The three greatest lawyer jokes?

Right about the time I entered law school, people started telling me lawyer jokes. That trend continued into my practice and I’ve noticed something about those jokes — most of them are downright terrible, but a few are actually pretty darn good and are worth sharing.

And why not share them? Heck, any lawyer who can’t laugh a bit at himself and his profession probably needs a vacation. Who wants to be serious all the time, anyway?

So, without further ado I present the three greatest lawyer jokes I have been told over the past 25 years or so.

***

Q: How do you get a lawyer out of a tree?

A: Cut the rope.

***

It’s cold outside today. So cold, in fact, that I went uptown and the lawyers had their hands in their own pockets.

***

A lawyer, a Jew and a Hindu were on vacation. They were taking a road trip through the backwoods of Tennessee and they were tired but could find no hotel with a room to rent for the night. They came across a farmhouse and thought they might as well try to convince the owner to let them stay there.

“Sure, y’all can stay here tonight,” the farmer said. “But the guest bedroom only sleeps two so one of you will have to sleep in the barn. Don’t worry about that barn — it’s nice out there and I sleep there myself when the wife is mad at me.”

The barn sounded good to the Hindu.

“Y’all take the bed and I’ll sleep out in the barn,” he said.

So, the lawyer and the Jew were getting settled down in the bed when they heard a knock at the door. It was the Hindu.

“There’s a cow out there,” he said. “It’s against my religion to sleep with a cow.”

“No problem,” the Jew said. “You two take the bed and I’ll go sleep in the barn.”

So the lawyer and the Hindu were getting settled down in the bed when they heard a knock at the door. It was the Jew.

“There’s a pig out there. There’s no way I’m sleeping with a pig.”

“Fine,” the lawyer said. “You two take the bed and I’ll go sleep in the barn.”

The Jew and the Hindu were getting settled down in the bed when they heard a knock at the door.

It was the cow and the pig.

***

Now, I’ve got a story about that last joke I’ve got to share. When I was a second year law student at the University of Arkansas I took a required ethics class. The professor asked us to turn in a lawyer joke  every week and the winning one would be read in class on Friday and the author would be given a few extra credit points.

I turned in the “lawyer, Jew and Hindu” joke and the professor responded by asking me to stay after class.

“I can’t accept this,” he said as he handed my joke back to me.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s offensive to Jews and Hindus.”

“How? The lawyer is the one getting made fun of in that joke. Maybe it’s offensive to lawyers…”

“It’s an offensive joke and I don’t appreciate it,” the professor interrupted.

Perhaps he needed a vacation.

That professor was an odd duck, anyway. I quit practicing law for awhile and went back into journalism and called the guy when I was a reporter because I was writing about a lawyer in ethical trouble and wanted to get some expert insight on the topic. I called that particular professor and he said he wouldn’t answer my question unless the newspaper paid him a fee of $200 per hour. Strange.

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