Americans Show No Mercy in Declaring Open Joking Season on Nation’s Lawyers

Everywhere John Bracken turns, he hears another nasty one-liner: from his good buddy the doctor, from Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show,” even from his fellow attorneys.

There’s just no justice when it comes to lawyer jokes.

“I can’t go anyplace that somebody doesn’t have a lawyer-bashing joke, or some comedian unleashes a whole string of them. They cease to amuse me,” said Bracken, president-elect of the New York State Bar Assn.

Bracken’s not smiling, but a lot of other people are laughing out loud--especially those who have been sued, divorced, injured or indicted.

There’s just something about barristers that brings out our basest instincts, says Jess M. Brallier, author of a new collection of lawyer lore through the centuries, “Lawyers and Other Reptiles.”

“Lawyers tend to inspire the creative juices of everybody,” Brallier said. “The most inarticulate bum at the bar can throw a good zinger when it comes to an attorney.”

Q: What’s the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?

A: One is a garbage-eating bottom-dweller; the other is a fish.

Brallier’s inspiration came on the beach two summers ago, while listening to his brother, a physician, rail against lawyers. He began to think about a close friend who was going through an ugly divorce. And another friend, the target of a lawsuit.

“Within a matter of weeks, I was able to gather a great deal of material,” he said.

“I think we’re the easy target,” said Sandy D’Alemberte, president of the American Bar Assn. “It’s incredible. Lawyers are blamed for the failure of American business, the failure of the American health care system, the S&L; failures. People attack lawyers for the most incredible things.”

Lawyer jokes cross all racial, ethnic and social strata. An attorney’s suspenders are like cross hairs on his back; lawyers are comedy’s fish in a barrel. They are ridiculed as amoral, greedy, amoral, crooked, amoral, cold-hearted, and, often, amoral.

But Bracken says lawyers are not the problem. (And they’re certainly not the solution, others might add.)

“Anybody-bashing falls in the category of scapegoating: ‘Let’s shift the focus from the real problems and do this,’ ” he said.

It happens so much that Brallier is assembling a second volume.

Q: How many lawyers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: How many can you afford?

Lawyer-bashing is one of the oldest and most revered traditions in the civilized world, although the attacks of the past were fewer in number (as were attorneys).

It was 1787 when John Quincy Adams observed, “The mere title of lawyer is sufficient to deprive a man of the public confidence.”