Swearing Off Lawyer Jokes Won’t Be Easy

Here’s an old joke, one that can serve a variety of purposes.

What do you call 500 (choose one: politicians, televangelists, car dealers, journalists, life insurance agents) at the bottom of the ocean?

“A good start” is, of course, the punch line. But you’ll notice that this joke isn’t nearly as funny as it should be, not without lawyers as the subject.

The idea here isn’t to bash attorneys, but to make a point. If we like to heap abuse on a variety of occupations, there must be a reason that we just love to trash attorneys.

But in deference to Harvey Saferstein, president of the State Bar of California, there won’t be any lawyer jokes here today. For now is the time to support your local lawyer. If you encounter a barrister today, give him, or her, a hug.

You can always shower later.

*

I’m sorry. That just slipped out.

The truth is, I count some attorneys among my friends. It just seems strange that a week after the American Bar Assn. launched a $700,000 campaign to counter the negative attitudes about lawyers, it took a mass murder to give “lawyer-bashing” the attention this subject richly deserves.

One week has passed since a paranoid, heavily armed San Fernando Valley businessman named Gian Luigi Ferri drove to San Francisco and declared open season on a law firm he blamed for lousy service a decade ago. This, in turn, prompted Saferstein to hold a press conference last Monday to call for a moratorium on “mean-spirited” humor that satirizes the legal profession. Saferstein compared lawyer-bashing to “hate speech” against minority groups and suggested that if such humor gets too nasty, it may help push psychos over the edge.

His speculation raises many questions. Is that lawyer-basher Shakespeare an accessory to murder? Could jokes about the postal service explain psycho mail carriers?

Saferstein’s plea didn’t exactly have the impact he desired. The other night, for example, Jay Leno noted that “The Firm” is a movie about a law office that kills its lawyers--so who’s the bad guy? And, in Wednesday’s Times, Paul Conrad portrayed Saferstein himself as a clown.

Saferstein says he doesn’t mind--that he enjoys a good-natured lawyer joke as much as the next guy. Lawyer-bashing has become so commonplace, “I’ve been pleasantly surprised the public is willing to debate this issue,” he said, “so I don’t mind being the subject of derision to bring attention to this issue.”

Saferstein ardently defended his clients, contending that lawyers are misunderstood servants of the justice system who provide a valuable service to society at large.

Saferstein disputed my suggestion that California has more lawyers than it needs. After all, in 1940, California had one lawyer for every 567 people. In 1990, there was one for 234 of us. California is home to 12% of the nation’s population, and 17% of the lawyers. Saferstein suggested that law schools are simply reacting to public demand by cranking out all these law degrees.

Oh, please. The problem is common-sensical: Our overabundance of lawyers has created an obscene demand for legal services. The plague of dubious litigation adds hidden costs to products and sucks value from the economy. Ambulance chasers, especially, have created their own California lottery, tarring the legal profession at large. How’s this for subtlety: “Accidente? Call 1-XXX-X-DINERO. “ And after a recent screening of “The Firm,” lawyers acknowledged that the practice of padding billable hours is, if not commonplace, not exactly unheard of.

Daniel Akst, in his Christmas Day, 1990, column in The Times’ Business section, offered readers a gift--a justification of every lawyer joke ever told.

“Lawyers are a fat target, of course. They charge a fortune, inflate the cost of everything and suppress innovation. . . . But the really terrifying thing is that such a high proportion of our best and brightest choose to enter this genteel protection racket instead of some more genuinely productive line of work.”

Lawyers, Askt wrote, are “like remora, those hitchhiking fish that latch onto sharks and whales. . . . Lawyers sap economic vitality.”

*

California’s economy is more like a halibut than a shark these days, and although lawyers are suffering too, something about them doesn’t inspire sympathy.

Saferstein theorizes that many people vent their financial frustration via lawyer-bashing. “People blame lawyers--and I think wrongly--for this growth in litigation,” Saferstein said. “The real problem right now is that the civil justice system is becoming paralyzed by the deluge of criminal drug trials.”

Sounds like buck-passing to me. But just to be fair, let’s put his hypothesis to the test.

What do you call 500 drug dealers at the bottom of the ocean?

Nope. It still isn’t as funny.