Business Jokes

Taylor was desperate for business, and was happy to be appointed by the court to defend an indigent defendant. The judge ordered Taylor, "You are to confer with the defendant in the hallway, and give him the best legal advice you can."

After a time, Taylor re-entered the courtroom alone.

When the judge asked where the defendant had gone, Taylor replied, "You asked me to give him good advice. I found out that he was guilty, so I told him to split."

Take heart, America. Three monkey wrenches have been thrown into Japan's well-oiled economic machine. It's only a mater of time before that powerful engine of productivity begins to sputter and fail.

What could cause such a sharp turnaround? High interest rates? Increased unemployment? Lower productivity? No, it's something much more economically debilitating - and permanent.

Three American lawyers have become the first foreign attorneys permitted to practice law in Japan. What's more, two of them are from New York!

The decline has begun.

Japan has one attorney for every 10,000 residents, compared to the U.S. ratio of one attorney for every 390 residents. For every 100 attorneys trained in Japan, there are 1,000 enginerrs. In the United States, that ratio is reversed.

But a law that became effective on April 1 permits foreigners to practice in Japan for the first time since 1955. Already, an additional 20 American and six British lawyers have applied for permission to open practices in Japan.

If anything can slow the Japanese economy, it's the presence of American attorneys. What better way to even our balance of trade than to send Japan our costliest surplus commodity?

A Brooklyn lawyer, a used car salesman and a banker were gathered by a coffin containing the body of an old friend. In his grief, one of the three said, "In my family, we have a custom of giving the dead some money, so they'll have something to spend over there."

They all agreed that this was appropriate. The banker dropped a hundred dollar bill into the casket, and the car salesman did the same. The lawyer took out the bills and wrote a check for $300.

A young lawyer, starting up his private practice, was very anxious to impress potential clients. When he saw the first visitor to his office come through the door, he immediately picked up his phone and spoke into it, "I'm sorry, but my caseload is so tremendous that I'm not going to be able to look into your problem for at least a month. I'll have to get back to you then."

He then turned to the man who had just walked in, and said, "Now, what can I do for you?"

"Nothing," replied the man. "I'm here to hook up your phone."

Two lawyers met at a cocktail party late one night.

"How's business?" asked the first.

"Rotten," replied the other. "Yesterday, I chased an ambulance for twenty miles. When I finally caught up to it, there were already two other lawyer hanging on to the bumper."

An independent woman started her own business. She was shrewd and diligent, so business kept coming in. Pretty soon she realized she needed an in-house counsel, and so she began interviewing young lawyers.

"As I'm sure you can understand," she started off with one of the first applicants, "in a business like this, our personal integrity must be beyond question." She leaned forward. "Mr. Peterson, are you an 'honest' lawyer?"

"Honest?" replied the job prospect. "Let me tell you something about honest. Why, I'm so honest that my dad lent me fifteen thousand dollars for my education and I paid back every penny the minute I tried my very first case."

"Impressive. And what sort of case was that?"

He squirmed in his seat and admitted, "My dad sued me for the money."

A client who felt his legal bill was too high asked his lawyer to itemize costs. The statement included this item:

"Was walking down the street and saw you on the other side. Walked to the corner to cross at the light, crossed the street and walked quickly to catch up with you. Got close and saw it wasn't you. -$50.00."

A lawyer calls his client to tell him about his fee schedule.

"Alright," the lawyer says looking through his papers. "You owe me $1000 down and $417.58 cents each month for the next thirty-six months."

"What! That sounds like a car payment schedule," retorted the client.

"Your right. It's mine."

A doctor is talking to a car mechanic, "Your fee is several times more per hour then we get paid for medical care."

"Yeah, but you see, doc, you have always the same model, it hasn't changed since Adam; but we have to keep up to date with new models coming every month."

- Patient: Doctor, what should I do if my temperature goes up five more points?

- Doctor: Sell!