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The joke's on whom? It could be you, soon
"A sweeping look at jokes that lampoon lawyers and the tensions between Americans' respect for law and disdain for attorneys is the focus of Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture,' a new book by University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School emeritus professor Marc Galanter." Galanter, according to the press release, contends humorous attorney put-downs are a peculiarly American phenomenon. I can't vouch for that, but it is hard to picture, say, Libyan or Pakistani lawyer jokes, so I'll buy it. The author wisely peppers what sounds like a potentially arid discussion with his own topic, lawyer jokes. Here's one from the press release: A lawyer called the governor at 3:30 a.m., insisting it was an emergency. An aide awakened the governor. "Well, what is it?" he demanded. "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." Where they came from If I understand this correctly, Galanter argues that sometime in the 1950s, the law started expanding, intruding into more and more aspects of life. With the rise of laws came the rise of lawyers, and if we Americans love anything, it's deflating such inflated prominence. "There's a feeling that we were supposed to have the rule of law, but instead we have the rule of lawyers," Galanter claims. So people started turning attention to lawyers.
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