When it comes to lawyers and comedy, many wouldn’t go any further than your standard lawyer jokes or classics such as Legally Blonde and Intolerable Cruelty. But it almost goes without saying that legal humour for the masses is often a little crueller than kind, a little more blonde than legal, and sometimes just another excuse to put George Clooney’s twinkly peepers on camera.
It may come as a surprise, however, that the internet isn’t just a seemingly nebulous place of worship for cat-lovers, comic book nerds and hermitic shoppers. In fact, social media also allows the lawyers of the world to showcase their sense of humour because – let’s face it – in legal practice, maintaining a sense of humour is a precondition to retaining one’s sanity. The result has been the birth of the internet-based ‘legal in joke’. Now, instead of turning to David E Kelly, lawyers can flock to a myriad of Tumblrs, Twitter feeds, and social media pages to appreciate the kind of humour that’s only relevant to someone with a law degree. And as is always the case when it comes to the internet, there’s a little something for everyone.
For the legal world’s answer to the Maxim Hot 100 or People’s Sexiest Man Alive, look no further than Your Barrister Boyfriend. YBB is the the brainchild of self-proclaimed ‘hottie experts with first class degrees in Superficiology’ Sonia van Gilder-Cooke and Natalia Naish, and is committed to showcasing the legal industry’s wealth of talent. Back in 2013, Cooke and Naish first introduced the world to everyone’s dreamy barrister girlfriend Amal Alamuddin. Based out of Doughty Street Chambers, Alamuddin famously represents Julian Assange, but was sadly taken off the market earlier this year by some two-bit actor.
Then for the lovers of case law, the prolific Lord Denning, Master of Rolls, has been reincarnated for in the twitter-sphere with the ironically straightforward handle @iamLordDenning. Denning 2.0 is a sassy, self-congratulatory and, of course, hilarious tribute to all things Denning, whether it be his notoriously long judgments or simply his words to live by: what would Denning do? (#WWDD)
And for those not yet ready to join the ranks of Alamuddin and Lord Denning, there is @LawVicissitudes for #lawstudentproblems. @LawVicissitudes documents all the quirks of life as a law student, not the least of which is forgetting to check for snails in ginger beer or doubling the time it takes to park a car just trying to work out whether the ticket is a contract (thanks for that, Denning).
The internet has added another dimension to lawyer jokes. Now lawyers can tweet, tumble and hashtag their way into writing their own punchlines as they prove they can be a funny bunch while conceding their own incessant need to be right. If you’re still determined to believe that lawyers are a humourless bunch, perhaps it’s because you can’t handle the truth.