Over the years we have collected these stores and humorous incidents involving the legal profession. Clients and colleagues have provided many of these gems and they are presented for your amusement. At Flakne Law we think a sense of humor can sometimes make the hard and difficult parts of the legal experience more tolerable.
If you have a good story, send it to us at jokes@flaknelaw.com. We will periodically update this page with the best of the best new material. Hope you enjoy!
Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.
— Will Rogers
Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
— Ambrose Bierce
[A] lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools.
— Thomas Jefferson
He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides
— Charles Lamb
I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five.
— Stephen Wright
A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
— Robert Frost
The minute you read something that you can’t understand, you can almost be sure that it was drawn up by a lawyer.
— Will Rogers
The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all of the stupidity.
— Arthur Schopenhauer
The average lawyer is essentially a mechanic who works with a pen instead of a ball peen hammer.
— Robert Schmitt
And God said: ‘Let there be Satan, so people don’t blame everything on me. And let there be lawyers, so people don’t blame everything on Satan’.
— George Burns
You cannot live without the lawyers, and certainly you cannot die without them.
— Joseph M. Choate
The trouble with law is lawyers
— Clarence Darrow
If there were no bad people there would be no good lawyers.
— Charles Dickens
Necessity knows no law; I know some attorneys of the same.
— Benjamin Franklin
A lawyer’s time and advice are his stock in trade.
— Abraham Lincoln
Only lawyers and painters can turn white to black.
— Japanese Proverb
God wanted to chastise mankind, so he sent lawyers.
— Russian Proverb
Q. How do you tell if it is REALLY cold outside?
A. A lawyer has his hands in his own pockets
Q. How many lawyers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A. None, lawyers only screw us.
Q. What do you call 5000 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
A. A good start!
Q. What’s the difference between a dead dog in the road and a dead lawyer in the road?
A. There are skid marks in front of the dog.
Q. What’s black and brown and looks good on a lawyer?
A. A Doberman pincher.
Q. What do lawyers use for birth control?
A. Their personalities.
Q. What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 50?
A. Your honor.
Q. What do you call a lawyer who has gone bad?
A. Senator.
Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, an honest lawyer and an old drunk are walking down the street together when they simultaneously spot a hundred dollar bill. Who gets it?
The old drunk, of course, the other three are mythological creatures.
A second grade teacher asked her students what their parents did for a living. “Timmy, you be first”, she said. “What does your mother do all day?”
Timmy stood up and proudly said “She’s a doctor”.
“That’s wonderful,” the teacher said, “and how about you, Annie?”
Annie shyly stood up, shuffled her feet and said “My father is a mailman.”
“Thank you, Annie. What about your father, Billy?”
Billy proudly stood up and announced, “My daddy plays piano in a whorehouse.”
The teacher, stunned, promptly changed the subject to spelling. Later that day she called Billy’s house. Billy’s father answered the phone. The teacher explained what his son had said, and asked why he would say such a horrible thing.
Billy’s father explained, “I’m actually an attorney. But how can I explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old?”
Joe the lawyer died suddenly, at the age of 45. He got to the gates of Heaven and the angel standing there said, “We’ve been waiting a long time for you.”
“What do you mean,” he replied, “I’m only 45, in the prime of my life. Why did I have to die now?”
“45? You’re not 45, you’re 82,” replied the angel.
“Wait a minute. If you think I’m 82 then you have the wrong guy. I’m only 45. I can show you my birth certificate.”
“Hold on. Let me go check,” said the angel and disappeared inside. After a few minutes the angel returned. “Sorry, but by our records you are 82. I checked all the hours you have billed your clients, and you have to be 82. . .”
The National Institutes of Health have announced that they will no longer be using rats for medical experimentation. In their place, they will use attorneys. They have given three reasons for this decision:
There are more attorneys than there are rats.
The medical researchers don’t become as emotionally attached to the attorneys as they did to the rats.
No matter how hard you try, there are some things that rats won’t do.
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 I’ll have a lawyer for my ‘gator.”
Attorney: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 18th?
Witness: Yes.
Attorney: And what were you doing at that time?
Witness: Getting laid
Attorney: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
Witness: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
Attorney: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
Witness: Oral.
Attorney: Are you married?
Witness: No, I’m divorced.
Attorney: And what did your husband do before you divorced him?
Witness: A lot of things I didn’t know about.
Defendant: Judge, I want you to appoint me another lawyer.
Court: And why is that?
Defendant: Because the Public Defender isn’t interested in my case.
Court (addressing the public defender):
Do you have any comments on the defendant’s motion?
Public Defender: I’m sorry, Your Honor, I wasn’t listening.
Attorney: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke that morning?
Witness: He said, “Where am I, Cheryl?”
Attorney: And why did that upset you?
Witness: My name is Kathy.
Attorney: Officer, when you stopped the defendant, were your red and blue lights flashing?
Witness: Yes.
Attorney: Did the defendant say anything to you when she got out of the car?
Witness: Yes, sir.
Attorney: What did she say to you?
Witness: She said, “What disco am I at?”
Attorney: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
Witness: No.
Attorney: Did you check for blood pressure?
Witness: No.
Attorney: Did you check for breathing?
Witness: No…
Attorney: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
Witness: No.
Attorney: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
Witness: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Attorney: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
Witness: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.