Lawyer Jokes

Gotten Gains

A Mexican bandit made a specialty of crossing the Rio Grande from time to time and robbing banks in Texas. The banks offered a reward for his capture, dead or alive, but offered a much larger award for the recovery of the stolen funds. An enterprising Texas Ranger decided to track him down.

After a long and difficult search, he traced the bandit to his home town. On a hunch, he checked the town’s cantina, and sure enough, there was the robber. The only other people in the bar were the bartender and a scrawny, older man at a back table. The time was right to make a move.

The ranger drew his revolver, charged into the cantina, and announced, “You are under arrest. I get a reward for you, dead or alive. Tell me where the money is, and I’ll let you live. If you don’t, I’ll shoot you right here, and save myself the trouble of having to take you back to Texas alive.”

But the bandit didn’t speak English, and the Ranger didn’t speak Spanish. As it turned out, the scrawny man at the back of the bar happenedd to be a lawyer. He knew the robber, and was bilingual, and quickly offered to translate for the two of them. The ranger said, “Tell him that if he doesn’t tell me where the loot is, I’ll shoot him here and now.”

Upon hearing what the Ranger had said, and seeing the cold look in his eye, the bandit knew that the Ranger meant it — if he did not give up his loot, he was a dead man. Terrified, the bandit blurted out in Spanish that the loot was buried in an old barn at the outskirts of town.

“What did he say?” asked the Ranger.

The lawyer answered, “He said ‘You don’t have the nerve to shoot me, Yankee swine.’”

The Lawyer Genie

A young man, shipwrecked on a small, deserted island, found an old oil lamp sticking out of the sand. He picked it up, and looked at it, thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cool if there were a Genie in here?” He knew that Genies did not exist, but figured he had nothing to lose, so he dutifully polished the lamp.

To his amazement, an enormous Genie emerged from the lamp in a cloud of smoke. The Genie announced, “Thank you for freeing me from the lamp. In accord with the customs and principles of my profession, you are entitled to precisely three wishes. Wishes will be granted in accord with the laws of the State of California, and any claims, disputes, or disagreements relating to the wishes shall be resolved by binding arbitration applying California laws.”

“That’s weird,” said the man, “I never thought a Genie would sound so much like a lawyer.”

“But I am a lawyer,” replied the Genie, “I am both a lawyer and a Genie. You should be aware that, for every wish you make, I will not only grant your wish but will grant every attorney in the world double what you wish for.”

The man didn’t care much for attorneys, and he wasn’t sure what to make of the Genie, but what was the worst that could happen? He decided to take the Genie’s offer, and make his wishes.

“I wish for fifty million dollars,” he said. As money poured down around him, the Genie reminded him that every attorney in the world had just received one hundred million dollars.

“My second wish is for a luxurious mansion, more stunning than Versailles, fully staffed and furnished with fine antiques.” The ground rumbled, and a mansion slowly rose from the earth. It was astonishingly beautiful. A butler approached him with a tray of fine food. He ate hungrily, thinking, “It really can’t get any better than this.”

But then the Genie reminded him, “Every attorney in the world just received a mansion twice as nice as this one.”

The man thought carefully about his last wish. He appreciated what the Genie had done for him, but it burned him to think that the attorney who had botched his divorce case had fared even better. And there was the attorney who had stolen from his mother’s estate. And wasn’t the President an attorney? The man shuddered, realizing what people like that could do with this kind of wealth and the power it could bring. And it was then that he made his final wish.

“I really want to give something back to society,” the man said. “I wish to donate one of my kidneys for transplant.”

Leaving money for the dead

A Brooklyn lawyer, a used car salesman and a banker were gathered by a coffin containing the body of an old friend. In his grief, one of the three said, “In my family, we have a custom of giving the dead some money, so they?ll have something to spend over there.”

They all agreed that this was appropriate. The banker dropped a hundred dollar bill into the casket, and the car salesman did the same. The lawyer took out the bills and wrote a check for $300.

Legal Ethics

After drafting a will for an elderly client, the attorney announced a fee of $100.

The client gave the attorney a $100 bill.

After the client left, the attorney saw that the client had in fact paid $200, as two of the client’s $100 bills had stuck together.

Looking at the $100 overpayment, an ethical question arose in the attorney’s mind: “Do I tell my partner?”

Free Advice

A doctor and a lawyer were attending a cocktail party when the doctor was approached by a man who asked advice on how to handle his ulcer. The doctor mumbled some medical advice, then turned to the lawyer and grumbled, “I hate it when people seek free advice from me at parties.”

The lawyer replied, “I know just what you mean. It happens to me all the time.”

“How do you handle it,” asked the doctor. “It seems rude not to answer a question when you are asked for advice during a social function.”

“I just send the person a bill for your time” replied the lawyer.

“That’s good,” said the doctor. “I’ll have to remember that.”

The doctor went home and thought about writing a bill to the man who asked about the ulcer, but when he woke up the next day it had already slipped his mind. The night’s events came rushing back to him the next day, however, when he opened his mail. In it, he found a bill for $100 from the lawyer for “consultation services rendered.”

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