it's so easy you could do it yourself if you weren't just interested in harassment some etymologists believe shyster is a derivative of shakespeare s character shylock in the merchant of venice used to describe a devious scheming person of jewish background who will try any scam in the book to make a buck in funk s standard dictionary defined a shyster as a lawyer who practices in an unprofessional or tricky manner especially one who haunts the prisons and lower courts to prey on petty criminals in shakespeare s play other characters call shylock a currish jew whose desires are wolvish bloody starved and ravenous he is accused of being the devil in the likeness of a jew dec utc