Product Description
What do we call 600 lawyers during a bottom of a sea? Marc Galanter calls it an event to examine a meanings of a abounding as well as time-honored genre of American humor. Lowering a Bar analyzes hundreds of jokes from Mark Twain classics to à la mode anecdotes about Dan Quayle, Johnnie Cochran, as well as Kenneth Starr. Drawing upon representations of law as well as lawyers in a mass media, domestic discourse, as well as open perspective surveys, Galanter finds which a augmenting faith upon law coexists uneasily with stress about a “legalization” of society. Always entertaining, his book explores a tensions in between Americans’ entrenched idea in a law as well as their ambivalence about lawyers. … More >>
Lowering a Bar: Lawyer Jokes as well as Legal Culture
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3 Comments
Very funny lawyer jokes. I am enjoying them.
I thought about starting this review with one of the hundreds of lawyer jokes that are “told” and given life in this excellent book, but I wouldn’t want to spoil the punch lines.
The author, evidencing an extrodinarily broad range of knowledge, shows how lawyer jokes have evolved over time (and how some jokes previously targetted at Jews, minorities, and businessmen have evolved into lawyer jokes), and how this evolution reflects larger changes in society about attitudes towards law and individual rights.
In addition, the artwork in the book combines so old favorites from The New Yorker, plus older drawings from earlier centuries.
This is a great book for lawyers and for those who like to make fun of lawyers — basically, everybody.
There are plenty of lawyer-bashing books, but this is not one of them. Rather, like a modern Mark Twain, Marc Galanter uses lawyer jokes to reflect trends in American society. Through thousands of jokes and cartoons that mock lawyers and legalization, he shows on how the legal system is influencing and being influenced by changing relationships between individuals, between citizens and government, and between consumers and corporations. Lawyer jokes are popular because lawyers still fight and win for the little guy. A good read for your favorite lawyer or lawyer-to-be.