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Lowering the bar : lawyer jokes and legal culture / Marc Galanter.
Table of contents Available online
View online- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Galanter, Marc, 1931-
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Lawyers--United States--Humor.
- Lawyers.
- Lawyers--United States--Public opinion.
- Lawyers--Complaints against--United States.
- Public opinion.
- United States.
- Genre:
- Humor.
- Physical Description:
- xvii, 429 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, [2005]
- Summary:
- What do you call 600 lawyers at the bottom of the sea? Marc Galanter calls it an opportunity to investigate the meanings of a rich and time-honored genre of American humor: lawyer jokes. "Lowering the Bar" analyzes hundreds of jokes from Mark Twain classics to contemporary anecdotes about Dan Quayle, Johnnie Cochran, and Kenneth Starr. Drawing on representations of law and lawyers in the mass media, political discourse, and public opinion surveys, Galanter finds that the increasing reliance on law has coexisted uneasily with anxiety about the " legalization" of society. Informative and always entertaining, his book explores the tensions between Americans'deep-seated belief in the law and their ambivalence about lawyers.
- Contents:
- Lies and strategems : the corruption of discourse
- The lawyer as economic predator
- Playmates of the devil
- Conflict : lawyers as fomenters of strife
- The demography of the world of lawyer jokes
- Betrayers of trust
- The lawyer as morally deficient
- Lawyers as objects of scorn
- "A good start!" death wish jokes
- Enemies of justice
- Only in America?
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 357-411) and index.
- ISBN:
- 0299213501
- OCLC:
- 58043102
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