Welcome back to lawhaha.com. Sorry for the long hiatus. The original WordPress site theme expired and it took a while to migrate to a new theme. But lawhaha.com is back for good. I’ll be adding new content soon. In the meantime, enjoy twenty-five years of the best in legal humor! Strange Judicial Opinions, Legal Oddities, Funny Law School Stories, Wacky Warning Signs and Labels, and more.
New Fifth Edition of 1L of a Ride
New 2025 edition includes free access to the 13-part 1L of a Ride Video Course. Available in paperback and Kindle formats.
Assigned as required or recommended reading at law schools throughout the country, 1L of a Ride: A Well-Traveled Professor’s Roadmap to Success in the First Year of Year of Law School provides a candid, comprehensive roadmap to both academic and emotional success in law school’s crucial first year.
Legal education continues to evolve and so does this classic work, now in its fourth edition.
Told in an accessible first-person voice, covered topics include: pre-planning, top student fears, the first-year curriculum, the Socratic and case methods of teaching, effective class participation, the top habits of successful students, essential study techniques, legal research and writing, exam strategies, maintaining well-being, and much more.
Combines comments from hundreds of law students, empirical research, and authentic samples of signature documents from the 1L experience, including exam questions, Socratic dialogue, and student case-briefs, class notes, and course outlines.
McClurg taught at six different law schools and received numerous awards for both teaching and research.
Praise for McClurg’s Fifth Novel
Meanwhile, check out McClurg’s novels, written under his pen name Dorian Box. Some are dark, but all contain humor, especially titles like this one: FUNERAL DAZE. Check it out on Amazon.
Praise For McClurg’s (aka Dorian Box) Funeral Daze
“FUNERAL DAZE by Dorian Box manages to be laugh-out-loud funny, heartwarmingly tender, and full of lively action and suspense, all at once—a thoroughly entertaining and engaging read.” — IndieReader (5 Stars; IR Seal of Approval)
“Funeral Daze is a novel that takes both light and dark elements to present a fantastically engaging, emotionally resonant story in a deeply humorous and satirical fashion. Unmissable reading.” — 2023 Readers’ Favorite Silver Medal for Humor Fiction)
“A hilarious page-turner that effortlessly blends crime, humor and South Florida beach culture. … Award-winning author Dorian Box (Psycho Tropics, The Hiding Girl) has always employed brilliant doses of well-timed levity in crime fiction, but he pulls out all the stops for this laugh-out-loud caper.” — BestThrillers
“The story unfolds at a crisp and steady pace, with plenty of thought-provoking moments once 12-year-old Jessica enters the scene, offering Danny surprisingly mature reflections on tragedy and a knockout mystery to occupy his time. … Funeral Daze delivers an appealing spin on the mystery genre through rich characterization and an abundance of insight throughout.” — Publishers Weekly BookLife Prize Seminfinalist
“A perfect beach read, this zany mystery has the thrills, quirky characters, juicy plot twists, and gripping conclusion you’re looking for!” — Reedsy Discovery
“Time and again, Box has proven he can write a tense thriller that is funny, dark, and completely endearing. It’s the perfect combination of a smart storyline and characters that keep you reading well after bedtime. Fantastic!” — NetGalley
“Funeral Daze is a macabre and hilarious novel that intersects the lives of several bizarre and oddly compelling characters. … Dorian Box masterfully directs the story into a series of unpredictable and uproarious events that are deliciously ironic, unexpectedly thought-provoking, and always edgy and dark.” — D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
And don’t forget McClurg’s (Box’s) other award-winning novels.
Is It Dumb to Make Intentionally Funny Warning Signs?
Many people find intentionally funny warnings labels or signs to be amusing. Take this one (verified as real), taken at an overlook at the Arkansas Grand Canyon. It’s amusing and probably effective. Poking fun at tort lawsuits and the tendency of humans to do stupid things while also making it clear that one should not climb over the railing or fence and fall to their death or severe injury.
Nevertheless, viewing it from a Torts professor point of view, I stay with my legal opinion (expressed in previous posts) that it is unwise to turn severe risks of physical harm into a joking matter.
Socratically speaking, let us suppose an onlooker fell over the railing because (1) someone accidentally pushed them, (2) they were a child and didn’t appreciate the risk, (3) there was a defect in the railing, (4) or even because they were careless in stretching to get a better picture.
A plaintiff’s attorney could have a field day with this sign, already conveniently identified by the defendant as “Exhibit A.”
DO NOT CROSS THE FENCE.
If you do, and file suit claiming injury, this sign will be marked “Exhibit A”.
Hilarious! A gut-buster! … Oh, the plaintiff’s quadriplegic? His guts actually busted? For real? Not as funny as I thought.
Maybe the scenarios I posed are unlikely. I can’t tell how high the “fence” is. Still, why even think about resorting to humor when conveying a risk of death or disabling physical injury?
–Thanks to former student Ginger Stuart for the photo!
“Bee Careful” — A Warning with a Personal Touch
“Warning, live without warning,” sang Billie Joe Armstrong on the Green Day song, Warning. Good tune, terrible advice. While, as lawhaha.com fans know, the world is flooded with warnings of dubious value, warnings can alert people to dangers they might not have otherwise recognized or known about.
Surely that holds true for this warning a former law student of mine reposted on Facebook to commemorate what she hilariously described as her “first major decision” as an assistant director of a youth services agency:
“Do not open first aid kit. There is a bee inside.”
This seems like really helpful information to me. On the other hand, the good news is that, absent the warning, there would probably be supplies in the first-aid kit to treat a bee sting.
Dangerous Highway Conditions: More Rolling Torts
One of easiest and most common potential torts to spot if you like to play “Spot the Tort” (i.e., identify conditions around you that may present unreasonable danger of harm to persons or property) is a form of a dangerous highway condition that we at lawhaha.com call “rolling torts.”
These are ubiquitous. Why? Because people often need to move large objects, but lack the proper vehicles and/or trailers to move them down the road. Here are couple of recent one that my Facebook friends have pointed out.
Lawhaha.com is loaded with other examples of rolling torts. Samples include this one, this one, and this one.
Honest Is the Best Policy – Funny Deposition
Not surprisingly, not to name any names, but people frequently lie under sworn oath, including in depositions. So you have to appreciate, as did the opposing lawyer, the sincere honesty of this deponent.
[Opposing Lawyer] was deposing my 19-year-old client. Her dad died in a collision near Hope, Arkansas on I-30. He had been in and out of prison all of his life.
My opponent was asking her about her dad’s habits:
Q. Did he use drugs?
A. He smoked marijuana.
Q. Okay. You know how often?
A. After he went to report for probation.
Q. Oh, my goodness. You are one honest person, young lady.
Thanks to Jim Jackson, former student and now all-star lawyer.
Beware of Fluffy
Beware of Dog. Would you believe the referenced dog in the pictured sign that escaped through this wrought-iron fence was a five-pound miniature poodle named Fluffy?
I wouldn’t believe it either, just as I’m not sure I believe the sign in this admittedly funny picture is real, or just something someone Photoshopped onto the fence. (Obviously, no dog broke through the fence.) I mean, why would “DOG” be in quotation marks?
I don’t post many funny warning signs anymore because I assume most of the ones I see (and I see a lot on Facebook) are phony, which is a real shame for aficionados of true wacky signs.
“Save the Baby” Medicine Cautions It Won’t Save Babies
According to the Lancaster Medical Heritage Museum, Lee’s Save the Baby, made by William W. Lee & Co. in the early 1900s, was a children’s cough suppressant to be applied externally to the chest area (although the back cover of the box pictured here said it could be used “Externally or Internally”). The main ingredients included camphor.
Gotta love the foresight to include the disclaimer stating:
The name “Save-The-Baby” is not intended to imply that the product will save babies …
The Lancaster medical museum says:
“The liquid medication has a dark yellow color and it is contained in a glass bottle with a red screw on cap. … The original formula of this product died with Ester Lee in 1974, the last member of the Lee Family.”
Wacky Personal Injury Sticker: Injured? Good!
Talk about a wacky sticker. We’ve all seen the billboards and city benches and bumper stickers, etc., bearing advertisements from plaintiffs’ personal injury lawyers along the lines of:
INJURED? You may be entitled to compensation. Call Tammy the Terminator today for a free consultation!
But walking to a gym last week, I passed a car with this sticker on the rear window:
INJURED? GOOD
Yikes! Surely it’s a joke … I hope. If anyone recognizes the two dudes pictured, let me know.