One lawyer is generally sufficient to prepare and file the claim of copyright with the Copyright Office, assuming the client is cooperative and provides the necessary information. Two is a luxury. Three and you’re probably being bilked.

It is worth noting that copyright protects only the “expressive” aspects of a joke, i.e., the specific words, images and the like used by the author, NOT the underlying ideas. Indeed, if the idea behind the joke can be expressed in only one or two ways (try rephrasing “Take my wife, please”), copyright probably won’t even protect those words.

You don’t get down off a lawyer. You get down off a goose.