Los Angeles Daily Journal

Joke-Peddling Lawyer Loathes Doing Day Job

By Garry Abrams

Take his job. Please. When a disgruntled, mentally unbalanced client stabbed him in the chest with an ice pick in 1987, criminal defense attorney Kenny Kahn decided that maybe it was time for a career change.

But to put it politely, Kahn has not made meteoric progress in switching jobs. Indeed, turtles look like supersonic jets by comparison. Fourteen years after the assault on him in the Torrance courthouse, Kahn is trying to make the leap from lawyer to stand-up comedian. "That's sort of why I started my alternate career," Kahn said, referring to the ice-pick episode that put him in hospital. "I hate dying."

Now, at 60, Kahn thinks he finally may be getting his big break. Later this month he is scheduled to do a week long gig in Las Vegas at the Riviera Hotel's Comedy Club. Kahn claimed that he will be the first working attorney to perform in Vegas. I don't know about that, but I grant that it's probably a rare event.

And, in another unusual twist, Kahn will be getting paid to do his routine, which pokes fun - often with a sharp edge - at the legal system. Getting money for making jokes is a relative novelty for Kahn, even though he has appeared at such well known clubs as the Ice House and the Improv and done a whole bunch of Bar Mitzvahs. Most often, he has been paid in plaques, Kahn told me. He's got a garage filled with bronze slabs from Rotary and Kiwanis clubs, Kahn said.

So, although he is only getting a few thousand and a nice suite for the week, the deal has opened new vistas for Kahn. "From now on they can just pay me," Kahn said. "Otherwise, I'll have to go on being a lawyer, and nobody should have to do that."

When I agreed to meet Kahn to talk, I admit I was skeptical. Call it jaded columnist meets cynical lawyer. I'd written about Kahn a few years ago when he launched a night time radio show about the law that flopped after a few weeks for lack of a sponsor. "Do I really want to write about this guy again?" I asked myself as we sat down over a diet cola and a cappuccino. I decided that I did because Kahn is a compelling combination of exhaustion and aspiration.

At an age when a lot of professionals are making down payments on retirement homes, Kahn is trying to remake himself. "I just feel like my life is just starting," Kahn said. When he talked about his comedy, Kahn was upbeat. "It is righteous entertainment," he said of his act. But when Kahn spoke of the law, I wanted to give us both a dose of Prozac. "I don't want to do murder cases any more," Kahn said. Handling the carnage of homicide and other major felonies has become a major downer, he said. "It's just more than I can deal with," Kahn said.

In a videotape of one of his performances, Kahn tells the audience, "I'm an attorney." Pause. "I know, fuck me." In the same performance, he says that the California Penal Code was given that name because it "was written by a bunch of dickheads." Kahn's colleague and Boalt Hall classmate Victor Sherman said that Kahn is far from the only burnt-out case in the criminal defense ranks. "We're all burned out," said Sherman. "It's tiring."

But Sherman said Kahn stands apart from his peers who are "too afraid to make a lifestyle change." Kahn, Sherman said, has "always been the class clown."

Kahn's main claim to fame probably is that he defended one of the spies in a case that became the basis for the film, "The Falcon and The Snowman." Ironically, Kahn sued the film's producers for allegedly distorting his role in the case. The case settled, reputedly for a satisfactory sum. Eight years ago, Kahn got into hot water with the State Bar because he hired a company to pass out handbills advertising his legal services at the doors of Los Angeles County courthouses. The Bar contended that advertising at the very portals of justice was unethical. Kahn said he settled the matter rather than risk discipline. "They made me promise not to do it anymore," Kahn said.

Now, Kahn is making promises to himself. "I'm 100% certain I'm on my way to a full time comedy career," Kahn said. But he conceded that wishes don't always come true. "That doesn't mean it's going to happen," he said. Reality is no joke.

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