Are you one of those people who has always been able to make your friends, relatives and classmates laugh? Did you ever fantasize about taking your comedic skills to the stage as a side hustle, an ego boost or maybe even a possible career?

I was one of those people who was often encouraged to do just that many years ago. I finally did take the leap, put together an act and performed at an open-mic night at Cavanaugh’s, a club at 31st and Market streets, in 1979. I thought my material was very funny, but I was the only person in the building who thought so. One thing I learned is that it is one thing to make your friends and co-workers laugh; it is quite another to make a room full of strangers laugh who paid to get in and are drinking beer.

But things might have been different if I had had Brian Foley as a mentor. A few years ago, I went to “Comedy Night” at the Mermaid Inn in Chestnut Hill, in which all of the stand-up comics were from Mt. Airy, according to the advance publicity. In my humble opinion, Foley, who is also a trial lawyer who focuses on employment discrimination and wrongful termination, was by far the funniest.

Now you can learn his secrets, since Foley is teaching a four-session course, “Stand-up Comedy Workshop” for Mt. Airy Learning Tree weekly from May 9-30 at the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Chestnut Hill. At the end, students will take the stage with a live performance at Malelani Cafe in Mt. Airy. (With his lawyer hat on, Foley will also teach “Know Your Rights at Work” on June 24, 6-8 p.m., at the MALT office, 6601 Greene St.)

A native of Keene, New Hampshire, Foley was an English major at Dartmouth College, graduating in 1987, and was a newspaper reporter in Keene for two years before going to law school at the University of California at Berkeley. After graduation in 1993, he returned to Philadelphia to clerk for the now-late U.S. District Court Judge Edmund V. Ludwig. He joined a major law firm for a few years but then taught law at several law schools — Rutgers, Widener, Drexel and Boston universities — for 17 years, until 2014.

In the fall of 2008, though, Foley was on a train in Boston when he read an article about improv comedy.

“A voice in my head then told me I had to do stand-up comedy,” he said. “People in school had told me, ‘You’re funny. You should do comedy.’ I did do stand-up at my 25-year college reunion, and a guy came up to me afterwards and said, ‘I don’t remember you being funny.’”

Foley was also a vegan starting in 2012 out of concern for both health and animal rights, but one year ago he started eating eggs, then fish, then meat.

“The reason for the change was a slow-burn thing,” he told the Local last week. “I was starting to question the wisdom of getting some nutrients mostly if not solely from supplements. We still don’t know everything about nutrition. ... I’m so glad I wasn’t out there condemning meat-eaters! I don’t have to eat crow, though now I can if I want to.”

(Foley’s favorite vegan joke: “At the co-op I saw a woman wearing a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals buying beefsteak. Her diet is obviously dangerously high in irony.”)

Foley said he has performed his act 19.8 times in the past year. (Maybe he once left the stage early.) The biggest crowd he has played for was about 300 at the Jersey shore when he opened for Joe Conklin, a sports impressionist, and Joe Matarese, who has been on “America’s Got Talent.”

“Once I performed for an audience of three people, including kitchen staff,” Foley said. “It was actually a blast!”

Foley is also the author of a book, “A New Financial You in 28 Days! A 37-Day Plan,” a spoof of financial planners. One review of the book declared: “Hilarious! An important book. Extraordinary! People should buy multiple copies.”-- People (not the magazine; just some people)

Foley’s wife of 25 years, Marilyn Piety, is a world-renowned Soren Kierkegaard scholar, translator of his work from Danish to English, and tenured professor at Drexel University. She was invited to be the keynote speaker this June 15-19 at the 10th International Kierkegaard Conference in Northfield, Minnesota. (By the way, anyone who ever dared to try to read Kierkegaard, a 19th century philosopher and theologian, knows he was not a stand-up, or even a sit-down, comic.)

For more information, visit brianjfoleylaw.com. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.