illustrations revealed through joke corpus, –;
depicting lawyers as,  shift of emphasis in, ; symbolic
Lamm, Richard, , n nature of the law, , –; in United
Lande, John,  Kingdom, –, n
Landon, Donald, n, n legalization of life, as impetus for jokes, ,
Landon, Melville D. (Eli Perkins), – –
language: corrupted by lawyers, , –; legal profession: African-Americans
jargon, , ; metaphors of adversarial excluded from, ; collegiality as
combat, ; politics and legal ideal of, ; criminal law as sector of,
discourse, –; as tool of lawyers, n; demography of, –, , ;
; translation of legal meta-language as discrimination in, , –; hierar-
lawyer’s role, n. See also Discourse chy in legal profession, , , –;
jokes; word play ideals of, , ; Jew excluded from,
Laumann, Edward O., , n, –; litigators, ; lying as pro-
–n, nn–, n fessional expertise, , , –,
Lauterbach, Edward,  n; “professional courtesy” jokes,
Law and Order,  –, ; professional identity of
law firms, relationships within: age of lawyers, , ; “screwing” as defining
partners, , –; associate as behavior of, –; specialization and,
speechwriter, –; economic . See also ethics, legal
predation and, ; father fired from legal reforms, –, –n
firm, ; Jewish partner’s name, ; legends: St. Ives (Yves de Kermartin,
large firms and corporate law, –; patron saint of lawyers), –, ,
paralegals, ; rivalry and, , , , ; % of world’s lawyers,
 Index 

–, –, n, nn–, Mafia jokes, , 

n Magee, Steven, 
Legman, Gershon, ,  maggots, 
Letters of an American Farmer,  malingering, 
Lewis, Paul, on violence in popular Mansfield, William Murray, st Earl of, 
culture,  marital infidelity, –, –, , –
Lieberman, Jethro, ,  Marshall, Louis, , –n
light bulb riddles, ,  Mason, Perry (television character),
Lilburne, John,  n, n
Lincoln, Abraham, , , , – Matlock, Ben (fictional character), n
literature, lawyers as characters in, –, Matthews, Brander, 
–, , , –, , , , Maule, William H., 
n, n Maxwell, Robert, , 
litigation: as adversarial combat, ; as media: email transmission of jokes,
attack on managers and professionals, n; portrayals of lawyers in, –, ,
; civil litigation, increase in, ; , ; recording and transmission of
expenses, –; lawyers as cause of, jokes, –. See also specific medium
–; lawyers identity tied to, ; mediation and conciliation, –
malpractice litigation, ; U.S. as medieval attitudes toward lawyers, –,
litigious culture, , –. See also , 
litigation explosion mercenaries, lawyers as “hired guns,”
litigation explosion: jokes as response –, , n
to perception of, ; lawyers blamed Merry, Sally Engel, n, n
for, , –; media reports and Meta-Jokes, , ; cartoon about lawyer
perceptions of, –, n; as jokes, 
political issue, , –; resentment Mikes, George, n
of lawyers tied to, –; as self- Miller, Mark, 
fulfilling prophecy, . See also Mindes, Marvin, –
frivolous claims and defenses ministers. See clergy
Lloyd George, David, – miracles: Lourdes and feigned injuries,
Louis XII, King of France,  –; as unwelcome, , 
Lourdes, – Mitchell, Lawrence, n
“lower than x” jokes, –, –,  money: “check in the coffin,” –;
loyalty: to clients, –, . See also collection to bury lawyers, ;
duplicity counterfeit money, –; extra $
Luban, David, n bill, , ; income of lawyers,
Luntz, Frank,  n; subservience to the rich, ,
Luther, Martin, n –, ; “take it with you”
lying: advocacy and, –n; for deathbed request, –, . See also
clients, ethics and, ; deathbed debts; Economic Predator jokes; fees
confessions to lies, –; as the devil’s Montaigne, Michel de, 
work, ; doctors and, ; homophone Moral Deficiency jokes: criminals equated
jokes, –, , , n; as profes- with lawyers in, –; described, ;
sional expertise, , , –, n; indifference to others in, , –;
as talent, –; in “two sides” jokes,  lack of charity in, –; moral
obtuseness of lawyers, –; prostitu-
Macaulay, Stewart,  tion compared to legal profession in,
MacIntyre, Alisdair (philosopher),  –; rats equated with lawyers in,
 Index

Moral Deficiency jokes (continued ) Pacino, Al, 

–; sexual impropriety and, ; Papke, David, n
standards lowered for lawyers in,  paralegals, , 
morality: lawyer as moral equivalent of parasites, , –, 
shark, ; legal practice as amoral, Parsons, Theophilus, n
–; moral elasticity of lawyers, ; partners: “appeal at once” jokes, –;
“role morality” of lawyers, . See also balloonist needs directions, –;
Allies of the Devil jokes betrayal of, , –, ;
Moses and Ten Commandments,  exploitation by, ; love of justice as
mother-in-law jokes, ,  flaw in, . See also junior lawyers
Mother Theresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu), Pathelin, Pierre (dramatic character), 
– Pearce, Russell, n
muggers,  Pearly Gates, . See also St. Peter
Myrdal, Gunnar, – peers, betrayal of, 
mystification, legal, – penises, –
Perkins, Eli (Melville D. Landon), –
Nader, Ralph,  Perot, Ross, 
Narayanan, K., n Perry Mason, , n
Narayana Rao, Velcheru, n persuasiveness, –
National Conference on the Causes of Peter of Blois (medieval critic of legal
Popular Dissatisfaction with the profession), –
Administration of Justice, , n Philadelphia, 
Nazis,  Philadelphia lawyers, –, n
Netherlands, ,  pickpockets, lawyers as, –
Newton, Kenneth,  Pierce, Jennifer, , , 
Nixon, Richard, – Pigmy Revels comic strip, 
Nolo Press, ,  pigs, , –n
pirates, –
oath stories, , –, n Pitts, John W., 
Objects of Scorn jokes: animal comparisons planes as setting, , , –; plane
in, –; Death Wish jokes and, ; crashes, –
described, ; historical examples of, Plato, n
–; lawyers as subhuman, –, plumbers, , 
, –; “lower than x” jokes, – poison, –, , n
; political uses of, , , n; political correctness, , , n
public opinion and, –; switching politicians: Death Wish jokes and
and, –. See also feces; urine elimination of, ; jokes targeting
O’Connor, Sandra Day,  lawyers in the U.S. target politicians
oiketypes, –n elsewhere, , –; switching of
Ole and Lena jokes, , n jokes from politicians to lawyers, , ,
oral tradition, , , , n, n , , –; trust in, , 
Ornitz, Samuel B.,  politics: legal discourse and, –;
Osiel, Mark,  litigation explosion as political issue,
the Other. See outsiders , , –; scorn of lawyers used
outsiders: abuse of law by, ; Jews as, ; to political advantage, , , n;
in the legal profession, –; as naive, Southern politics, –. See also
–; truth spoken by, – politicians
Owen Marshall,  Poor Richard’s Almanac, 
 Index 

popular culture: film portrayals of lawyers, jokes as influence on, ; litigation
–, ; iconic lawyers in, –, –, explosion, , –, –; loyalty to
, –; jokes as folklore, ; clients, –; polarization of,
lawyers’ devotion to clients as motif in, nn–; Pound Conference and,
–; legal culture expressed through, , n; power of lawyers, public
; plays, lawyers as characters in, , perceptions of, n; role of lawyers
, ; recording and transmission in litigation explosion, ; satisfaction
of jokes in, –; television portrayals with lawyer’s services, , ; “social
of lawyers, –, , , ; violence costs” of lawyers, perceptions of,
in,  n; trustworthiness, , , ;
Porsdam, Helle,  truthfulness of lawyers, ; wealth of
Pound, Roscoe, , n lawyers, n
Pound Conference, , n punishment: death penalty, ; just
Powell, Enoch, n desert as part of jokes, , ; of
Powell, Thomas Reed,  lawyers rather than perpetrators, –;
Prasad, Rajendra, n relative authority of law and religion,
predators. See under animals; Economic ; verdicts and, . See also hell
Predator jokes
pregnancy, ,  Quayle, Dan, , –, –
Prest, Wilfred, – nn–, n
Presumed Innocent, 
priests. See clergy rabbits, 
“professional courtesy” jokes, –,  race: honesty and, ; jokes omitted in
professional triad (the Triple Plea), republished book, , Copeland
–,  reference; of lawyers in jokes, ; race
professions: professional triad, –, relations revealed through jokes, –;
; rivalry between, –, –, , racial identity omitted from jokes,
–; second opinions, , –; –n; racist jokes, , n;
switching of jokes from one profession switching from racist jokes, , ,
to another, –, , , n. See –n, n, n
also legal profession; specific professions Radin, Max, 
prosthetic arms,  railroads: conniving claimant, –;
prostitution: dancing girls compared lanterns, ; lawyer thrown from train,
to lawyers, –, ; lawyers as ; naive ethnics, –; railroad
prostitutes, –, ; lawyers equated claim agent, –; railroad lawyer
with prostitutes, –; “lower than x” outsmarted, ; railroad moguls as
jokes,  clients, ; train tickets, ; train
psychologists,  wrecks, , , –
public interest law, – The Rainmaker, , , 
public opinion: advertising’s effect on, Raskin, Richard, , n, n
n; class bias of legal system, ; rationality: as characteristic of lawyers, ,
contact with lawyers and, ; decline ; excess of, ; not attributed to
in regard for lawyers, , nn– lawyers, –
; ethical standards of legal profession, rats, –, , –
; excess of lawyers, perception of, Ray, Laura Krugman, n
–, ; fees and perceived receipts, –, –
over-charging, , n; of honesty Reed, Thomas B., 
and ethical standards of lawyers, ; registry of jokes, –
 Index

regulatory legislation, , , , Saferstein, Harvey I. (president, California

n Bar Association), , n
Rehnquist, William,  St. Dunstan Triumphant, 
religion: conversion jokes, –, ; St. Ives (Yves de Kermartin, patron saint
God as character in jokes, , , of lawyers), –, , , 
–, –, ; as ineffectual when St. Peter, , , , –, –
compared to law, –; lawyers as Sarat, Austin, 
arcane priesthood, , –, ; Satan. See devils
patron saint of lawyers, St. Ives (Yves de scales of justice, 
Kermartin), –, , , ; prac- scarcity: of clergy in heaven, ; of
tice of law and, ; prayer for strife, honest lawyers, –; of justice as joke
; religious lawyering movement, subject, ; of lawyers among saints,
n; religious observation by –; of lawyers in heaven, , –,
lawyers, –n; secularization of the , –
law, ; switching of jokes from clergy scatological jokes. See feces; urine
to lawyers, –; “taboo” animals reject scorn. See Objects of Scorn jokes
lawyer’s company, . See also clergy; Scots, –, –
devils; heaven; hell screwing: as characteristic professional
reporters, – attribute, –; dogs, , ; Jewish
rescued by mistake, ,  lawyers and, ; lawyers engage in sex
resourcefulness, –, –; betrayal for professional advancement, –;
jokes and, –; “check in the coffin” as occupation of both prostitutes and
as problem solving, – lawyers, ; as professional attribute of
restaurants, ,  lawyers, ; trust and, ; uses
Reuben, Don,  entrusted funds for sexual adventures,
riddles, , , , , , , , , –; women lawyers and, 
, ,  secretaries, , 
Riesman, David, ,  secularization of the law, 
rights, legal, , , –,  self-interest of lawyers: anti-lawyerism
rivalry: among lawyers, –; within and, ; betrayal jokes and, –;
legal firms, , , –; between charity and, –; “check in the
professions, –, –, , – coffin” stories, ; trickery and, –.
roadkill, –,  See also indifference
robber barons, – self-representation, 
Rodell, Fred,  settlements: eagerness to settle, –;
“The Rodent” (satirist),  reluctance to settle, –
role fiasco jokes, – sex: anti-sex jokes, –; bestiality, ;
Rolex watches, ,  headache cure, ; homosexuality,
roommates,  ; lawyers as lustful, ; penises,
Roosevelt, Theodore,  –; sexual and economic predation,
roosters,  –; sperm, . See also prostitution;
Rosen, Robert,  screwing
Rosenthal, Douglas, n sexploitation, –, , 
Ross, Stan (Australian law professor), , Shakespeare, William, 
n shame, occupational, , –
Rotunda, Ronald, n sharks, –; illustrations, , 
The Rule of Law,  Sharpening the Flats, 
Russians,  Shaw, George Bernard, 
 Index 

sheep: “fleecing” the clients, –; ; Betrayers of Trust jokes and, –,
“idiocy defense” and sheep’s tongue, –; business jokes and, ;
–,  celebrity rebuffed joke and, ; “check
shit. See feces in the coffin” stories and, –;
shysters, , , n, n “crafty guy wins” stories and, , ;
Sikhs,  Death Wish jokes and, –; defined
Silberman, Laurence H., – and described, –; Discourse jokes
Silberman, Matthew, n and, ; doctor jokes and, , n;
Silbey, Susan S., n Economic Predator jokes and, ; ethnic
Simpson, A. W. B., ,  jokes and, , , , –, , ,
Simpson, O. J.,  n; evidence of, , n;
sins, , – incomplete, , n; in-law jokes
Sir Bullface Double-fee Plays Both Sides, and, –, ; Jewish jokes and, ,
 –, –, , , –; joke
skidmarks, –,  books and, ; lawyer jokes and, ;
slavery, – political jokes and, , , –;
Smigel, Erwin,  print publication and joke histories,
Smith, Frederick Erwin, st Earl of ; from profession to profession, ,
Birkenhead,  –, , , n; racist jokes and,
snakes, –, , , , , , , n; religious jokes and,
n –, –; resistance of jokes to, ;
Soviet and communist East-European sexploitation jokes and, –; shark
jokes, –, ,  jokes and, ; show business jokes and,
speeches: ghostwritten speech, –; –; social changes and, ; spouse
“two speakers” version of pockets joke, jokes and, , –, –, ;
 “switchability,” n; Talmudic
Spensley, James, n stories and, –; tyrant jokes and,
sperm,  –, 
spiders,  symbolic nature of the law, 
spinning. See switching
spit (saliva),  Taylor, Stuart, 
spouse jokes, , –, –, –, teachers, , 
 telephones, , , –
Stalin, Josef,  television portrayals of lawyers, , , ,
Stark, Steven,  , n
Starr, Kenneth, –,  terrorists, 
status, lawyer jokes and,  Thatcher, Margaret, , n
Steur, Max, ,  themes of jokes, 
Strange, John,  thieves: lawyers as, –; lawyers
Strong, Theron G.,  encourage clients to steal, ; thieves
Summers, Robert,  as clients, , 
Supreme Court, –, – thinking, , 
surveys. See public opinion Thomas, Gerald, 
Swedes, – Thompson, Hunter S., n
Swift, Jonathan, , , n Thornberg, Elizabeth, 
switching: adapted jokes, ; anal jokes “three questions” jokes, –, 
and, –; anti-communist jokes and, “three-wishes” jokes, –
, ; awareness of joke histories and, thrillers, legal, , 
 Index

tigers,  Ulbrich, Walter, 

Tocqueville, Alexis de,  Ultimate Lawyer’s Joke Book, 
To Kill a Mockingbird, –, ,  United Kingdom: anti-lawyerism in, ,
Toler, John, Lord Norbury, n –; legal culture in, –; nature
tombstones, ,  of jokes in, , , , –; scorn
Tooke, John Horne, , n jokes in, 
tort reforms, , –, –n United States: as distinct, ; joke
toxic waste, – culture compared to other nations,
Trachtenberg, Joshua, , , n –; legal culture as context, –; as
Trachtenberg, Steven,  litigious culture,  (See also legends,
trade unionists, – % of world’s lawyers); post-
Train, Arthur, n revolutionary attitudes toward lawyers,
trains. See railroads ; social contexts for lawyer jokes, –
translation, , n Untermeyer, Samuel, 
transmission of jokes: doctors as carriers urine: in Cokes, –; lawyers as urinals,
of, ; email and, n; language as 
barrier to, n; law schools and, , uselessness of lawyers: advice to balloonists,
, , ; print media and, –, –; blacksmiths more valuable, .
; recording and, –; Websites See also excess of lawyers
and, 
Trickster jokes, – vampires, , 
The Triple Plea, ,  vanity, 
truck drivers, – victims: the affluent as victimized, ;
Truly Tasteless Lawyer Jokes,  clients as, –, ; fake victims
trust: “artificial trust,” –; decline in, (See injuries, feigned); liability shifted
; lawyers and erosion of, ; public to injured party, –, , 
opinion regarding trustworthiness, , Vietnam War, , 
, ; screwing and, ; social trust, villains, lawyers as social villains, 
–. See also Betrayers of Trust jokes violence toward lawyers, , , n;
truth: advocacy vs. truthseeking, –; as violence as endemic in popular culture,
malleable or indeterminate, –, –. See also Death Wish jokes
–, n; “outsiders” and, –; virtuous lawyer archetype. See heroes
surveys and polls about truthfulness, visual jokes and illustrations: accordions,
; trampled in illustration, . See also law as abused instrument, ; apes as
honesty; lying barristers, ; battling with umbrellas,
T-shirts, ,  ; billable hours, , ; birds of
Tucker, E. F. J.,  prey, ; Blessings of Britain, ; A
Turow, Scott,  Cheap Beating, ; Chinese restaurant,
Tutt, Ephraim (fictional character), , ; clergy in, , , ; clients in,
n , , , , , , , ,
Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens),  , ; coats-of-arms, , ; A
“two plus two” jokes, –, n Councilor, ; country bumpkin client,
“two sides” jokes, , ; coats-of arms ; crocodile lawyer, ; dead lawyers
with symbols of duplicity, , ; as urinals, ; devils in, , , ,
justice and, ; lawyer argues wrong , ; doctors in, , , , ;
side, . See also duplicity documents in, ; duplicity as subject
tyrants, ; switching of jokes, –, in, , , ; “endangered” animals
 in, ; epitaphs in, ; evidence, ;
 Index 

father fired from firm, ; fees in, , wives: abet sexploitation of client, –;
; feigned or exaggerated injuries, burglar superior to lawyer as husband,
; firing squad, ; freeway exit, ; ; consigned to the devil, ; as
hanging lawyers, ; “How much jus- disposable, ; home renovation paid
tice can you afford?”, ; joke books, for by another’s divorce, ; illustration
lawyer’s collection of, ; judges in, ; depicting seduction of client’s wife, ;
juries in, ; lawyer as laboratory rat, injured to collect damages, ; jealous
; The Lawyer Winding Up His wife, ; vs. lovers, –; morally
Accounts, ; litigious children in, ; concerned about golf partner, ;
marriage proposal as legal overture, ; poison spouse, , n; seduction
meta-jokes, ; Moses and Ten Com- of, –; sexual predation and
mandments, ; Pigmy Revels comic infidelity, , , –, , ;
strip, ; seduction of client’s wife, ; switching from spouse jokes, –,
sharks in, , ; Sharpening the Flats, ; women lawyers as unsuitable
; snakes in, ; Truth and Justice for, 
trampled, ; urinals, ; vultures in, women: blondes, , ; double standard
; women lawyers in, , ,  for women lawyers, ; gender politics,
vultures, ,  ; as gold diggers, ; as lawyers in
illustrations, , , ; as lawyers in
Wall Street lawyers, , , , – jokes, –, ; life insurance and,
Walters, Barbara, n –; melting into manure, ;
Warner, Jake, ,  secretaries, , ; sexism in legal
Watergate crisis, –,  profession, , –; widows, , ,
wealth: income of lawyers, n; –. See also prostitution; wives
subservience to the rich, , –, . word play: “criminal lawyer” word play,
See also Economic Predator jokes –; homophone jokes, –, ,
“We Are Not the Enemy,” – , n, n; lawyer / liar
Websites, jokes circulated on,  homophones, –, , , n;
Webster, Daniel,  “pre-victual” agreement in Chinese
What to Do with a Dead Lawyer, restaurant, ; rooster joke, 
illustration from,  workaholism: spouse vs. lover joke, –;
whiplash,  wishes undone by partner, –;
widows, , , – women lawyers as anti-family, –
Wilde, Larry,  “worse than x” jokes. See “lower than x”
Will, George, n jokes
wills, –, , – wrecks. See accidents
wisdom, – Wright, Milton, 
wishes: doubled for lawyers, –;
“three-wishes,” –; undone by yokels: blonde outsmarts the lawyer, ;
partner, . See also Death Wish illustration depicting country bumpkin
jokes client, ; Indians (Native Americans)
witnesses: doctors as expert witnesses, , as, –; outsmart lawyers, ; rescue
, –; inconsistencies in testimony, lawyer, ; Sikhs as, . See also farmers
; outsmart lawyers, , – or ranchers