Lowering the bar : lawyer jokes and legal culture / Marc Galanter.

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.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (449 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, c2005.

Language Note:

English

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:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 357-411) and index.

ISBN:

9786612622854

9781282622852

1282622854

9780299213534

0299213536

OCLC:

646066620