Funny Lawyer Joke

Flight attendant: Is there a doctor on this flight?

Dad: *nudging me* that should've been you

Me: Not now Dad

Dad: Not asking for a Juris Doctor are they?

Me: Dad there's a medical emergency happening

Dad: Go see if a 10 page memo with the conclusion that 'it depends' helps

— Shawn Deane (@shawnrdeane) November 27, 2019

Comments

[ILK]

There we have it. The last funny lawyer joke was told on November 27, 2019.

[Don Nico]

I guess you had to be there.

[TwelveInchPianist]

You'd think the son could have at least tucked a business card in the man's pocket.

[santamonica811]

See. Now *that's* funny.

[Eric VonSalzen]

My father was a doctor -- that is, a physician -- a real doctor. That's one reason why I never exercised the option to convert my LLB to a JD. So "Dr." Jill, it's fine if you just call me Eric.

[santamonica811]

A doctorate in education is a real doctorate (with dissertation, et al). Unlike my own (and your) JD, which was 3 years, no dissertation, and was almost impossible to get, once accepted. Why be a deliberate asshole and attempt to make fun of Dr Biden? (Or are you consistent and make posts ridiculing people with doctorates in Business, Psychology, Marine Biology, Sociology [okay, you can make fun of that one], Fine Arts [ditto], etc etc etc?)

An oddly hostile and unnecessary part of your post.

[santamonica811]

...and was almost impossible to NOT get, once...

[frickin' lack of edit button]

[Dr. Ed 2]

Jill Biden's program does not require (nor have provisions for) a dissertation. That's not her fault -- but I still am upset about it.

[OtisAH]

Oh really? That her program might not require a dissertation upsets you, does it? WGAF?

[Eugene Volokh]

santamonica811: The University of Delaware does offer a Ph.D. in education, but Jill Biden didn't get that; instead, she got an Ed.D., which was essentially the equivalent of a 2-year full-time professional program.

Nor did it require a dissertation in the sense of a substantial original work of scholarship, which is to say something that adds materially to the body of the discipline's theoretical knowledge. Instead, she had to write something comparable to a master's thesis: an "Executive Position Paper," which applies existing knowledge to a particular organization. I discuss all this in some detail here.

I know lots of people who have gotten Ph.D.s, and have had to write real dissertations. It seems to me that something like an Ed.D. is no more a Ph.D. analog than a J.D. is.

[santamonica811]

Thanks. One learns something new every day. . . .

Interesting. I guess it's ironic that, in education, you can get a doctorate without advancing the field's knowledge.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Only because accreditation is a joke -- UofD should not be allowed to call that an Ed.D.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"The University of Delaware does offer a Ph.D. in education, but Jill Biden didn’t get that; instead, she got an Ed.D., which was essentially the equivalent of a 2-year full-time professional program. "

No, no, no...

While you are right about Jill Biden having what essentially amounts to a 2-year degree, the scandal is that they get to award an Ed.D (and not a M.Ed.) for it. I have an Ed.D. and I had to write (and defend) a very real dissertation -- all 203 pages of it.

The easiest way to explain the difference between an Ed.D. and a Ph.D. is that the Ed.D. has an additional pedagogical component as it is intended to be a practitioner's degree rather than a research degree -- it's like the distinction between a BS and a BA, with some of the same majors being either depending on the IHE awarding them.

And after decades of debate over which doctorate should be awarded for what, schools of education are now shifting over to just awarding the Ph.D. -- my program recently converted and that's what I would have were I to graduate from there now. And note that it is a "school" of education (or engineering) -- although that distinction isn't always being observed, either.

The easiest way to understand this is that while there are MDs and PhDs working in medical research, the routes they took to get there are very different. And like how the MD working for Big Pharma may also have a medical license, a lot of people with Ed.D.s also have a teaching certification (I do) -- but neither is required for what they are currently doing.

[Voize of Reazon]

We all concluded long ago that if you were a Doctor of anything, it would be of Ed.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Or are you consistent and make posts ridiculing people with doctorates in Business, Psychology, Marine Biology, Sociology [okay, you can make fun of that one], Fine Arts [ditto]"

Yes, no, no, yes, yes.

And Jill Biden's doctorate didn't require her to know how many quarters there are in a whole.

[MatthewSlyfield]

"didn’t require her to know how many quarters there are in a whole."

$4.50

[Dr. Ed 2]

I don't think you can get a Ph.D. in Fine Arts -- it's a DFA although the MFA (Masters in FA) is still considered a "terminal degree" and largely still is.

Remember too that a doctorate in Psychology is often an Ed.D. if the Psychology department is located in the School of Education, which it sometimes is.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I respectfully disagree -- your LLB (and the modern JD) are actually a MASTER'S DEGREE -- you didn't have to create any new knowledge, i.e. write a dissertation. (Jill Biden didn't either, and that bothers me.)

I view a doctorate as being the equivalent of the military's "General Officer" -- a solid enough of a base in something (e.g. artillery) that you can make competent decisions in things outside your field, particularly because you are going to know what you don't know.

In other words, you know the questions to ask, even if you don't know the answers -- and, in extremis, I could identify the things to describe and questions to ask to a MD on the radio in a way that someone without a doctorate couldn't -- and I have done this...

I've done this as a patient, with the head MD bluntly stating that I was asking more intelligent questions than his (MD) fellows were. While I'm not sure it was appropriate for him to *say* that, I have no doubt that he meant it.

And while I'd instantly defer to someone who had a better ability than I, if someone is going to otherwise die on the deck of an airliner, well....

And I say "better ability" rather than "more qualified" because the MD may be intoxicated. Maybe half asleep. May be the absolute best OB/GYN for high risk pregnancies in the country. And may be totally useless for someone choking on a piece of steak...

I don't think I would say it now, but (pre-911), I once bluntly told a stewardess that "as long as you are rational, no matter how bad things are, I will do what you say -- if you aren't, I'll do what I think need to be done..."

[Bored Lawyer]

This one was going around when I was in law school:

Why does New York have all the lawyers and New Jersey all the toxic waste dumps?

Because New Jersey got first pick.

[Edgehopper]

Not a NJ/NY joke, but told to me by the Hon. Frank Ciuffani, formerly of the N.J. Chancery Division (mild curse word asterisked in case there's a filter):

A guy was asked by some friends of his to go on a hunting trip, but he had never been before. His friends said it's fine, you can rent a dog and a gun, and referred him to a kennel. The kennel owner said, "we have one dog left the weekend you want, his name is Lawyer. He's new, so you can take him at a low rate, $50/day." The guy takes the dog, and he turns out to be the best dog he could hope for--sniffs out all the game, behaves perfectly, retrieves all the downed game in a flash.

The next year, the guy goes back to the kennel, and asks for Lawyer by name. The kennel owner says, "he's available, but he's our best dog now. The charge is $300/day." The guy's a little unhappy with the price increase, but he pays it. And Lawyer is still a great hunting dog, and the guy has a great time.

The third year, the guy goes back to the kennel again, and asks for Lawyer. The kennel owner responds, "Yeah, he's available, just $50/day." The guy asks, "He was $300/day last year, what happened?"

The kennel owner responded, "Some darn fool called him Judge, and now he just sits on his a** and barks all day!"

[DaivdBehar]

Cute joke. The rule of law is an essential utility product. Without it, medicine is not even possible. People are spending all day on physical survival.

It is crucial to end it failures, to modernize it, to divorce it from supernatural religious doctrines, while preserving the good features of the common law, like speed and flexibility. Our society must be pacified. Rent seeking must be stopped. The current failed hierarchy must be replaced, and a system must prevent its recurrence.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Best non-racist joke I have ever heard:

A bus full of lawyers goes over a cliff. Why was it a tragedy?

Because there was an empty seat....

[Formerly Known as Stash]

Hah. In my family, my top 5 legal education was ridiculed as "trade school." Getting a medical degree would likely have been characterized the same way. "Real degrees" are in the humanities or sciences--not in fields that actually train you for a profession.

[Dr. Ed 2]

“Practical end[s] should never be lost sight of by student or teacher in a polytechnic school, and should seldom be thought of or alluded to in a college… The practical spirit and the literary or scholastic spirit are both good, but they are incompatible. If commingled, they are both spoiled.”

-- Charles William Eliot (21st president of Harvard)

[Michael P]

He clearly predated Donald Knuth.

Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming is a masterpiece. When it was first published, it covered essentially every major result in the field of computer science. (Knuth, now 83, has since stated that the field has grown too large for one work to cover everything of significance.) It blends solid, dense consideration of research and analysis considerations with consistent ties to implementation concerns.

Due to its dense presentation, it is really aimed at M.S. or Ph.D. types, but more pedestrian or practice-oriented developers can use it for spot references.

[santamonica811]

Wait? What? So, all the other "good" jokes you know ARE racist jokes?!?!???

While I appreciate your candor here; I hope that's not the sort of thing you admit to in polite company.

[John F. Carr]

I miss Polish jokes. Recasting them as generic "ethnic" jokes was worse than letting them die.

[Hugo S. Cunningham]

John Silber, longtime president of Boston University, made a point of using his PhD "Doctor" title on every occasion, perhaps to bolster the esteem for PhD degrees handed out by his own university. This became an object of widespread amusement when he entered politics in 1990, running for governor of Massachusetts. It may have been Margery Eagan who said of the notoriously irascible Silber, "John Silber may not be an MD, but he could sure tear your tonsils out!"

[John F. Carr]

It was suggested that if John Silber and Clayton Williams had campaigned in each other's state in 1990, they both would have won back at home. Back then we didn't have social media to put every faux pas in front of a billion eyeballs.

[Doug Huffman]

Locally burbot are known as ‘Lawyers’. When I asked why an old fisherman filleting ‘lawyers’ showed me the heart immediately above the anus.

Burbot are also known as poor-man’s lobster and are very delicious. I think Ken Koyen may be the last intentional ‘lawyer’ fisher, for his restaurant.

[John F. Carr]

The "joke" reminds me of a pseudonymous lawyer who used to go to a legal discussion forum solely for the purpose of wasting our time with an essay on why "it depends" and he wasn't going to say anything useful about the topic. He wasn't getting paid to do this so I assume it was fun. It wasn't the quick drive-by "your kind sucks" you get here. Obviously some effort was being put into it. The post was tailored to the question, and yet like the lawyer shouting up to the balloon in the old joke our pseudonymous lawyer managed to provide no useful information. (The lawyer in the balloon joke is sometimes another profession, but lawyer fits well.)

[Alan Vanneman]

Stewardess: Is there a doctor on board?

Josh Blackman: No, but I recently published a column in the New York Times that went viral, proving that Donald Trump should not be impeached for committing murder if he thought it would help him win reelection.

[Ilya Shlyakhter]

I've heard a version with a graphic designer and "Try saving him as a .pdf, see if that helps."