Re: BarTalk, December 1998, Page 16
Jennifer Cooper, QC President of the Manitoba Branch, prescribes some good ways to build our public image. Not laughing at lawyer jokes is not one that I would whole heartedly advocate, however.

To put lawyer jokes off limits would be a shame. A lot of them are pretty funny. A disadvantaged minority we’re not, although it may feel like it occasionally, but maybe that’s not all bad.

The problem with our image is nothing new, and lawyer jokes as evidence of it are probably older than the pyramids. By odd coincidence justice systems as a whole through the ages, of which lawyers have been very visible agents, have continually fallen short of society’s needs.

Let’s face it, popular esteem is a long term project for us. Let’s be serious about that, and take up initiatives that do good for everybody, pro bono programs for instance as Ms. Cooper suggests. Meanwhile, let’s not put up with every insult but let’s not begrudge a decent laugh once in a while at our expense, especially to that loyal client about to pay our bill. Let’s be resilient.

Eric Rice, QC
Campbell Froh May & Rice

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The premise of the article by Jennifer A. Cooper, QC in the December BarTalk is that jokes about lawyers are as objectionable as jokes about black people (her example). In one way she is right: jokes are intended to bring people down a peg. But she misses a huge difference. Lawyers, generally, are at the top end of Canada’s prestige and power ladder; black people are, generally, at the bottom of Canada’s prestige and power ladder. So the effect of jokes about lawyers on lawyers is vastly different than the effect of jokes about blacks on black people. Satirizing the powerful bears no relation to ridiculing the oppressed.

barbara findlay
Dahl findlay Connors

This letter was published in the February 1999 issue of BarTalk.