“Um,” I say, “why would you represent the people who killed your brother?”

“You kidding?” he roars, “He was a zombie! My family buried him last year, then the schlub claws his way outta the ground after that radioactive satellite crashed-”

“We heard it was a virus.”

“Depends on which news you watch. No matter. I have to represent you. Every lawyer in the country wants the case.”

He noticed our baffled looks.

“Okay,” he said, “look: in law school, when you take your first unit of crim law – usually first year, but not every school requires it – you start with mens rea and actus rea....”

“Huh?”

”’Bad mind’ and ‘bad acts.’ You need both to have a crime. So, there’s an old hypo that’s always trotted out, about a guy who wants to murder someone, only he shoots a dummy dressed up like his victim. Or the old problem about-”

“Oh God, I see where this is going-”

“-whether it’s a crime to try to ‘murder’ someone who’s already dead. It’s a classic.”

We were dumbfounded.

“You gotta give me this case.”