Quiet on the Set! Lights! Camera! Attorneys!

A group of lawyers was seated at the round table in the Hung Jury Lawyers Club in Washington, D.C., when one said, “Ginsburg just walked in. He did the hat trick by appearing on ‘Meet the Press,’ ‘Face the Nation’ and ‘This Week With Sam and Cokie’ all in one morning.”

Another lawyer said, “I would like to know who his booking agent is. I can’t even get on the ‘CBS Morning Show.’ ”

The third lawyer at the table said, “Did you hear about Fred Rubenstein? He tried a murder case, lost it, and his client has been sentenced to the electric chair.”

“Is he going to appeal?”

“He was, but he got a job as Johnnie Cochran’s co-host on Court TV.”

Margaret Bush said, “They want me to become the Monica Lewinsky legal expert on CNN, but I have a conflict of interest. I am now the Linda Tripp expert for the Shopping News Channel.”

The table agreed that it was a good time for lawyers.

One said, “You have to be a real dummy not to get on television. I have a partner who came out of the courthouse, and instead of walking toward the microphones, he pulled his client in the other direction and he never got on the air. We asked him to leave the firm.”

“Has anyone heard that USC is combining the law and drama schools so that lawyers will get better training in play-acting, and actors will get better instruction in lawyering?”

Another lawyer said, “Have you heard that the club is starting a karate course to help attorneys who are trying to escape from the media? The trick is to punch the photographers in the kidneys, and when you kick one below the belt, don’t bother to stop and pick him up off the ground.”

“It’s about time we learned self-defense against the paparazzi.”

“You have to be real careful with the way press people handle their mikes. Channing Bush was running down the street from the courthouse, got into her car, but made the mistake of trying to fasten her safety belt. A correspondent from a radio talk show knocked out all her teeth.”

Everyone agreed that they would rather be lawyers than anything else, and at the end of the meal they all burst into song: “There’s no business like show business. . . .”