Lawyer Jokes

Being a lawyer myself, and having a warped sense of humour, I’ve always had a repertoire of lawyer jokes at hand. I’ve found them to be great icebreakers in settings which were, well, icy. But recently, I’ve had second thoughts.

Second thoughts because of an insightful comment from a good lawyer friend. “Sure,” he said, “many of these are really funny, but nearly all of them rely on negative stereotypes for their punchline. They are of a type with Jewish jokes, Irish jokes, Pakistani jokes, and mother-in-law jokes. They’ll get you the laugh, but they feed disrespect and even contempt.” As would any good advocate, my friend had appealed both to my intellect and to my conscience.

How do you argue with that?

Let’s put the shoe on the other foot. A joke in Canadian French asks, “How much does a barber charge to cut an Anglo’s hair? Five dollars a corner!” (because Anglos are known as square heads.) Then there’s the old Florida joke, “What’s the difference between a canoe and a Canadian? A canoe will tip.” Not quite as funny when you’re on the receiving end.

Yeah, but what about lawyers telling lawyer jokes, Newfoundlanders telling Newfie jokes and Italians telling Wop jokes? Isn’t it OK to be the butt of your own humour?

Self-deprecation can sometimes be endearing and socially beneficial, but when it provides a vehicle for listeners to confirm their stereotypes and prejudices, you have done your own community a disservice. And when you do any community a disservice, you do all of humankind a disservice.

Buying into stereotypes and permitting ourselves to reinforce disrespect toward others is at the root of racism, sexism, elitism and all the other nastyisms which fester in our world. To the extent I feed the monster, I’m part of the problem.

That’s why my lawyer jokes are now few and far between, and carefully scrutinized.

And how about your joke repertoire?