TO-WIT: HOW MANY LAWYERS DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A LIGHT BULB?
It goes pretty much without saying that I am a celebrated author, wit and raconteur. In fact, as far as I know, no one has ever said it. Yet despite my reputation’s utter lack of luster, no doubt enhanced by the fact that I write psudononomously, I do from time to time receive invitations to attend professional dinners, seminars, conferences, and the like, usually to fulfill one of two different functions – either as an after dinner speaker or as an example of what can sometimes happen to a promising career.
I know that in part the speaking invitations arrive upon the wings of the notion that because one can put word to paper in cogent array one must therefore possess something really worth saying. It is however a fallacious notion and one that has been completely discredited by the opinions of Justice Scalia.
All that notwithstanding, I was recently invited to attend a professional conference as a panel member for a wide-ranging give and take debate on the subject of lawyer-bashing. I am not sure why they wanted me. I know absolutely nothing about the subject save the fact that I have been doing it for a lot of years. Nevertheless, I was delighted to accept. I knew that a complimentary bar luncheon would be served, and I am might fond of cheese sandwiches.
The panel discussion was not underway three minutes before the subject of that beer commercial came up. Surely you’ve seen it on television – the one in which the chubby lawyer in three piece regalia is roped, hog-tied and dragged around a rodeo corral to the cheers of a lot of people who are otherwise alternating their attention between the acts of chewing tobacco and consuming oxygen.
I know this commercial has caused a furor at the bar, but I don’t know why. I have been practicing law for almost twenty five years now and not a single day has passed that I myself didn’t want to do that very same thing to one colleague or another.
When the commercial was first released, there was some talk among the bar hierarchy about marshalling a professional boycott of the product as a protest against such blatant lawyer-bashing. The would-be organizers however quickly abandoned the attempt when they realized that the product in question is a premium-priced beer and there weren’t any lawyers around who actually drank the stuff.
While lawyer-bashing is currently at the apex of its popularity, no doubt because our society is now more litigious than ever, it is hardly a new phenomenon. In fact, the practice reaches back thousands of years. The New Testament, the Koran and Upanishads all contain lawyer-bashing references of one sort or another. Interestingly enough though, the Old Testament does not. Apparently too many of those players were members of the bar.
The root of the problem lies in a serious misconception. You see, lay people see the road to justice as a superhighway upon which they can glide seamlessly and effortlessly to their destination. Consequentially they are terribly put-off when they come to realize that the road is really full of traffic jams, detours and potholes. And perhaps most galling of all to the beleaguered traveler, it’s a toll road to boot.
Unlike a fair number of my colleagues, I tend to be pretty philosophical about the subject. The lawyer-client relationship usually commences at times of great stress, and clients must soon confront a legal system that is generally as efficient and graceful as a pregnant pole vaulter. Consequently I accept the dark humor of lawyer bashing as the tension reliever of choice. In fact I earnestly believe that the profession should encourage such a relatively painless and cathartic response as against some more dramatic and painful expression of resentment. We wouldn’t want to see an upswing in the incidence of tar and feathering, now would we?
However, some colleagues are not able to bring to this problem the same level of professional detachment they might actuate in the event of, say, a wrongful death. I understand. For them I have the perfect analgesic. In response to the plethora of lawyer-bashing books that have appeared of late, I have assembled a collection of client-bashing jokes designed to help vent the spleen. Tentatively entitled “Clients From The Black Lagoon,” it should be out in the near future, and I am pleased to provide you with an advance offering. Enjoy. If it sells as well as my last book, this may be all of it you see.
“What’s the difference between a client lying dead in the middle of the road and a skunk lying dead in the middle of the road?
“Nothing.”
“What do you call ten thousand clients at the bottom of the ocean?”
“A good case.”
“How can you tell when a client is lying?”
“He signs a fee letter.”
© 1994, S. Sponte, Esq.