A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar

D: Eric Chaikin

Some might argue that a society in which mattress manufacturers pay out millions to customers who fall off their beds and makers of carriages have to print warning labels telling people not to fold up their product while their baby is still availing himself of its services is sliding down a steep slope to ruin. Others would say that such absurdities, in point of fact, aren’t proof of a legal system run amok but rather the insignificant price we pay for living in a free society built on the rule of law. A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar takes us inside this heated debate – with a hundred colorful, often hilarious, nods to our popular culture’s obsession with lawyers – and follows six would-be legal eagles steadying themselves for the Iliad of all standardized tests, the California Bar exam, which has a pass rate of a paltry 39% and is therefore the cause of much wringing of hands, gnashing of teeth, and drinking of caffeinated beverages.


4:30pm, Paramount

This article appears in March 16 • 2007.

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