December 2002

A File Titled "Humor"

by James M. Hawk

While updating a résumé that was last exposed to the open air prior to Desert Storm, I came across a bulging file folder with "Humor" handwritten on the label. The prosaic inventory of my professional experience would be committed to 10-point Arial at a later date; I retreated to a comfortable chair and settled in. I opened the file that grew for a decade alongside CLE materials, legal research, and case files. I was pleased to find that what I thought was funny in 1990 or 1997 — and therefore worthy of my "Humor" file — was still funny.

I never tidied up this file; it was never policed by a secretary. So it didn't surprise me when a couple of yellowed newspaper comic strips fell to the floor. While stuffing the comics back in the file, I recalled the time when I used these comics in an attempt to inject some levity into a presentation at work. In addition to comic strips, my humor file contains numerous Bar News articles on the topic of humor (see "Lawyers Should Take Lawyer Jokes in Stride," December 1996; and under the title "Allegedly Humorous," Jeff Tolman's article "A Small-Town Legal Dictionary," November 1995, which deserve to be reprinted, with permission of the authors, of course). There are transcripts from depositions and trials in the file, there are a few e-mails, and there is a pithy answer to a written interrogatory. There is a copy of a Tacoma attorney's yellow pages ad, newspaper articles, and more.

Copies of several Washington reported cases also made it into the file. In one, a Washington State Supreme Court justice succinctly makes his point — somehow abstaining from employing the exclamation point — with a one-word sentence: "Poppycock." (For computer research, keyword "poppycock.") In another case, a Division III opinion observes in a footnote: "Laughter does occur sometimes during trials; it is not a rarity." That is good stuff that stays in the file.

Maybe it's because a lawyer's career begins in this state with the grave words "I do solemnly declare[,]" but too often the day-to-day work of the lawyer is unabashedly solemn, or at other times sufficiently adversarial to seemingly preclude a little jocularity from creeping into regular discourse. (Although the Oath of Attorney probably has no business in the humor file, I am amused by the ambiguity of the mandatory declaration that "I will abstain from all offensive personalities.") Being a lawyer should not be a humorless undertaking. Quite the contrary — with sensitivity to time, place and manner — should be true.

Does the lawyer storm out of the room at the beginning of what promises to be a tedious deposition when opposing counsel proposes that the parties stipulate that "Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn't, didn't already have"? Does the lawyer report this "misconduct" or tomfoolery to the Bar Association? Do the answers to these questions depend on whether either lawyer completed the ninth grade prior to 1975?

As in life outside the profession, humor has its place in the practice of the law. Most lawyers certainly know the value of using humor as a tool to inform and persuade. It is hard to imagine a trial's voir dire experience that would not naturally lend itself to some humor. It is harder still to imagine that practitioners of "elder law" would not regularly consult the comic strip "Herman" that appears daily in major papers.

Because lawyers are, in part, paid thinkers who are involved in myriad socially relevant initiatives and contests, most will find many chuckles in the diverse offering of comics in the morning paper. After all, any comic strip has the potential to remind the lawyer of a case, a personality, a client meeting. One of the comics in my humor file has a frazzled gentleman standing and facing a judge. Leaning forward, his arms folded, the judge speaks: "The jury has found you not-guilty, but I'm going to give you two years just to be on the safe side." In another one, the caption reads: "Never hire a lawyer who uses the word 'whatever' a lot." Such sagacity cannot be acquired in law school.

While on the topic of comic strips, why doesn't the WSBA have a comic-strip page in every issue of Bar News? There must exist burgeoning cartoonists with Bar numbers who would gladly offer their talents pro bono publico. If that service were realized, then chances are most readers would develop a healthier routine than to turn first to the "Disciplinary Notices" en route to the "In Memoriam" section.

Anyway, I developed this file without serious thought, and without any routine or discipline I made contributions to the file over time. In reviewing the contents, I am reminded (usually happily so) of various people, cases and circumstances that I have encountered as a Washington lawyer. For example, I remembered a time, long forgotten, when I asked a secretary to create a file on "Inorganic Arsenic," a topic I was researching. The secretary blithely typed "IGNORANCE ARSENIC" on the file label. I kept the file and used it with the label just as I received it — but not before I made a trip to the copy machine.

On another occasion I was researching clear rule-writing concepts for government regulations. During that time, while working on another matter entirely, I was delighted to come across the Department of Labor and Industries' definition of "nonskid" that appears in its Safety Standards for Fire Fighters (WAC 296-305) in this clear rule-writing era:

Nonskid: The surface treatment that lessens the tendency of a foreign substance to reduce the coefficient of friction between opposing surfaces.

What are the chances that this definition was written by a lawyer with a good sense of humor? Probably zero, and that is why it's funny. This definition could not have been written by a lawyer providing genuine service to a client. In 1999, I copied this definition of "nonskid" and put it in my file for future use.

Now as I return to the humor-free pursuit of résumé-writing, I am satisfied there is merit in maintaining this humor file with my professional papers. Moreover, from this point on, this effort shall be more solemn than whimsical. Poppycock!

James M. Hawk is an attorney in private practice in Seattle. He is a graduate of the University of Washington and the University of Puget Sound School of Law.