Legal Humor Blog

Jake Warner: Why do you think that throughout history, kings, dictators, emperors, and various other potentates who claimed to have absolute power have nevertheless been frustrated by the law and sometimes lawyers?

Auntie Nolo: Absolute power is never quite as absolute as the rulers of this world would like. Always in the not-so-deep background are the customs, norms, and yes, even the laws of the society. Violate too many of these and you'll find your head in a bucket no matter how powerful you believe yourself to be. Louis XVI of France and Charles the First of England are just two of many who found out the hard way.

Jake Warner: True enough, but that doesn't stop the powerful from trying to control the law, and in the process often saying some fascinating, hilarious, and occasionally even profound things. Let's have your favorites.

Auntie Nolo: Ask and you shall receive:

What your eyes have seen do not hastily bring into court: For what will you do in the end, when your neighbor puts you to shame?

Argue your case with your neighbor himself, and do not disclose another's secret; lest he who hears you bring shame upon you, and your ill repute have no end.

King Solomon, Ruler of Israel

...Lawsuits would tend to increase to a frightening extent if people were not afraid of the tribunals and if they felt confident of always finding ready and perfect justice... I desire, therefore, that those who have recourse to the tribunals should be treated without pity and in such a manner that they shall be disgusted with law and tremble to appear before a magistrate.

Lawyers are those who use the law as shoemakers use leather: rubbing it, pressing it, and stretching it with their teeth, all to the end of making it fit their purposes.

If you like laws and sausage, you should never watch either being made.

There are no more reactionary people in the world than judges.

Jake Warner: There is a surprising amount of verse -- some of it quite funny -- written about the law, lawyers and lawsuits. I guess one of the oldies is about the 14th-century lawyer who was made a saint because he was so honest:

St. Yves is from Brittany

A lawyer but not a thief

Such a thing is beyond belief.

Bold, hasty and wise, a concocter of lies,

A rattler to speak, a dodger, a sneak,

A regular claw of the tables of law,

A shuffler complete, well worn in deceit,

A supple, unprincipled, troublesome cheat,

A hangdog accurst, a bore with the worst,

In the tricks of the jury-court thoroughly versed.

Yes, and men shall come and wait

In their thousands at your gate,

Desiring consultations and advice

On an action or a pleading,

From the men of light and leading

And you'll pocket many talents in a trice.

Of all rape defenses we've stocked up

Here's the best: "I couldn't get her knocked up"

Though defendant was sperm-less

We can't let him squirm less

He did the act that got him locked up.

"Your billable hours are low," 

Said the partner, "they simply must grow.

It behooves you to hike them,

Or better, please spike them --

To lunch breaks and sleep, just say no."

The associate listened in shock

As she learned that her life was in hock

To a clock-punching firm

While her boss, who's a worm

Made her wonder if law's just a crock.

Jake Warner: Loads of goofy laws have been passed over the years. I'm sure you have a collection of the looniest.

Auntie Nolo: The list is endless. My favorites are the ones meant to be serious, but which nevertheless tickle my funny bone.

Jake Warner: You mean the 1950s French law prohibiting flying saucers from landing in vineyards isn't your favorite?

Auntie Nolo: Actually, I kind of prefer the statute that makes it illegal to declare war on Wisconsin.

Jake Warner: Not bad. How about a few more-- past or present, it doesn't matter.

Auntie Nolo: In Alaska it's legal to shoot a bear as long as you have a license, but illegal to wake one up to take its picture. Here are a few more that'll bring a chuckle:

A Connecticut law made it illegal to sell pickles that break or squish when dropped from a height of one foot.

***

A 1963 Minnesota law reads like this:

"Adultery occurs when a married woman has sexual intercourse with a man other than her husband, whether the man is married or not. There is no prohibition against sex between a married man and an unmarried woman."

***

In Berkeley, California it was illegal to whistle for an escaped bird before 7:00 AM.

***

In Detroit, Michigan it's illegal to loiter in the city morgue.

***

An ordinance in the city of Belvedere, California required, "No dog shall be in public without its master on a leash."

Jake Warner: Auntie, I'm sure you've heard loads of big cases over the years -- the Scopes trial, the Lindbergh kidnapping, O.J.'s murder trial -- why I bet you've heard all the great lawyers!

Auntie Nolo: Well, I do watch my share of high-profile cases, but it's the little ones I really love. By and large, the fancier the lawyers, the more they bore me. It's an ego thing mostly. In fact, I'm just introducing a new product, a CD called "Auntie Nolo's Insomnia Cure," which contains an assortment of U.S. Supreme Court arguments.

Jake Warner: No doubt you'll put Ambien out of business. But how about telling us about a few unheard-of cases that kept you laughing. And hey, maybe you can publish them as "Auntie Nolo's Stay Awake Program." After all, it's hard to laugh and sleep at the same time.

Auntie Nolo: Well, there was the time I was sitting in Traffic Court when this little old man hugging a very big dictionary fought his parking ticket by claiming he was simply following directions when he parked under a "Fine for Parking" sign.

Jake Warner: C'mon, did that really happen? It's kind of like being ticketed for speeding through a school zone and claiming that the sign "Slow Children At Play" was only meant to announce a school for the mentally challenged. Or that "Drive Thru Window" is an invitation to bring your Chevy right on in!

Auntie Nolo: Plain English should be a bulletproof defense. I mean, really, if a sign says "No Littering -- $500 Fine," shouldn't tossing a candy wrapper out of the window be free?

Jake Warner: Okay, if we're just going to be silly, how about a few of my favorites:

Lane Closed to Ease Congestion

Caution, Water on the Road During Rain

Parking for Drive-Thru Window Only

Jake Warner: Auntie, I notice you don't tell a lot of lawyer jokes. Is there a reason?

Auntie Nolo: A good lawyer joke is like a pin -- it's short, delicate, and has a sharp point. But sadly, too many lawyer jokes are more like a brick -- square, blunt, and boring.

Jake Warner: I agree, humor should prick, not bash. But surely some jokes must qualify?

Auntie Nolo: Sure, and here are my favorites:

The difference between lawyer jokes and attorney jokes is $100 per hour.

A client paid his lawyer's $500 fee with $100 bills. Later, the lawyer realizes that two bills had stuck together, meaning he had received $600. "This is a true ethical dilemma," the lawyer thought. "Should I tell my partner?"

***

When a 46-year old lawyer reached the Pearly Gates he protested to Saint Peter, "But I'm far too young to die!"

"Well, according to the hours you've billed, you're 92," Saint Peter explained.

When a lawyer named Strange was planning his tombstone, he asked the stone-cutter to inscribe, "Here lies John Strange, an honest lawyer." 

The man replied, "Can't do it -- there's a law against burying two people in the same grave. But anyway, all you need is 'Here lies an honest lawyer'." 

"But then no one will know who is buried in the grave!" 

"No worries," said the stone-cutter, "people will read it and say, 'that's strange.'"

***

Question: Cinderella, Santa Claus, an honest lawyer and an old drunk were walking down the street, when simultaneously all four spotted a hundred dollar bill lying in the gutter. Who gets it?

Answer: The old drunk, of course, since the others are all mythical creatures.

***

Claiming an emergency, a lawyer woke the Governor in the middle of the night. "Judge Smith just died and I want to replace him," he said.

"Fine," said the Governor, "I'll call the mortuary and see if it can be arranged."

Jake Warner: Auntie Nolo, I know you've sat through countless court cases over many centuries.

Auntie Nolo: From the Roman Forum to medieval England's Court of the Star Chamber to my favorite Kentucky country courthouse to mention a few. There's no place like a courtroom to gather funny stories -- except maybe the hallway outside. For example, one time in Texas I watched a lawyer get a client accused of stealing a cow a verdict of not guilty. Then later in the corridor, I overheard the lawyer say to the client, "Now tell me the truth Fred, you did steal that cow didn't you?"

To which the client answered, "Now Attorney Douglas, I was pretty sure I did steal that cow until I heard your beautiful speech to the jury. But you were so convincing that now I'm pretty sure I didn't!"

Jake Warner: Good start. How about a couple of more favorites?

Auntie Nolo: Well, once in my favorite Kentucky courtroom, a young woman, whose mom and several other family members had recently died in a bloody car accident, challenged her mother's will, which left most of her money to an obscure religion. On cross-examination the lawyer for the church asked, "Was it you or your sister who was also killed in the accident?"

And, another time, in the same court, the same lawyer asked a coal miner, "How long have you been Armenian?"

Think about that one, it grows on you.

And then there was the time in Virginia when a witness kept answering questions before a long-winded attorney finished asking them. "Why do you keep doing that?" the frustrated lawyer finally asked.

"I already knew what you were going to ask," replied the witness.

"OK then," the lawyer said, "Answer my next question!"

And once, in a divorce case before no-fault laws were adopted and you had to prove the other spouse was in the wrong, I heard this exchange:

Plaintiff: "Your Honor, my husband came home at all hours, drank way too much, cussed me constantly, never came to my bed and said nasty things about my family!"

Judge: "Do you have any more evidence?"

Plaintiff: "No, your Honor. But surely that's enough to establish mental cruelty?"

Judge: "Sorry, but it sounds like your average marriage to me."

Jake Warner: There are hundreds of legal proverbs -- many acerbic, barbed, and hilarious.

Auntie Nolo: You forgot "true". When the common folk of this world repeat a comment about law and lawyers so often that it achieves the status of folk wisdom, you can be sure it will be as true as it is funny.

Jake Warner: Prove it.

Auntie Nolo: Okay, but we'll need to call this blog, "Oh So True, Part 1", because I've got scads, and sooner or later I'll want to get them all out.

May you have a lawsuit in which you know you are right.

The Devil makes his Christmas Pie of lawyers' tongues.

A peasant between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.

Fond of lawsuits, little wealth

Fond of physicians, little health

Doctors purge the body, 

Ministers the conscience,

Lawyers the purse.

Jake Warner: Auntie, in the last few centuries I believe you've known every American president.

Auntie Nolo: All but the first Harrison. Old "Tippecanoe," as he was called, caught pneumonia at his inauguration and died before I could stop by for tea and lawyer jokes.

Jake Warner: Not only did lots of Presidents comment on lawyers and the law, but many were lawyers themselves.

Auntie Nolo: Yup -- both Adamses, Tom Jefferson, J.M., Honest Abe, both Roosevelts, Silent Cal, Tricky Dick, and Hopeful Bill to mention a few. But not all of them were funny -- Coolidge and Nixon didn't have half a wit between them and Hopeful Bill was mostly funny when he didn't want to be.

Jake Warner: Exactly, but let's get to it. Give us your funniest bits of humorous presidential lawyer wisdom.

Auntie Nolo: Well, I have four that combine wit and wisdom, and one from Richard Nixon that does neither but is the funniest of all in a sad kind of way.

"It is the trade of lawyers to question everything, yield nothing, and to talk by the hour."

Thomas Jefferson

"[The accused] reminds me of the fellow who murdered his parents and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan."

Abraham Lincoln

"A man who never graduated from school might steal a freight car. But a man who attends college and graduates as a lawyer might steal the whole railroad."

Theodore Roosevelt

"I used to be a lawyer, but now I'm a reformed character."

Woodrow Wilson

"When the President does it, that means it is not illegal."

Richard Nixon

Jake Warner: Auntie Nolo, in your long, long life you've known just about everyone who ever said a funny thing about laws, courts and lawyers.

Auntie Nolo: Yup, I was cackling long before the Roman orator Cicero said "When your defense has no basis, abuse the plaintiff."

Jake Warner: So how about telling us your very favorite aphorisms?

Auntie Nolo: That's like asking me for a list of lawyers who exaggerate -- I could go on forever! But here are a few favorite thigh-slappers authored by my particular friends.

"Litigation is a machine which you go into as a pig and come out as a sausage."

Ambrose Bierce

"After my first trial, I asked my daddy how I did. 'You have to guard against speaking more clearly than you think,' he replied."

Howard Baker, Jr.

"If you took all the laws and laid them end-to-end, there would be no end."

Mark Twain

"Lawyer: the only person in whom ignorance of the law is not punished."

Elbert Hubbard

"They call it the Halls of Justice because the only place you get justice is in the halls."

Lenny Bruce

"The law is like a killy-loo bird, a creature that insisted on flying backward because it didn't care where it was going but was mightily interested in where it had been."

Fred Rudell

Welcome to Auntie Amanda Nolo's Legal Humor Blog -- lawyer jokes, witty quotes, loony laws, and hilarious courtroom anecdotes -- all collected by Auntie Nolo in her over 2,500 years of laughing at the law.

But who is this Auntie Amanda Nolo and how did she get in the legal humor business? The best guess is that Auntie Nolo was born in ancient Greece in the time of Aeschylus ("Wrong must not win by technicalities"). Since then, from Sophocles to Cicero and Abe Lincoln to Will Rogers, Auntie has always turned up when lawyers and their critics take a walk on the hilarious, bizarre, and just plain silly side of the legal street.