Search Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »
My library | Help | Advanced Book Search | Web History | Sign in

Books

Lowering the Bar:

Lawyer Jokes And Legal Culture
Front Cover
0 Reviews
Univ of Wisconsin Press, Sep 2, 2006 - Social Science - 429 pages
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. 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 coexists uneasily with anxiety about the "legalization" of society. Always entertaining, his book explores the tensions between Americans' deep-seated belief in the law and their ambivalence about lawyers. 
  

What people are saying - Write a review

We haven't found any reviews in the usual places.

Related books

The Lawyer's Joke Book: There Are Some Things a Rat Just Won't Do
The Lawyer's Joke Book: There Are Some Things a Rat Just Won't Do
John Patrick Dolan,Dale Irvin
No preview available - 2008
Tournament of Lawyers: The Transformation of the Big Law Firm
Tournament of Lawyers: The Transformation of the Big Law Firm
Marc Galanter,Thomas Palay
Limited preview - 1994
The Greatest Lawyer Jokes of All Time: A Collection of Humor about Attorneys ...
The Greatest Lawyer Jokes of All Time: A Collection of Humor about Attorneys ...
William L. Pfeifer, Jr.
No preview available - 2007
All related books »

Contents

Introduction
3
The Enlargement and Withdrawal of the Legal World
9
Learning from Lawyer Jokes
15
Lies and Stratagems The Corruption of Discourse
31
Workers in the Mills of Deceit
36
Eloquence Persuasiveness Resourcefulness
40
Lawyer Talk as Fakery and Bombast
47
Masters of Stratagem
50
Betrayers of Trust
157
The Betrayal Joke Cluster
160
Betrayal as Virtue
166
What Do the Jokes Tell Us?
171
An Excess of Loyalty?
177
The Lawyer as Morally Deficient
179
Looking Out for Number One
184
No Redeeming Social Value
186

The Lawyer Outsmarted
55
The Ascendency of Lawyer Talk
61
The Lawyer as Economic Predator
64
Taking It All
66
A Prodigious Predator
70
Fee Simple
76
Throwing the Meter
80
Predation as Sex Sex as Predation
86
The Justice Tariff
94
Playmates of the Devil
97
Headed for Hell
101
Absent in Heaven
105
A Kingdom of This World
108
Conflict Lawyers as Fomenters of Strife
114
Promoters of Conflict
118
The Conniving Claimant
120
Litigation Fever
130
The Lawyer as Heroic Champion
138
The Demography of the World of Lawyer Jokes
142
Women in Combat
144
Jews and Other Outsiders
148
Seniors and Juniors
152
He Just Doesnt Get It
190
In the Laboratory
192
Lawyers as Objects of Scorn
196
Sounding the Depths
199
Into the Slime
202
The Anal Connection
204
The Uses of Scorn
207
A Good Start Death Wish Jokes
210
The Contemporary Onslaught
213
Lets Kill All the Lawyers
215
A Pestilent1al Affliction
219
The 70 Percent Legend
223
Why Death Wish Jokes Flourish
226
Enemies of Justice
233
The Lawyer as Enemy of Justice
236
What Does Law Deliver?
240
Only in America?
249
Register of Jokes
263
Notes
275
References
357
Index
413
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture
Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture
Marc Galanter
Limited preview - 2006
Lowering the bar: lawyer jokes and legal culture
Lowering the bar: lawyer jokes and legal culture
Marc Galanter
Snippet view - 2005
Lowering The Bar: Lawyer Jokes And Legal Culture
Lowering The Bar: Lawyer Jokes And Legal Culture
Marc Galanter
No preview available - 2005

Common terms and phrases

Adams and Newall Adler Alan Dundes Alvin American anecdote Anon appeared asked Atticus Finch attorney Baddiel Behrman Berle betrayal bill Brallier Brian Mulroney Cartoon Cerf chap Claro client CLLH Cohl collected contingency fee Coote Copeland court Death Wish Death Wish jokes devil doctor dollars Dundes e-mail message Esar Galanter Green Grossman Hupfeld Jewish Jhumor List Johnson jokes about lawyers Joseph Choate judge justice Knott L.A. Law law firm lawyer humor lawyer joke corpus lawyer jokes lawyer version legal profession legal system litigation Lowdown Disk 1992 message to author meta-jokes National Law Journal Nolo's Favorite 1993 partner percent Phillips Pietsch politicians priest professional rats Reader's Digest Regan replied response Robert Maxwell Ross Rovin Rufus Choate says social story Streiker switched to lawyers tell theme Tibballs told wife Wilde Williams woman lawyer York

References to this book

From other books

The Cultural Lives of Cause Lawyers
The Cultural Lives of Cause Lawyers
Sarat/Scheingold
Limited preview
The emotional organization: passions and power
The emotional organization: passions and power
Stephen Fineman
Snippet view - 2008

From Google Scholar

Lawyers and the legal system on TV: the British experience
Peter Robson - 2007 - International Journal of Law in Context
Ordinary Heroes vs. Failed Lawyers-Public Interest Litigation in ...
Michael McCann, William Haltom, Michael McCann, William Haltom - 2008 - Law & Social Inquiry

References from web pages

UW Press - : Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture ...
Lowering the Bar Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture Marc Galanter "Hilarious and philosophical at the same time, a nifty probe of the genre, regularly guilty of ...
www.wisc.edu/ wisconsinpress/ books/ 2923.htm

Blawg Book Highligher #21: Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and ...
That being University of Wisconsin law professor Mark Galanter, who has written a book, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture" (University of ...
blog.blawg.com/ archive/ 2008/ 02/ 02/ Blawg-Book-Highligher-21-Lowering-the-Bar-Lawyer-Jokes-and.aspx

IN THIS WEEK'S TLS
LOWERING THE BAR Lawyer jokes and legal culture Marc Galanter. 430pp. | University of Wisconsin Press. $45; distributed in the UK by Eurospan. £32.95. ...
marcgalanter.net/ Documents/ LTB%20TLS%20Review1.doc

foreword - January/February 2006 - Special Section (Page 55)
BOOK REVIEWS. Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture Marc Galanter University of Wisconsin Press 59 b/w illustrations 430 pages Hardcover $45.00 ...
foreword.texterity.com/ foreword/ 200601/ ?pg=57

The Review of Politics 69:03 Book Reviews
Marc Galanter: Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture (Madison, WI: The. University of Wisconsin Press, 2005. Pp. ix-xvii, 498. $26.95, paper.) ...
journals.cambridge.org/ production/ action/ cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=1229840

Law Library News, May 22, 2006
Marc Galanter, Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture (K184.G35 2005 at Classified Stacks). Have you heard the one about the lawyer and the sharks ...
lib.law.washington.edu/ news/ 2006/ May22.html

Lawyer jokes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marc Galanter among his books and articles related to law and the legal profession wrote "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", based on his ...
en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Lawyer_joke

Marc Galanter lectures on implications of lawyer jokes - inbrief ...
Legal scholar Marc Galanter has collected hundreds of lawyer jokes in Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture (University of Wisconsin Press, ...
www.vanderbilt.edu/ alumni/ email/ InBrief/ 2006Spring/ lawyer_jokes.html

lawyer joke: Information and Much More from Answers.com
Marc Galanter, "Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture", University of Wisconsin Press (September 1 2005) ISBN 0299213501 ...
www.answers.com/ topic/ lawyer-joke

Marc Galanter : Lowering The Bar: Lawyer Jokes And Legal Culture ...
priceminister Compra Venta garantizada , Libro Lowering The Bar: Lawyer Jokes And Legal Culture nuevo y segunda mano al mejor precio.
www.priceminister.es/ offer/ buy/ 22318820/ Lowering-The-Bar-Lawyer-Jokes-And-Legal-Culture-Libro.html

About the author (2006)

Marc Galanter is the John and Rylla Bosshard Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Centennial Professor in the Department of Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Lowering the Bar
TitleLowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes And Legal Culture
AuthorMarc Galanter
Editionillustrated
PublisherUniv of Wisconsin Press, 2006
ISBN0299213544, 9780299213541
Length429 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Humor / Topic / Business & Professional
Law / Legal Profession
Social Science / Popular Culture
  
Export CitationBiBTeX EndNote RefMan