What do you call 600 lawyers at the bottom of the sea? Marc Galanter calls it an opportunity to investigate the meanings of a rich and time-honored genre of American humor. Lowering the Bar analyzes hundreds of jokes from Mark Twain classics to contemporary anecdotes about Dan Quayle, Johnnie Cochran, and Kenneth Starr. Drawing on representations of law and lawyers in the mass media, political discourse, and public opinion surveys, Galanter finds that the increasing reliance on law coexists uneasily with anxiety about the "legalization" of society. Always entertaining, his book explores the tensions between Americans' deep-seated belief in the law and their ambivalence about lawyers. 

There are more than 1.1 million lawyers in America, and nearly as many jokes about them. Anyone who finds their repertoire of lawyerly humor getting stale need only turn to Skid Marks for inspiration. From the title quip “What’s the difference between a dead skunk and a dead lawyer in the middle of the road? There are skid marks in front of the skunk.” to endless variations on “A doctor, a priest, and a lawyer walk into a bar…” the book contains material for every conceivable occasion or area of the law.