Every now and then, I’m genuinely entertained by what I read about in legal news media—almost as if the real-life headlines were in fact being written by the folks behind The Onion or the Babylon Bee. Can you learn something about the law while a smile creeps across your face? Of course you can.

For example, the governor of New Jersey just signed into law a new statute that requires telemarketers to provide a callback number and to identify themselves and those they represent within 30 seconds. As someone who, like so many of us, has had to field too many unwanted calls from telemarketers, I applaud this consumer protection law; it’s a positive legal development. But I was entertained when I learned about what inspired this law: an exchange from the TV show “Seinfeld.” In the season 4 episode “The Pitch,” Jerry gets a call from a telemarketer while he has guests over, and he asks for a callback number. The telemarketer refuses.

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