Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 22, 1994                   TAG: 9403220195
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

900 'SHARK LINE' TO PROFIT BY TAKING POTSHOTS AT LAWYERS

A hostile swipe at the legal profession? Sure. A gratuitous insult directed at the dedicated men and women of the bar? You bet.

Sounds like a good business proposition to Steve Lorenz.

Lorenz, a Cleveland insurance underwriter, figures everyone loves to hate lawyers.

Hence, the ``Shark Line,'' a toll-phone service devoted exclusively to lawyer jokes.

For $1.49 minute, callers will hear recorded versions of bits such as: What's black and brown and looks good on a lawyer? A doberman. And: What does a lawyer use for contraception? His personality.

``Everyone has to deal with an attorney sooner or later and no one walks away feeling too good about it,'' said Lorenz.

Some of his best gags, and biggest laughs, come from lawyers, he noted.

The legal profession's leading organization, the American Bar Association, is not entirely amused.

ABA spokesman Mike Scanlon calls lawyer jokes ``relatively passe.'' Scanlon's verdict on Lorenz's venture: ``He'll spend a lot of money on something that probably doesn't have much of an audience.''

On the other hand, audiences cheered last summer when a lawyer character in ``Jurassic Park'' got eaten by a tyrannosauras. In the movie ``Philadelphia,'' a character got laughs with this line: What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start. And Miller Brewing Co. last year aired a commercial called ``Big Lawyer Round-Up,'' in which a beefy, briefcase-toting lawyer is run down and hog-tied by cowboys on horseback.

Lorenz is not the first to start a 900-number for lawyer jokes. That distinction actually belongs to some cut-ups in Northern Virginia who began one for charity in 1990 (that number, as they say, is no longer in service).

The ``Shark Line'' doesn't have a publicly listed number just yet.

Since the service won't be in operation until April Fool's Day, Lorenz doesn't want people to call and get charged for nothing. After all, you could get sued for that.