By bbr

Today is International Be Kind to Lawyers Day. I kid you not. Lawyers Day was started a few years ago by a fellow named Steve Hughes. But get this, he’s not a lawyer! Nope, this day wasn’t created by a self-serving bunch of attorneys but instead by a gentleman who worked with them and noticed the profession tends to get the short end of the stick. (Take for example this famous line from Shakespeare: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” If you want to debate the true meaning of this line, I’ll just direct you here.)

From Steve’s website Be Kind To Lawyers:
“One day as Steve was putting away the decorations from National Bubble Wrap Day (late January) his thoughts drifted to National Ice Cream Day (late July) and then it struck him. Why not a special day for lawyers? Lawyers are just as good as bubble wrap and ice cream, in fact, in many ways they’re better. Thus, the idea for International Be Kind to Lawyers Day was hatched…So now lawyers of every stripe can be honored and treated like regular people for at least one 24-hour period every April.”

Besides the basic recognition that they are people who actually do serve a purpose, you can also use this day to go above and beyond and be actively NICE to them. How novel! Be Kind To Lawyers offers several suggestions for celebrating the day including changing your ringtone to the Law & Order sound, abstaining from telling lawyer jokes, and finding ways of adding “I object!”, “You’re out of order!” and “Strike that from the record” in your conversations. I’m also going to throw in “You can’t handle the truth!” which is only loosely connected but there was a court and there were lawyers and I just like it.

So now that you know about International Be Kind to Lawyers Day, how will you celebrate and honor your lawyer pals? Let us know your ideas in the comments below.