Why We Love to Hate Lawyers

• Author: Dean Jobb
• Pages: 85-95

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Why We Love to Hate Lawyers

dean Jobb

   to a mathematician with a simple question: What does two

plus two equal? The mat hematician does a quick ca lculation on a black-

board and comes up with the ans wer: four. Not satisf‌ied with the response,

the man consults a n engineer, who f‌iddles with a slide rule for a few mo-

ments and then of‌fers the same ans wer: four.

Still not satisf‌ied, the m an poses the same question to a lawyer: “Wh at

is two plus two?” The law yer thinks for a moment, lean s toward the man

and whispers, “W hat would you like it to be?”1

I know, I know—another lawyer joke. How cold was it last week? It was

so cold, I saw several lawyers with their hands in their own pockets. Why don’t

sharks bite lawyers? Professional courte sy. What do you call a hundred law-

yers at the bottom of the ocean? A start. W hat’s wrong with lawyer jokes?

Lawyers don’t think they’re funny, and nobody else thinks they’re jokes.

But unlike most lawyer jokes, the m athematical one may captu re the

essence of why so many people don’t seem to like or trust lawyers—and

love to tell jokes at their expense. The punchl ine cuts to the heart of what

lawyers do. They solve problems for clients, even when the odds or the

1 This joke shou ld be credited to Warren Perri n, a lawyer and Acadi an descendant

from Erath, L ouisiana, who led the d rive for an ocial apolog y for the deportation

of the Acadia ns. He told it to open an address to t he Day of Ref‌lection markin g the

250th anniversa ry of Acadian depor tation at the Grand-Pré Nat ional Historic Site,

Grand-Pré, Nova Scot ia, 29 July 2005.