LAWYER QUOTES III
quotations about lawyers
A lawyers performance in the courtroom is responsible for about 25 percent of the outcome; the remaining 75 percent depends on the facts.
MELVIN BELLI
attributed, Jar of Quotes
Why don't you ever hear of a lawyer getting attacked by a shark at the beach? Professional courtesy.
THOMAS F. SHUBNELL
Greatest Jokes of the Century
As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough. Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
notes for a law lecture, July 1, 1850?
Americans see lawyers as obstructionists, as defenders of murderers.... In reality, lawyers are the glue that holds society together. Without lawyers ... without law, you have anarchy.
BILL CUNNINGHAM
Cincinnati Magazine, Sep. 1992
There were lawyers who promoted quarrels to get fees. But they were the pariahs of the profession. The best lawyers were peacemakers, and though, of necessity, professional partisans when engaged in litigation, they were generally honorable partisans.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
The Post Office just recalled their newest stamps: They had a picture of lawyers on them ... and people couldn't figure out which side to spit on.
MARVIN LEBMAN
A Collection of Jokes and Funny Stories
It is an ill cause that the lawyer thinks shame o'.
JOHN RAY
A Complete Collection of English Proverbs
Lawyers are like rabbits. They have a nasty habit of multiplying.
LEO REILLY
How to Outnegotiate Anyone
Lawyers are in the business of advocacy, not judgment.
ALLAN C. HUTCHINSON
Is Killing People Right?
There must be some honest lawyers at the New York bar, and some impartial judges on the New York bench, but I should not like to be set to find them.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Lawyers are ideological enemies of informal justice.
RICHARD L. ABEL
Lawyers in Society
A lawyer is an odd sort of fish, first rotten, then green, then ripe.
ROBERT CHRISTY
Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases
Lawyers are like painters--once they get into a house, you never know when you will get rid of them again.
PETER ANDERSON GRAHAM
The Red Scaur
Successful trial lawyers are like heat-seeking missiles carrying payloads of information prejudicial to their opponent's case, constantly looking for the chance to unload their cargo, right up until the final moments of trial.
DAVID BERG
The Trial Lawyer
[The Utopians] have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws, and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause, and trust it to the judge, as in other places the client trusts it to a counsellor; by this means they both cut off many delays and find out truth more certainly; for after the parties have laid open the merits of the cause, without those artifices which lawyers are apt to suggest, the judge examines the whole matter, and supports the simplicity of such well-meaning persons, whom otherwise crafty men would be sure to run down; and thus they avoid those evils which appear very remarkably among all those nations that labour under a vast load of laws.
SIR THOMAS MORE
Utopia
Anyone who believes a better day dawns when lawyers are eliminated has the burden of explaining who will take their place. Who will protect the poor, the injured, the victims of negligence, the victims of racial discrimination, and the victims of racial violence?... Lawyers are the simple yet essential means by which people seek to vindicate their rights and we must not foreclose that means.
JOHN CURTIN
remarks at American Bar Association annual meeting, Aug. 13, 1991
I realized the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder. The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases. I lost nothing thereby -- not even money, certainly not my soul.
MAHATMA GANDHI
An Autobiography
He who will always be his own lawyer will often have a fool for a client.
J. HUNTER
attributed, Day's Collacon
I cannot believe that a republic could subsist if the influence of the lawyers in public business did not increase in proportion to the power of the people.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
Democracy in America
Jury--Twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
LENORA OLIVER
Herald, 1938