Just read your edit, and take on the lawyer (type) joke.
Not sure I would agree. For me at least, the joke isn't in the lawyers, or dislike of them. It is in the perverse take on a situation and the somewhat unexpected adding darkness to an already 'dark' scenario. Imo, they are totally interchangable with anyone else and probably irrelevant. Unless you happen to be someone with actual dislike for whoever happens to be the subject, and while there will be elements of that, doubt that's who that type of joke is primarily written for.
We are branching out a bit now. For me, that brand of comedy very quickly falls apart when the comedian crosses the line between happening to be offensive/contraversial, and Trying to be offensive/contraversial (under implied quotation marks if you like). Don't ask me why btw, I don't know, it is just how I find it.
And that's I think where the delivery and performance ability is key, and the personality and character of the person very much comes into it (at least as projected for the sake if the act).
Jimmy Carr, for me, doesn't generally pull it off well. Many do.
A lot of chat on this thread was how Frankie Boyle has sold out and become the opposite of what he was. From what I've seen, probably entirely true, stopped caring ages ago to know enough tbf. But easy to forget that inbetween being edgy sharp and clever, this guy that said very true and relevant things without a care of whether they were harsh or heavy, and this current sold out whatever it is he is now, he went through a spell of being a very irritating extreme parody of himself. One where he lost any meaning and the contraversy became the sole point. When it becomes about, what's the worst he/she will say here, that's when it goes from being funnny to not for me. But as someone said above, there is an audience for that too, and if not for you find what is.