Share A Few Laughs . . .

Your clients and colleagues will enjoy reading a new book by Fred Shackelford, a Senior Attorney at National Legal Research Group. Judges Say the Darndest Things is a compilation of humorous excerpts from American legal cases. The collection is divided into 22 categories, with imaginative titles such as "Fat Chance," "10 Points for Style" and "Metaphorically Speaking," and culminates with two appellate decisions written entirely in poetic verse.

During his 18 years at NLRG, Fred and his fellow researchers have collected amusing quotes and anecdotes from among the thousands of cases they read each year. Shackelford’s excerpts reveal judicial wit, eloquence, exasperation and the occasional poetic soul. The book proves that amusing quotes sometimes emerge from the dusty tomes of precedent.

Some of the entries are interesting for the uncanny fact patterns that judges are called upon to puzzle out, and the literary style with which they describe them. Others show the exasperation that a judge can feel with a burdensome case, such as the court trying to explain why it blew a raspberry at one of the parties before it. Among the various examples of judicial wit that appear in the book, the reader will glean these little-known principles of law: if you throw a skunk into the jury box you can’t instruct the jury not to smell it, and a trial decision is wrong if the appellate court thinks it smells like a five-week-old, unrefrigerated dead fish.

This book is perfect for law firm reception areas and conference rooms. Since each excerpt stands alone, clients and visitors can enjoy reading Judges Say the Darndest Things during brief periods of downtime. The book also makes a wonderful gift for clients or others who enjoy the lighter side of the law.

To order call William S. Hein & Co., Inc., at 800-828-7571.  Or, send an e-mail to mail@wshein.com.  The cost is $50 per copy, which includes shipping and handling charges.