Yes, I am a lawyer. Please don't hold this against me. This is simply humor. Don't look for anything serious or you'll go blind. Humor won't remove the bumps of life but it can help smooth them out.
It seems most folks love lawyer jokes, even if they don't like lawyers. Over the years, I've accumulated a whole bunch of lawyer jokes. I threw a lot away when I found out they were true and not jokes.
In politics, everything is more complicated than it is in law. I believe this is because politicians are such a cerebral group. Some humorist has said they have so much common sense — because they never use any of it.
Most politicians can't even figure out how America got founded in the first place — without federal matching funds.
And most of them don't know economics any better than we lawyers do. Lawyers believe in the redistribution of wealth by means of litigation — but politicians believe in the redistribution of wealth by means of legislation.
I believe their understanding of economics is worse than lawyers.
Two congressmen were talking one day, and one was saying, "How much did we just appropriate on that last bill — was it three million dollars, or three billion dollars?" The other replied, "Whatever."
In case you struggle with a million vs. a billion, I'll illustrate it. If I give you $1 per second, every second of the day, night and day, never stopping to eat or sleep, it will take me 11 DAYS to give you 1 million. But if I gave you $1 at the same rate — one per second, night and day, never stopping to eat or sleep — it would take me 34 YEARS to give you 1 billion.
One reason I never went into politics is that I don't know what is worse: pre-election oratory, or post-election analysis. I heard a great way to cut down on the former is to make any potential candidate only talk about their accomplishments, not about their promises. Have you ever wondered, like me, where all the solutions go once the politician gets elected?
Bob Hope (God rest his soul) said he wouldn't run for President, even if urged to. But his reason for not becoming involved was different from mine: his wife wasn't willing to move to a smaller house. Serving as President, or even Vice President (God forbid), is available to each of us who is a natural American. I hear that many of our politicians have nightmares at night. They sooner or later start dreaming that all the money they are spending is theirs. Plus, if you fall from grace in politics, you just might get appointed as an ambassador — to the Bermuda Triangle.
What did I really want to do with my life? I remember seeing a sign on a lawyer's wall one day. It said:
I really don't know what I wanted to do when I grew up but I don't think this was it!
I can relate. As a humorist, I feel that law is just one ad-lib after another, although no one is laughing. But when you have done something half your life, it's really hard to make a U-turn and do something different.
A lawyer came back from giving a luncheon speech and his secretary asked him how it had gone. He said, "Terrible! I lost my sheet of ad-libs." I can relate to that. Often times it seems like we lawyers are on stage performing for an audience of jurors who refuse to laugh.
Most secretaries will tell you that most lawyers are terrible bosses. I was at a luncheon one day and heard two secretaries talking about their lawyer bosses. One said, "My boss is so narrow-minded he can see through a keyhole with both eyes." The other remarked, "There is nothing wrong with my boss that trying to reason with him won't aggravate."
One secretary wrote a song to her boss: "How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?"
It's true lawyers have the gift of gab. Their mouth has one position: open. If you think talk is cheap, just hire a lawyer. We're trained to admit nothing, deny everything, and talk by the hour. There is a sign that is very true:
Blessed is the lawyer who has nothing to say and can't be persuaded to say it.
Part of the problem of most lawyers is that they don't know how to forgive. This is especially true of clients who don't pay their bills. 'Forgiveness' is not in our vocabulary. I recall hearing of one lawyer who got even with his client who wouldn't pay his bill. He ran an ad in the classified section on the internet with his client's first name and phone number. It read:
"Lonely man needs companionship. Call between midnight and 6:00 A.M."
We lawyers must be cautious with everything we say or do. Some people are just waiting to be offended. With malpractice insurance rates so high, and sue-happy people with itchy trigger fingers, lawyers have to be careful in everything.
We have to be careful with our kids too. You can always tell lawyers' kids. They're usually just different. Kids pick up everything from their parents, right? If you really want to know what someone is like, just look at their kids.
Well, there was this tax lawyer who was telling his child the story of Cinderella. When he finished, the wide-eyed lad asked his dad: "When the pumpkin turns into a beautiful coach, — is that straight income or capital gain?"
We lawyers are over-cautious to a fault, but society has made us this way. Perhaps our society has been carved out by lawyers, I don't know. But I remember when my dad and mom would get into a fight, my dad would just go out and get drunk. Today it's not that simple.
Today, if you have a fight, you'd first better check with your lawyer, see your psychologist, call your marriage counselor, consult your accountant — before you go out and get drunk.
Do we live in a justice society today?
What has happened to our justice system? Bobby Kennedy, over 50 years ago, said we no longer had a justice system, but just a legal system of red tape. How much more is that true today?
I recall reading in Psychology Today Magazine that we are so messed up today that anything helps. It takes about 9 million sleeping tablets to put America to sleep at night, and we take 2–1/2 tons of aspirin each day.
And I'll bet that doesn't count the two I took.
Sometimes lawyers, who see things more from the inside, get so down and out about our litigious society that they'll find any excuse to stay home sick. A lawyer in my office once stayed home sick when he discovered his colon wasn't straight.
The problem is that we live in such complex times. As I said, the law was relatively easy until sometime after the mid-80s. Then it just spiraled upward out of control like a rocket taking off.
One article said that people could learn from their mistakes more if they weren't so busy repeating them.
And talk about repeating mistakes, I had a client come in for his third divorce from his third wife, all in 7 years. When I tried to talk to him about what might be causing his problems, his response was, "Himes, I want a divorce, not a lecture."
Some people are so enthusiastic about what they do that they throw all caution and common sense to the wind. I had a wealthy 75-year-old client who was bent on marrying a 27-year-old woman. He was so enthusiastic he was insisting on buying a 5-bedroom house near an elementary school. I guess he hadn't heard that the number one cause of heart attacks in men over 60 — was women under 30.
We must find justice within ourselves if we are going to find justice at all. I realized there was no justice left today when I was in court and a judge said, "Having heard the facts, the arguments of counsel, and having reviewed all the evidence, I'm now ready to enter a judgment based upon my original prejudices."
Our lack of a justice system contributes to older lawyers developing inferiority complexes, but not very good ones. But we have to look at the positives, right? — look for wheat, and not for weeds. At least we lawyers are not like psychologists who look at all the other men when a beautiful woman enters the room.
At least law is better than medicine in many ways. Doctors will do a proctoscopic examination with their finger for a small fee. I wouldn't do one for $10,000.
At least we lawyers are not like undertakers.
Each and every one of us has something in common — the last date with one of them. Talk about a sure sale. You can't even object. Let me ask: is this justice? Is this fair?