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    One would be remiss if, in a magazine for lawyers, he did not begin by defining his terms.  What is a "lawyer joke"?  ("When I use a word," Humpry Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 6.)  Like "torts", the phrase "lawyer joke" does not lend itself to easy definition.  But, like a professor of torts, I will try to explain my definition by a series of examples.
 

Example 1:  Did you hear about the patent attorney who, in lieu of a fee, took stock in his client's company?   The product: Solar-powered flashlights.

Example 2:   PBA past President John Carpenter was out back at his house starting to put sideboards on a shed he was building.  Another former PBA President, Tom Cooper, happened by and noticed that John would reach into his nail bag and sometimes toss away the nail he pulled out.  When asked why, John explained, "Tom, it seems like about half these nails have the head on the wrong side."  Tom doubled over with laughter. After he regained his composure, he said, "John how can you be so stupid?  You should save those nails and use them on the other side."

Example 3:  You heard about the three deep-sea fisherman whose boat capsized? The minister and social worker were devoured by sharks, but the lawyer was spared -- out of professional courtesy.

 Example 4:  Question: What do you call a lawyer up to his neck in cement?
Answer:  Not enough cement.

    The second one probably is not a "lawyer joke" but might be considered so if the joke is intended to ridicule or belittle the individuals based merely on their being lawyers; although this type of joke, when used to riducule certain ethnic groups (such as Pennsylvania Dutchman of which I am one), can be less than innocuous if the emphasis is on the ethnic/racial/professional identity of the individuals involved rather than the hilarity of the statements.

    There can be no doubt however that the third Example is a "lawyer joke" and that the fourth one is an invitation to genocide.

    Suppose that Jay Leno et al. regaled their devotees with jokes like the last two, but that, instead, they denigrated women, the elderly, truck drivers, blacks, doctors, or any of a host of other groups.  If they would even suggest that a doctor or a Hispanic should be "disposed of" merely becuase of being a doctor or a Hispanic, their television networks and this magazine would, rightfully, be besieged with indignant phone calls and letters. Why is a person treated as a lower life form merely because his professional trademark is a "J.D."?

    I have been a member of the Bar for 16 years [as of 1991] and have never understood why lawyers sit by idly as others ridicule and humiliate them.  In Pennsylvania, we lawyers should be proud that, finally, someone in a position of prominence has spoken out.  Immediate Past President of the Pennsylvania Bar Association John Carpenter, in this very magazine, aired his feelings about distasteful lawyer-bashing:
 

    "Why am I so sensitive? I must confess to you that I really like lawyers and judges.  I admire the way they think and argue and compete. What profession is more disciplined or has a higher standard of ethics? What body of people has done more to craft and sustain civilization and the laws by which we live? This is truly a great and honorable profession. Yet we stand by and watch other people make fun of it and us and, in the spirit of trying to be "good sports", we even join in the self-abuse process -- laughing with them and topping their latest lawyer bash with our own.

    Other groups have been successful in causing ethnic and racist jokes, once curiously popular, to fall into poor taste.  Thoughtful people have stopped laughing at those jokes, yet we keep on being "good sports", laughing at and encouraging derogatory shots at each other, ourselves and this great profession, as each repetition pushes us further down in image. When we stop laughing, these jokes may join the list of black and Polish jokes that are now recognized for their poor taste."

President's SideBar, Pennsylvania Lawyer, November 1990.

    My abhorrence of "lawyer jokes" runs deeper than a mere pride in the profession.  I am not just a lawyer.  I am a husband, a father, a son, a brother, an uncle, a friend, a member of a a community, a member of a church, and many other things to other people.  I resent those who use me and my profession as whipping boys because it has a negative impact on how my wife, my sons, my parents, my brother and sister, my nieces and nephews, my friends, and my neighbors perceive me. To be blunt, it just isn't funny and it hurts.

    Lest you think this is a trivial matter, go to the nearest computer terminal, gain access to a database of prominent newspapers and periodicals, and search for some articles describing the annihilation of lawyers (and other professionals) by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.  If we continue to allow people to drape themselves in the sheep's clothing of "lawyer jokes" and wrongfully portray American lawyers as scabs on society, then we members of the Bar will have only ourselves to blame if the day comes when we are "dealt with" merely because we have certificates on our office walls which read, "Juris Doctor".
 To invoke the words of Past President Carpenter one more time:

      "May I suggest that you and I join together to attack the seemingly impossible job of stamping out "lawyer jokes"?  Think about it.  Their demise just might begin with me -- or you."

[Terry W. Light is a 1974 graduate of the Harvard Law School, who practices personal injury law in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.]

Published in 1991 in the Pennsylvania Lawyer, the official magazine of the Pennsylvania Bar Association.  Cited as an "Article to Remember" in the 20th Anniversary Edition [1999] of the Pennsylvania Lawyer.

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