OPINION

Time to fight back

by JEREMY EVANS


Well, boys and girls, it's time to take a leaf out of David Horowitz' book and fight back. When next you hear a lawyer joke, tell a client joke. When the clown is chortling about drivers laying down skid marks to keep from running over a snake, but not a prone lawyer, ask him if he's heard the difference between a client and a snail.

They're trapped. The difference, of course, is that a snail has more backbone than a client. Ho, ho, ho. They'll love it. Give them more.

What's the difference between a serial rapist and a client? Their eyes will start to glaze over, but tell them anyway. You wouldn't trust a client in your house at night. Har, har, har. Do they have any more lawyer jokes? No? Well, you got another jim dandy client joke. They will love this one.

What's the difference between a moron and a client? Har, har, har. They should have guessed that one: the moron is smarter. Har, har, HAR.

And we all know the difference between a waffle and a client. The waffle is more interesting. That's a real howler.

Inventing client jokes is real easy. You simply take the least redeeming quality of any animal, vegetable or mineral and cast that minimalist trait as superior to that of a client. The possibilities are endless.

And then, of course, there is the classic fight-back ploy. It happens at social gatherings when you are introduced and your occupation comes out. A lawyer. Your new acquaintance tells you he doesn't like lawyers. Just a touch of rudeness there.

"Don't take it personal," he says. Major put-down time. A little condescending going on here. Little wait while you gear up to quiver and shake and offer your lame-brain apologies for lawyerdom's sins and omissions, eh? Not so, buddy. Now hear this.

"That's OK, pal. I understand. You know I don't like clients. The more I see of them, the more I dislike them. I probably dislike clients more than you dislike lawyers."

There's going to be a little pause there. A few seconds of mouth-drop, eye-glaze and look-for-the-door. Plenty of time to close for the kill. But grab the arm. Hold tight.

"And, pal, lemme tell you why. (Take a deep breath). They're deceitful, cowardly, cheap, atrociously unendowed in the mental department."

About now you tighten your grip. Got to stop the squirming. The quarry suddenly realizes this lawyer isn't going to roll over, wag his tail and whimper. This lawyer is not playing fair. He hasn't read the rulebook. A little more grip there, elsewise the quarry is going to exercise his constitutional rights of cowardice and flee. Hold hard. It's your lawyerly duty to do so. Abe Lincoln told me so. There is something the fool has to know:

"Pal, it's this way. Clients who develop legal problems usually lack sufficient character, background, intelligence and other genetic components to cope rationally with contemporary society, and ergo, these inferior human qualities inevitably lead to negative societal interrelationships and, hence, legal, problems, etc., etc."

Fun, fun, fun. This, boys and girls, is how we earn back our skid marks.


Jeremy Evans is an attorney, presumably with clients, in Torrance.

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