Lawyer Jokes

"I couldn't serve as a juror, judge. One look at that fellow convinces me he's guilty."

"Sh-h! That's the district attorney."

Gushing Lady: Yes, she's married to a lawyer, and a good honest fellow too.

Cynic: Bigamist!

"If I should kiss you I suppose you'd go and tell your mother."

"No; my lawyer."

Lawyer: Are you aware, sir, that what you contemplate is illegal?

Client: Certainly. What do you suppose I came to consult you for?

The ponderous judge interrupted the eloquent lawyer harshly:

"All you say goes in at one ear and out at the other."

"What is to prevent it?" was the retort.

A man was charged with stealing a horse, and after a long trial the jury acquitted him. Later in the day the man came back and asked the judge for a warrant against the lawyer who had successfully defended him.

"What's the charge?" inquired the judge.

"Why, Your Honor," replied the man, "you see, I didn't have the money to pay him his fee, so he took the horse I stole."

The lawyer for the defense, in the damage suit, asked the witness who had seen the plaintiff struck by the automobile, how far the victim was thrown by the impact.

"Fifteen feet, six and three-quarter inches," was the instant response.

"You seem to be very exact in your figures," exclaimed the lawyer sarcastically. "How does that happen?"

"I guessed some fool lawyer would ask me," the witness answered, "and I measured the distance."

"Judge, Your Honor," cried the prisoner at the bar, "have I got to be tried by a lady jury?"

"Be still!" whispered his attorney.

"I won't be still! Judge, I can't even fool my own wife, let alone twelve strange women. I'm guilty!"

The Court: Considering that you are the wife of the prisoner, do you think you are qualified to act as a juror in this case?

The Lady: Well, your honor, if you will only give me a chance, I think I can convince the eleven other jurors that he's guilty.

The jury filed into the jury-box, and after the twelve seats were filled there still remained one juror standing outside.

"If the Court please," said the Clerk, "they have made a mistake and sent us thirteen jurors instead of twelve. What do you want to do with this extra one?"

"What is your name?" asked the judge of the extra man.

"Joseph A. Braines," he replied.

"Mr. Clerk," said the judge, "take this man back to the jury commissioners and tell them we don't need him as we already have twelve men without Braines."

The Judge (to jury, who have retired several times without agreeing): I understand that one juryman prevents your coming to a verdict. In my summing up I have clearly stated the law, and any juryman who obstinately sets his individual opinion against the remaining eleven is totally unfitted for his duties.

The Solitary Objector: Please, my lord, I'm the only man who agrees with you!

He was a young lawyer who had just started practicing in a small town and hung his sign outside of his office door. It read: "A. Swindler." A stranger who called to consult him saw the sign and said: "My goodness, man, look at that sign! Don't you see how it reads? Put in your first name—Alexander, Ambrose or whatever it is."

"Oh, yes I know," said the lawyer resignedly, "but I don't exactly like to do it."

"Why not?" asked the client. "It looks mighty bad as it is. What is your first name?"

"Adam."

Little Willie: What is a lawyer, pa?

Pa: A lawyer, my son, is a man who induces two other men to strip for a fight, and then runs off with their clothes.

A Boston lawyer, while cross-examining the plaintiff in a divorce trial, brought forth the following:

"You wish to divorce this woman because she drinks?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you drink yourself?"

"That's my business!" angrily.

Whereupon the unmoved lawyer asked: "Have you any other business?"

"You are absolutely certain about your statement?" asked the lawyer.

"Absolutely certain," assented the witness.

"You swear that this is true?"

"I do."

"Would you bet on it?"

"Er—well—yes, if I got the right odds."

A judge asked a woman her age.

"Thirty," she replied.

"You've given that age in this court for the last three years."

"Yes. I'm not one of those who says one thing today and another thing tomorrow."

The following is told of a late railway magnate and a prominent Philadelphia lawyer.

Said the magnate to the lawyer: "I want you to show that this law is unconstitutional. Do you think that you can manage it?"

"Easily," answered the lawyer.

"Well, go ahead and get familiar with the case."

"I'm already at home in it. I know my ground perfectly. It's the same law you had me prove was constitutional two years ago."

The juryman petitioned the court to be excused, declaring:

"I owe a man twenty-five dollars that I borrowed, and as he is leaving town today for some years I want to catch him before he gets to the train and pay him the money."

"You are excused," the judge announced in a very cold voice. "I don't want anybody on the jury who can lie like you."

A lawyer cross-examining a witness, asked him where he was on a particular day; to which he replied that he had been in the company of two friends. "Friends!" exclaimed his tormentor. "Two thieves, I suppose."

"They may be so," replied the witness, dryly, "for they are both lawyers."

"As a matter of fact," said the lawyer for the defendant, trying to be sarcastic, "you were scared half to death, and don't know whether it was a motor-car or something resembling a motor-car that hit you."

"It resembled one all right," the plaintiff made answer. "I was forcibly struck by the resemblance."

A judge, disgusted with a jury that seemed unable to reach an agreement in a perfectly evident case, rose and said, "I discharge this jury."

One sensitive talesman, indignant at what he considered a rebuke, obstinately faced the judge.

"You can't discharge me," he said in tones of one standing upon his rights.

"And why not?" asked the surprised judge.

"Because," announced the juror, pointing to the lawyer for the defense, "I'm being hired by that man there!"

"The trouble is," said Wilkins as he talked the matter over with his counsel, "that in the excitement of the moment I admitted that I had been going too fast, and wasn't paying any attention to the road just before the collision. I'm afraid that admission is going to prove costly."

"Don't worry about that," said his lawyer. "I'll bring seven witnesses to testify that they wouldn't believe you under oath."

The attorneys for the prosecution and defense had been allowed fifteen minutes each to argue the case. The attorney for the defense had commenced his argument with an allusion to the old swimming-hole of his boyhood days. He told in flowery oratory of the balmy air, the singing birds, the joy of youth, the delights of the cool water—

And in the midst of it he was interrupted by the drawling voice of the judge:

"Come out, Chauncey," he said, "and put on your clothes. Your fifteen minutes are up."

A long-winded attorney was arguing a technical case before one of the judges of the superior court in a western state. He had rambled on in such a desultory way that it became very difficult to follow his line of thought, and the judge had just yawned very suggestively.

With just a trace of sarcasm in his voice, the tiresome attorney ventured to observe: "I sincerely trust that I am not unduly trespassing on the time of this court."

"My friend," returned his honor, "there is a considerable difference between trespassing on time and encroaching upon eternity."

"Did you really call this gentleman an old fool last night?" asked the judge.

The prisoner tried hard to collect his thoughts.

"Well, the more I look at him, the more likely it seems that I did," he replied.

Attorney for the Defense: Have you ever been cross-examined before?

The Witness: Have I! I'm a married man.

A boy of eight entered the witness-box in tremendous boots, long trousers rolled up so that the baggy knees were at the ankles, and a swallow-tail coat that swept the floor.

"Why are you dressed like that?" asked the judge, both amazed and amused.

The boy took from his pocket the summons and pointed solemnly to the words: "To appear in his father's suit."

The prosecuting attorney had encountered a somewhat difficult witness. Finally he asked the man if he was acquainted with any of the men on the jury.

"Yes, sir," announced the witness, "more than half of them."

"Are you willing to swear that you know more than half of them?" demanded the lawyer.

"Why, if it comes to that, I'm willing to swear that I know more than all of them put together."

One evening just before dinner a wife, who had been playing bridge all the afternoon, came in to find her husband and a strange man (afterward ascertained to be a lawyer) engaged in some mysterious business over the library table, upon which were spread several sheets of paper.

"What are you going to do with all that paper, Henry?" demanded the wife.

"I am making a wish," meekly responded the husband.

"A wish?"

"Yes, my dear. In your presence I shall not presume to call it a will."

A Chicago business man, with many relatives, some of whom were well-to-do but grasping, recently sought the services of his lawyer to draw up his will. When, after much labor, the document was completed, the client asked:

"Have you fixed this thing, as I wished it, tight and strong?"

"I have done my best," said the lawyer.

"Well," continued the client, "I want to ask you another thing—not professionally, however. As a friend, and man to man, who do you think stands the best chance of getting the property when I am gone?"

"You have a pretty tough looking lot of customers to dispose of this morning, haven't you?" remarked the friend of a magistrate, who had dropped in at the police court.

"Huh!" rejoined the dispenser of justice, "you are looking at the wrong bunch. Those are the lawyers."

An old lady, being told that a certain lawyer "was lying at the point of death," exclaimed: "My Gracious! Won't even death stop that man's lying?"

Fresh from Boston, the lawyer in the frontier town had just finished a glowing summing up for the defense. There ensued a long pause, and the Easterner turned in some embarrassment to the judge.

"Your Honor," he asked, "will you charge the jury?"

"Oh, no, I guess not," answered the judge benignantly.

"They ain't got much anyway, so I let them keep all they can make on the side."

"Is there any way a man can avoid paying alimony?" asked the Friend who was seeking free advice.

"Sure," replied the Lawyer. "He can stay single or stay married."

Lawyer: When I was a boy my highest ambition was to be a pirate.

Client: You're in luck. It isn't every man who can realize the dreams of his youth.

Some physicians direct their patients to lie always on the right side, declaring that it is injurious to the health to lie on both sides. Yet, lawyers as a class enjoy good health.

"What a distinguished-looking man."

"Yes, the last time I saw him he was on the bench."

"What, a judge?"

"No; a substitute ball-player."

Judge: You are charged with profanity.

Prisoner: How can that be, your honor, when I was arrested for getting rid of it?

Judge: Ten days for swearing. Thirty days for that joke.

A couple of old codgers got into a quarrel and landed before the local magistrate. The loser, turning to his opponent in a combative frame of mind, cried: "I'll law you to the Circuit Court."

"I'm willing," said the other.

"And I'll law you to the Supreme Court."

"I'll be there."

"And I'll law you to hell!"

"My attorney'll be there," was the calm reply.

The man was weak and naturally unlucky, and so he got married three times inside of a year. He was convicted and sentenced for four years. He seemed greatly relieved. As the expiration of his term grew near, he wrote from the penitentiary to his lawyer, with the plaintive query:

"Will it be safe for me to come out?"

Judge: The police say that you and your wife had some words.

Prisoner: I had some, but didn't get a chance to use them.

Before the judge appeared a defendant who, hoping for leniency, pleaded, "Judge, I'm down and out."

Whereupon said the wise judge:

"You're down, but you're not out. Six months."

"I understand that Judge Brown is breaking up housekeeping."

"That can't be. He's very busy these days deciding divorce cases."

"Well, isn't that what I said?"

A judge's little daughter, who had attended her father's court for the first time, was very much interested in the proceedings. After her return home she told her mother:

"Papa made a speech, and several other men made speeches to twelve men who sat all together, and then these twelve men were put in a dark room to be developed."

"Well, have you anything to say?" asked the Judge.

The little man on the witness stand looked around the court-room rather fearfully.

"That depends," he answered at last. "Is my wife in the room?"

A suit for damages was being tried not long ago in one of the divisions of a Southern city court. A country lad, seventeen or eighteen years of age, was put on the stand to testify. He gave his testimony in so low a tone that the judge, pointing to the jury, said to him:

"Speak so that these gentlemen can hear you."

"Why," said the witness, with a beaming smile, "are these men interested in the case, too?"

The lawyer explained to the client his scale of prices:

"I charge five dollars for advising you as to just what the law permits you to do. For giving you advice as to the way you can safely do what the law forbids, my minimum fee is one hundred dollars."

"Smith certainly is a foxy fellow. He's drawn up his will in such a way that the lawyers can't get more out of it than his own heirs."

"How's that?"

"Why, he left half his fortune to one of the best lawyers in the country, provided he saw to it that the other half went to Smith's children intact."

"What punishment did that defaulting banker get?"

"I understand his lawyer charged him $40,000."

Magnate: I give that lawyer ten thousand dollars a year to keep me out of jail.

"Oh, John! Please stop spending your money so foolishly."

A tailor who had been wrongfully accused of murder, and who had an excellent defense, seemed very dejected when brought up for trial.

"What's the trouble?" whispered the counsel, observing his client's distress as he surveyed the jurymen.

"It looks very bad for me," said the defendant, "unless some steps are taken to dismiss that jury and get in a new lot. There isn't a man among them but owes me money for clothes."

Lawyer: Have you conscientious scruples against serving as a juror where the penalty is death?

Boston Talesman: I have.

Lawyer: What is your objection?

Boston Talesman: I do not desire to die.

"What did you have at the first saloon you stopped at?" asked a lawyer of a witness in an assault and battery case.

"What did we have? Four glasses of beer, sir."

"What next?"

"Two glasses of whiskey."

"Next?"

"One glass of brandy."

"Next?"

"A FIGHT."

If an attorney sent his clerk to a client with a bill and the client tells him to "go to the devil," where does the clerk go?

Straight back to the lawyer.

Why would a pelican make a good lawyer?

He knows how to stretch his bill.

"Why don't you demand $50,000 instead of $5,000?" said the lawyer.

"Oh, because," explained the lady of the breach of promise suit. "Then he might change his mind and want to marry me."

"I see villainy in your face," said a judge to a prisoner.

"May it please your honor," said the latter, "that is a personal reflection."

"You are charged with selling adulterated milk," said the judge.

"Your Honor, I plead not guilty."

"But the testimony shows that it is 25 percent water."

"Then it must be high-grade milk," returned the defendant. "If your Honor will look up the word 'milk' in your dictionary you will find that it contains from 80 to 90 percent water. I should have sold it for cream!"

There was a man who applied for a position in a dry-goods house. His appearance wasn't prepossessing, and references were demanded. After some hesitation, he gave the name of a driver in the firm's employ. This driver, he thought, would vouch for him. A clerk sought out the driver, and asked him if the applicant was honest.

"Honest?" the driver said. "Why, his honesty's been proved again and again. To my certain knowledge he's been arrested nine times for stealing and every time he was acquitted."

Why are lawyers like shears?

Because they do not cut each other, but only what comes between them.