Unofficial Tex Murphy

Fred Buer wrote:They do TO exist! Riddle me this: What about lawyers!? Why are THEY called 'bloodsuckers', huh? Answer me that and stay fashionable!



-Fred

That's a secret we can't reveal to anyone outside of our cult.

Thanks for the tip on Preacher, Fred.

Lawyer jokes used to fly around like the wind. My favorite (sorry, David B. et al), short and sweet:

Two lawyers were having a drink after work. One said to the other, "You're not going to believe what happened last night when I was working late in the law library. The devil appeared before me and said he'd make me a senior partner if I'd sell him my soul!" The second lawyer hesitated and replied, "Well...what's the catch?"

I like it.

I like the one (probably because it could really happen) of the doctor and the lawyer at a party. The doctor says 'I saw someone at a friend's house who asked me to treat a small problem he had. It was relatively easy and I sorted it out for him but I don't know whether to put it down as a favour or whether to charge him.'
The lawyer says 'I'd charge him - after all he's asking for your professional help and you're giving it - if you'd got it wrong he could sue you and you've spent all those years at medical school learning your fine craft.'
The doctor thinks about it and says 'You're quite right, I think I will send a bill. Thank you.'
A week later the doctor gets a bill from the lawyer for 'legal advice given'.

Ever notice that there are zillions of lawyer jokes, all of which turn on lawyers having no shred of decency, but there are no doctor jokes? I mean, there are jokes with doctors in them (like David's), but almost none that smear the profession? Yet there's an enormous amount of resentment, deserved or not, about doctors in some circles in the US. I suspect it's too frightening for us to develop a world of "doctor jokes" because we put our lives into their hands constantly, whatever our opinions about the profession. (Actually we put our financial lives into our lawyers' hands, but that's more abstract and indirect).

I agree. I think it's in part because people generally feel that doctors are trying their best to help people and lawyers are generally adversarial to at least one party. I do a good amount of corporate, IP, and estate work, so a lot of my practice is pretty non-adversarial, but I do get involved in lawsuits, and I think that's where the animosity comes in. People do not like the idea of someone coming in and questioning them or making them do something that they don't want to do. Also, I think that there is a bigger disconnect between the fees charged by a lawyer and the lawyer's knowledge than the fees charged by a doctor and the doctor's knowledge; however, I think a lot of that goes back to the fact that a doctor's knowledge may literally save your life, while it's unlikely a lawyer's knowledge will do so.

That being said, I have heard almost all the lawyer jokes and generally don't take offense. I grew up with my parents as lawyers, so I'm used to the jokes.

You got those corny Doctor Jokes...

Man goes in to see his doctor on Monday... Doctor says lets make an appointment for Wednesday we should have the test results back...
So the man comes in on Wednesday at 10am... The doctor says, we have bad news and really bad news...
The man wants the bad news first, the bad news is the test results showed that you only have 24 hours to live...
Shocked the man asks, What's the really bad news then, Well the really bad news is my office couldn't get a hold of you yesterday at 11am to tell you...

I thought this was about vampires.

lestat666 wrote:I thought this was about vampires.

You should know as well as any of us how quickly Thread Subjects can change around here...

Matt the discussion path went:

Vampires -> Bloodsuckers -> Lawyers -> Doctors

I think it was a natural progression of word association. I'm sure a psychiatrist would have a great time analyzing our discussions here. Oh look I just switched topics again!

I wonder if Chris and Aaron used our discussions for some ideas for Three Cards