Wendell Peters’ company, Pickled Pete’s Pickle Packery, Inc., makes and sells hot sauces and other products that poke fun at America’s judicial system. Peters is the self-styled “Chief Shyster” behind a line of hot sauces with names judiciously borrowed from legal jargon. Fearless of hot products liability, he taunts, “So Sue Me.”

The Judicial Flavors sauces mock Peters’ own profession with names like barbecue “Shyster Sauce,” “Lawyer’s Breath” hot sauce, “Contempt of Court” pepper sauce, and “Under the Influence” tomatillo sauce. According to an article in Entrepreneur Illustrated, reproduced in full on his website, his profession is a big part of his saucy success.

And while there are a literally millions of labels fighting for consumer attention in the fiery foods industry, Peters says his law-oriented theme, combined with the fact that he is a lawyer, tends to startle people when he displays his products at shows. “They buy them once for the label, then they buy them again and again because they’re so good,” he says.

“For an attorney to get into this market and do all of the line-building and creation on his own is quite an accomplishment,” says Kathy Stanley’ Master distributor . “We get very good response from the Judicial Flavors’ line. It’s very strange to see an attorney bashing his own industry, and that’s exactly why it sells.”

Peters, who still practices law in Auburn, California, says his colleagues in the legal profession have been very supportive of his hot little business venture. “They are all rooting for me to get over the wall,” he says, laughing. “They say ‘You can do it, Wendell! Be free!’”