Joke #4222

Why do bankruptcy lawyers expect to be paid?

A lawyer died and arrived at the pearly gates. To his dismay, there were thousands of people ahead of him in line to see St. Peter. But, to his surprise, St. Peter left his desk at the gate and came down the long line to where the lawyer was standing. St. Peter greeted him warmly. Then St. Peter and one of his assistants took the lawyer by the hands and guided him up to the front of the line into a comfortable chair by his desk. The lawyer said, “I don’t mind all this attention, but what makes me so special?” St. Peter replied, “Well, I’ve added up all the hours for which you billed your clients, and by my calculation you must be about 193 years old!”

"Your Honor, it was an accident! I had to run into the fence to keep from hitting the cow!" "Was it a Jersey cow?" "I don't know, I didn't see her license plate!"

Arguing with a lawyer is like mud wrestling with a pig: after a while you realize that the pig actually enjoys it.

How can you tell when a lawyer is lying? His lips are moving.

Ninety-nine percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

A tourist wanders into a back-alley antique shop in San Francisco's Chinatown. Picking through the objects on display he discovers a detailed bronze sculpture of a rat. The sculpture is so interesting and unique that he picks it up and asks the shop owner the price. "Twelve dollars for the rat, sir," says the shop owner, "and an extra thousand dollars more for the story behind it." "You can keep the story, old man," he replies, "but, I'll take the rat." The transaction complete, the tourist leaves the store with the bronze rat under his arm. As he crosses the street in front of the store, two live rats emerge from a sewer drain and fall into step behind him. Nervously looking over his shoulder, he begins to walk faster, but every time he passes another sewer drain, more rats come out and follow him. By the time he's walked two blocks, at least a hundred rats are at his heels, and people begin to point and shout. He walks even faster, and soon breaks into a trot as multitudes of rats swarm from sewers, basements, vacant lots, and abandoned cars....following him. Rats by the thousands are at his heels, and as he sees the waterfront at the bottom of the hill, he panics and starts to run full tilt. No matter how fast he runs, the rats keep up, squealing hideously now not just thousands but millions, so that by the time he comes racing to the water's edge a trail of rats twelve city blocks long is behind him. Making a mighty leap, he jumps up onto a light post, grasping it with with one arm, while he hurls the bronze rat into San Francisco Bay with the other, as far as he can throw it. Pulling his legs up and clinging to the light post, he watches in amazement as the seething tide of rats surges over the breakwater into the sea, where they drown. Shaken and mumbling, he makes his way back to the antique shop. "Ah sir, you've come back for the rest of the story," says the owner. "No," says the tourist, "I was just hoping you had a bronze sculpture of a lawyer!"

A loan shark asks a lawyers advice: How can I get back my $1,000 from Johnny if I lost my loan receipt? Send a letter where you will write to him to send you the $2,000 he owns you. Ok but I only loaned him $1,000! That’s the idea, we want to get from hem a proof that he owns you $1,000...

What’s the difference between a shame and a pity? If a busload of lawyers goes over a cliff and there are no survivors – that’s a pity. If there were any empty seats – that’s a shame.

As Mr. Smith was on his death bed, he attempted to formulate a plan that would allow him to take at least some of his considerable wealth with him. He called for the three men he trusted most - his lawyer, his doctor, and his clergyman. He told them, "I'm going to give you each $30,000 in cash before I die. At my funeral, I want you to place the money in my coffin so that I can try to take it with me." All three agreed to do this and were given the money. At the funeral, each approached the coffin in turn and placed an envelope inside. While riding in the limousine to the cemetery, the clergyman said "I have to confess something to you fellows. Brother Smith was a good churchman all his life, and I know he would have wanted me to do this. The church needed a new baptistery very badly, and I took $10,000 of the money he gave me and bought one. I only put $20,000 in the coffin." The physician then said, "Well, since we're confiding in one another, I might as well tell you that I didn't put the full $30,000 in the coffin either. Smith had a disease that could have been diagnosed sooner if I had this very new machine, but the machine cost $20,000 and I couldn't afford it then. I used $20,000 of the money to buy the machine so that I might be able to save another patient. I know that Smith would have wanted me to do that." The lawyer then said, "I'm ashamed of both of you. When I put my envelope into that coffin, it held my personal check for the full $30,000."

Two women are on a transcontinental balloon voyage. Their craft is engulfed in fog, their compass gone awry. Afraid of landing in the ocean, they drift for days. Suddenly, the clouds part to show a sunlit meadow below. As they descend, they see a man walking his dog. One of the flyers yells to the figure far below, "Where are we?" The man yells back, "About a half mile from town." Once again, the balloonists are engulfed in the mist. One flyer says to the other, "He must have been a lawyer." The other says, "A lawyer! How do you know that?" The first says, "That’s easy. The information he gave us was accurate, concise, and entirely irrelevant."