Relating law and satire, just as law and literature in general, aims at opening up new insights into the legal system, its protagonists and their habitus, language and reasoning. Not rationality, calculation and efficiency, but imagination, irrationality, idealism, experiences of human glory and abysses form the background of this view of law.

Significantly, we may distinguish two orientations: law as literature and law in literature. Law as literature attempts to apply methods and techniques of linguistics and literary studies to law in order to make legal texts and their deep structures visible, with the aim of promoting the inclusion of others, strangers and minorities. Law in literature refers to the description of law, jurisprudence and lawyers in fiction, often conveyed by well-known "poet-lawyers" such as J. W. v. Goethe, Franz Kafka or, more recently, Bernhard Schlink. Its main goals are the broadening and universalisation of legal education and training.

This presentation follows this typology, though in the case of law as satire, involuntary and intentional satire in legal texts should be distinguished. The first form comes into play when legal texts are intended to be serious by their authors, but unintentionally give listeners and readers the impression of a (real) satire. The category of intended satires refers to intentional mockery, humour and parody in legal texts, such as court decisions written in rhyme. From the very broad category of law in literature, only a few famous works will be selected here. They deal with private law cases which could also be discussed in the classroom.

As a conclusion, I will raise the important question of cui bono, i.e. the possible benefit of scholarly engagement with law and satire.