Clinical teaching and lawyering for the poor can both be hard, and having a sense of humor can help with both. Or so I am told. I am also told I have no sense of humor. My family often struggles to explain me to others. They sometimes say to our friends after I tell a joke “Okay, let me explain to you what I think he’s trying to say and maybe you’ll think it’s funny. Then again, maybe you won’t.” My son has his “No Dad Jokes” t-shirt, which I of course bought him to support him for having to listen to way too many of them from me.

A judge, a prosecutor, two law students, a cow, and a duck walk into a bar, and the bartender says, “What is this, some kind of joke?”

Now you’re seeing it, too.

I tried humor earlier this week in my teaching. I was teaching about letter writing. I wanted to make a point that writing short, clear sentences could be helpful. I also wanted to help students think with me about whether we should express our feelings about the outcomes of cases in our letters to clients when we lose and we are disappointed. I gave my students a letter I wrote for them to edit which included the following portion: “I feel sad that we cannot help. Fair it is not. The law it is.” I was amused. I thought my students would be. They were not. It was a try. I thought it would wake them up as they struggle to focus mid-semester and lead to a good conversation. It led to some discussion. It pointed them to the part of the letter I wanted them to consider. It may not have helped me teach, though, as to some it was distracting and made it harder for them to think about the issue. Maybe I have to be funnier before I can teach with humor.

            An empirical researcher walks into a bar and notices all the patrons are white. He says to the bartender “Don’t you believe in integration?” The bartender replies, “You’re the one that’s supposed to be so great at statistics. Don’t you know that integration never makes a difference?” (Ask you nerdy calculus friends if that makes no sense to you).

Are you seeing the problem yet?

I also have tried black humor in class. How horrible it is for my students to watch the conditions of our clients. Some have a particularly hard time watching as we document disabling and potentially terminal medical conditions for our clients to support their disability claims, all while the clients struggle with no money, no home, and no prospect of improving their world. Regularly, as more evidence comes in describing the clients’ deteriorating health, we learn to say to each other “Hurray! He really does have cancer!” a clear black humor defense mechanism to deal with the fact that our clients might win their cases but die in the process. Sometimes it helps, and may later help some deal with burnout of seeing one tragic case after another. It could, however, be thought of as callus, unhelpful, and dehumanizing our clients. Maybe I have to be funnier before I can use humor this way.

In law school, time in meaningless. In time, law school is meaningless.

Perhaps there is value of using humor in teaching. Maybe I am not that funny. And maybe humor can be distracting. Maybe, however, there are times that it can help. In the meantime, to paraphrase my son’s new favorite t-shirt, that my wife bought this time so maybe it really is funny: Calm we will keep. Carry on we must.

This post originally appeared on the Clinical Law Prof Blog.