Category Archives: Legal Humour

Summer viewing, Part 1

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“Debbie, we’re going to need some law books. With pictures this time.”

Now that exams are done and the summer has started (never mind the hail last Sunday), it is an opportunity for a collective exhale and a chance to mentally re-calibrate before starting all over again in September (or before going off to bar ads and articling). Following in the footsteps of Sandra Geddes’s blog post from a few weeks ago on summer reading, I thought I would include some occasional suggestions for summer viewing with a legal bend (and I should put the emphasis on bend). This week I’ll start with something truly bizarre, and hopefully the tenor will only improve from here on out.

There is a reason that awards-pandering “challenging” movies are typically released in the fall, while escapist “blockbusters” are reserved for the summer – the summer is a time of escapism and relaxation, while the rest of the year tends to be of the serious, furrowed-brow nature, when things need to get done. With that in mind, I’ll try to err on the side of escapism. Brain cramp while trying to relax is no fun at all.

Although it is not a movie, but rather a television show, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law is easily one of the silliest and most irreverent takes on the law. Although it has long since ended, the series was part of the Adult Swim programming on the Cartoon Network and featured such talent as a pre-Colbert Report Stephen Colbert. The premise is simple and brilliant – what happens to Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters after their respective series end? In the case of third-rate character Birdman, he becomes a barely-functioning lawyer. The show makes full use of the Hanna-Barbera license, with such premises as Fred Flintstone as a Tony Soprano-like mob boss, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo getting busted for marijuana possession, and Boo-Boo Bear as a terrorist known as the Unabooboo. Each episode is a digestible fifteen minutes, and fun in the vacantly vacuous way that seems to work best in the summer months.

Check out the opening scene from the episode where Harvey Birdman defends Shaggy and Scooby-Doo here.

Have a fantastic holiday weekend everybody!

Stylistic Flair – A time and place?

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The Original Literary Judge

In a post from a few weeks ago, I lamented the lack of flair in legal writing. Although it’s certainly not a “need-to-have”, it’s certainly a “nice-to-have”. Throughout legal education and practice, you will likely have to read many, many decisions, and most of them are – to not put too fine of a point on it – dry as dust. The legal arguments may be compelling, significant, and of lasting importance, but the prose less so.

It is human nature to want to be entertained, even when reading dry legal writing. This is, of course, why Lord Denning has proven to be so enduring and popular. His judgments were colourful, informative, and yes, entertaining. After reading a Lord Denning decision, you are both entertained and informed. Of course, many do not necessarily subscribe to this opinion, believing that such writing undermines the proper gravity that should be afforded to the law. On a personal level, I think that, as with many things in life, a balance should be struck. To my mind, taking the time to write judgments that are not boilerplate demonstrates that the judge is engaged and wants others to be as well. While the realities of time constraints means that taking the personalized approach to each and every judgment is unlikely at best and foolhardy at worst, it is always refreshing when something comes to your attention that demonstrates that not every decision is bloodless (yet).

Although R. v. Duncan was released a month ago, it just recently came to my attention. It is nothing if not extremely entertaining, chronicling the story of Matthew Duncan, who was rather forcefully arrested and tasered, where he eventually found himself before Fergus O’Donnell, the author of the decision, representing himself. And doing a rather poor job of it, to boot. As Abraham Lincoln famously stated – he who represents himself has a fool for a client.

As with many “literary” decisions, it has found itself to be the subject of quite a bit of controversy. In this case, in addition to the usual concerns about the appropriateness of the bench as a venue for judges to exercise their literary aspirations, there have been concerns the fact that O’Donnell so openly mocks the defendant (despite eventually acquitting him).

As I mentioned previously, it really comes down to striking the balance. However, I must concede that however entertaining it may have been to read Justice O’Donnell’s evisceration of Duncan, the old adage of “a time and a place” did cross my mind. Perhaps it is in the eye of the beholder, so take a look for yourself and decide!

Law and Order: Overthought

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Credit: Overthinkingit.com

I’m sure that pretty much all denizens of law schools have, at some point watched at least one episode of Law and Order (or its many, many spin-offs) and, in all likelihood, groaned at some point. While it’s undeniably entertaining, it is also frequently larded with clichés, improbabilities, bad law, and an overly Manichean outlook. After twenty years and over four hundred episodes, these certainly pile up to the extent of “here we go again.”

So, if you’ve ever wondered exactly what would happen if you were to subject the series to an overly rigorous statistical analysis, today is your lucky day. The good folks over at Overthinkingit.com have done it for you, and it took only (!!) two years.

Take a look at it here.

Thanks to the Law Librarian Blog for bringing this to my attention!

Superheroes and the law?

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While the law can be alternately deadly serious or patently ridiculous (often in the midst of a single case!), it is always refreshing to read legal writing where the author is clearly enjoying the material. If you learn something – even better!

In December 2010, I read about a novel new legal blog in the New York Times called Law and the Multiverse. It has since taken off, with a newly-published book to show for it (alas, it is not yet in the library collection).

A clear example of the aforementioned style of legal writing, it is written by two American lawyers, James Daily and Ryan Davidson, who also happen to be enormous comic book nerds. The premise of the blog is simultaneously extremely simple and extremely clever:

What would happen if real laws applied to the denizens of the comic book multiverse?

So if you ever wondered what would happen if you were convicted of murder and the victim came back to life, if Superman’s heat vision is a weapon, or if evidence collected by Batman could be used by Commissioner Gordon to convict somebody in court, then this is the blog for you.

Although the subject matter is all American-oriented, it is nevertheless extremely entertaining to read about the application of various laws to altogether implausible scenarios. While the premise was initially focused on comic books, it has since expanded to other mediums, with Looper as a recent two-part focus. It is easy to get lost in the archived posts, which are uniformly well-written and straight-faced.

Death and Taxes and Zombies

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Law reviews are not usually noted for their humour. However, Adam Chodorow, Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Innovative Ventures at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, addresses this shortcoming in legal scholarship and another major policy shortcoming in a forthcoming article in the Iowa Law Review. Here’s an abstract of the article.

The US stands on the precipice of a financial disaster, and Congress has done nothing but bicker. Of course, I refer to the coming day when the undead walk the earth, feasting on the living. A zombie apocalypse will create an urgent need for significant government revenues to protect the living, while at the same time rendering a large portion of the taxpaying public dead or undead. The government’s failure to anticipate or plan for this eventuality could cripple its ability to respond effectively, putting us all at risk. This article fills a glaring gap in the academic literature by examining how the estate and income tax laws apply to the undead. Beginning with the critical question whether the undead should be considered dead for estate tax purposes, the article continues on to address income tax issues the undead are likely to face. In addition to zombies, the article also considers how estate and income tax laws should apply to vampires and ghosts. Given the difficulties identified herein of applying existing tax law to the undead, new legislation may be warranted. However, any new legislation is certain to raise its own set of problems. The point here is not to identify the appropriate approach. Rather, it is to goad Congress and the IRS into action before it is too late.

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2045255

The article is well worth reading, if just for the authorities cited in the footnotes. (Experienced readers of legal scholarship know the best writing is often in the footnotes.)

Thanks to David Cheifetz and Slaw for bringing this to our attention.