Didja hear the one about the lawyer?
Chances are you’ve heard more than one.
Barrister-bashing is a favorite American form of humor. Marc Galanter, author of “Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture,” estimates that there are some 500 lawyer jokes floating around at any time. Lawyers are portrayed as greedy, sneaky and deceptive. They’re compared to creatures from sharks to snakes.
What is the difference between a catfish and a lawyer? One is a scum-sucking, bottom-feeding scavenger. The other is a fish.
Not that being the brunt of bad jokes keeps people from taking up the law.
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The United States, with all its state and local governments, each with its own laws, is decentralized, Galanter said. That gives courts and lawyers more prominence and more work.
Lawyers become the scapegoats of a society that some folks see as over-regulated and too legalized, he said.
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.
“The fact is that we joke about lawyers a lot because lawyers are seen as powerful, ubiquitous forces in American society,” said Galanter, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Wisconsin.
Jokes that in England or Australia are told about politicians are adapted to be about lawyers in the United States, he said.
Some lawyer jokes are just recycled jokes about ethnic minorities or other professions.
What do you call 6,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea? A good start.
That one appeared in the early 1980s and was told about feminists, African-Americans, Iranians and Jewish-American princesses, according to Galanter’s book. The lawyer version caught on.
Some respected jurists think lawyer jokes have gone too far. Leah Sears, chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, said she no longer tells them.
“In fact, I haven’t for a few years now,” she said. “The public’s general disdain for my profession is undeserved and well-known.”
Sure, lawyers are frequently in the middle of controversies, she said, but for good reason. “Lawyers smooth out difficulties, relieve stress, correct mistakes, take up other men’s burdens and, by our efforts, make possible the peaceful life we live.”
In the 1980s, lawyer jokes became more vicious, Galanter said. He links the change in tone to disillusionment with public institutions after Watergate and Vietnam.
Of course, some lawyers themselves eagerly circulate lawyer jokes.
Robert Steed, a bond lawyer at the Atlanta firm of King & Spalding, said he enjoys the humor. As an author and sometime humor columnist, he’s initiated and perpetuated a few himself.
“I like lawyer jokes,” he said. “I think those people who don’t like them need to hear more of them. They’re taking themselves too seriously.”