Quotes & Sayings About Attorneys

In a moment when young black voters were key to the election and the reelection of a black president, when the Department of Justice has been led these years by the first two African-American attorneys general, when many big cities boast African-American league prosecutors and police chiefs and mayors, even in this moment, why is it that it still feels to so many young people that there is more power for change on the court than in the courts? — Melissa Harris-Perry

Colonial America had looked upon (lawyers) as mere tradesmen who earned a questionable living by cleverness and chicanery. — Catherine Drinker Bowen

So my attorneys brought litigation in the U.S. federal courts. The judge ruled in our favor. — Jeremy Rifkin

Hoover had installed 738 bugs on his own authority since 1960; the Justice Department's attorneys had been informed about only 158 of them, roughly one in five. — Tim Weiner

Sheriff Knezovich's bill was poorly-written and not constitutional, according to many attorneys, including myself, that reviewed it. We want to go forward with something that's going to stand up to the scrutiny that all bills go under once they've been passed into law. — Matt Shea

We find an abundance of anger and the desire to destroy the opposition in any competitive human environment. Hate sparks contest, and in the modern world, attorneys are the paid gladiators of warring parties. Attorneys are for hire to the highest bidder. Attorneys ply their trade by dealing in the commerce of anger and hatred. — Kilroy J. Oldster

By virtue of his celebrity, he would be coddled by worshipful cops, pumped up by star-fucking attorneys, indulged by a spineless judge, and adored by jurors every bit as addled by racial hatred as their counterparts on the Rodney King jury. O. J. Simpson slaughtered two innocent people, and he walked free - right past the most massive and compelling body of physical evidence ever assembled against a criminal defendant. I am not bitter. I am angry. — Marcia Clark

Painters were also attorneys, happy storytellers of anecdote, psychologists, botanists, zoologists, archaeologists, engineers, but there were no creative painters. — Kazimir Malevich

There are several authors who are also lawyers - and not only the ones who write legal thrillers. There are other attorneys who write romantic fiction, and I know of at least one who writes young adult books. — Candace Camp

He nodded, approving. When he nodded, the two lesser attorneys nodded, too. No one had bothered to introduce them, but they didn't seem to mind. — Robert Crais

Like all lawyers, I was delighted by gratitude. It happened so rarely. — C.J. Sansom

That's why doctors instinctively "package" themselves in nice shirts and ties and it's not advisable for attorneys to greet clients in Budweiser T-shirts. In — Leonard Mlodinow

Important state legislative races and statewide elections for offices like Lt. Governor and Attorneys General are often overshadowed by gubernatorial and federal elections. — Ronnie Musgrove

I keep thinking of the gifts of my own upbringing, which I once took for granted: I can read any book I choose and comprehend it. I can write a complete sentence and punctuate it correctly. If I need help, I can call on judges, attorneys, educators, ministers. I wonder what I would be like if I had grown up without such protections and supports. What cracks would have turned up in my character? — Helen Prejean

He had spent so long working with the police, everything was a conspiracy to him. — Kenneth Eade

It's kind of funny to me listening to people who claim to have these great records of winning a hundred and some odd straight felony cases without a loss and that kind of stuff that you hear of all the time. I'm here to tell you, if you let me pick out which hundred cases I get to try, I'll win a hundred of them in a row, too. Case selection is everything in creating records like that. My philosophy was, I tried them all. If I made a determination that the evidence was sufficient to justify the prosecution, then I would try the case, and certainly whenever you do that, you're going to lose a certain percentage of them. — Mark Baker

The critical point is that thousands of people are swept into the criminal justice system every year pursuant to the drug war without much regard for their guilt or innocence. The police are allowed by the courts to conduct fishing expeditions for drugs on the streets and freeways based on nothing more than a hunch...and once inside the system, people are often denied attorneys or meaningful representation and pressured into plea bargains by the threat of unbelievably harsh sentences - sentences for minor drug crimes that are higher than many countries impose on convicted murderers. This is the way the roundup works, and it works this way in virtually every major city in the United States. — Michelle Alexander

You might want to grab some popcorn. Because a good lawyer could argue with himself. Two attorneys going head to head is like a verbal MMA cage match with no rules. — Emma Chase

I put my hand down below the table to check my zipper. You have to stand before a jury only once with your fly open and it will never happen again — Michael Connelly

There was polite laughter in the courtroom. Bosch noticed that the attorneys
prosecution and defense
dutifully joined in, a couple of them overdoing it. It had been his experience that while in open court a judge could not possibly tell a joke that the lawyers did not laugh at. — Michael Connelly

My parents from a very young age raised my sister and I under a pressure to achieve. They're both attorneys. So good marks, getting through university, there was a huge emphasis and pressure to do well and keep going. — David Schwimmer

The term 'human rights defender,' incidentally, isn't something I or my attorneys came up with. Personally, I find it a little embarrassing. — Ward Churchill

You have plaintiffs attorneys, you have defense attorneys. So there is no unified bar that will protect a particular judge who has made a courageous decision that's unpopular. — Anthony Kennedy

Yet in 1995, a few brave souls challenged the implementation of Georgia's "two strikes and you're out" sentencing scheme, which imposes life imprisonment for a second drug offense. Georgia's district attorneys, who have unbridled discretion to decide whether to seek this harsh penalty, had invoked it against only 1 percent of white defendants facing a second drug conviction but against 16 percent of black defendants. The result was that 98.4 percent of those serving life sentences under the provision were black. — Michelle Alexander

In recent years personal injury attorneys and trial lawyers have attacked the food industry with numerous lawsuits alleging that these businesses should pay monetary damages to those who, of their own accord, consume too much of a legal, safe product. — Bob Ney

Studying the rule of law won't make a great litigator. It is the act of trying cases in real courtrooms with real plaintiffs and defendants and judges and juries, week after week and year after year that develops lawyers into top trial attorneys. — Marian Deegan

I think most defense attorneys know, to some extent, their clients are guilty. — Matthew McConaughey

At every show, people I've never seen approach me with the same story: how experiencing my work changed their lives and made them artists or writers or law enforcers or attorneys, believe it or not. It's very humbling and gratifying. — Jim Steranko

Rove and his attorneys can parse the words all they want, but it is now clear that while Rove may not have given a reporter Plame's name, he clearly identified her by telling the reporter that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA agent. — Louise Slaughter

Like all trial attorneys, he knew the importance of not dressing too well. — Michael Crichton

When I was a prosecutor in San Francisco I would get advice on trying cases from public defenders and defense attorneys. — Christine Pelosi

My corps of attorneys will contact you in the morning wherever it is that you carry on your questionable activities. I shall warn them beforehand that they may expect to see and hear anything. They are all brilliant attorneys, pillars of the community, aristocratic Creole scholars whose knowledge of the more surreptitious forms of living is quite limited. They may even refuse to see you. A considerably lesser representative may be sent to call upon you, some junior partner whom they've taken in out of pity. — John Kennedy Toole

Today, planning has become collaborative and interactive, using software and tools that will allow clients to "play" with different scenarios, becoming invested in the results. Our delivery is online, and the focus is on the process of planning, not the product (the plan). We engage as many other professionals as we need to (accountants, attorneys, and insurance agents) to complete the implementation. — Deena B. Katz

These friendly eyes, these lustful eyes, these hopeless, sad, dispirited eyes, these energetic amber eyes needing no escape, these serpent's eyes, cat's eyes, sorcerer's eyes, the eyes of future family men, funeral directors, and unsuspecting officers of the law, the mischievous eyes of plotters and planners, soon-to-be soldiers, or underworld attorneys on retainer, the eyes of maniacs and fanatics, hipsters and wallflowers, dreamers and the object of dreams, I gazed into them all and knew that they were human eyes, each pair offering insight toward a new tomorrow. — Ace Boggess

Legal representation in the 21st century was becoming a risky business. — Kenneth Eade

In 2005, attorneys general of 35 states urged the Federal Reserve to end the unsigned check system. — Charles Duhigg

I've given up men. It's true. At first, I was just going to give up attorneys, but that seemed immature - and far too exclusive, so I'm playing it safe and giving up all the penis-carrying humans. — Jill Shalvis

Are you telling me that now the government is going after attorneys? They're going to put every attorney for everyone they think is a bad guy in jail? — Kenneth Eade

I am a subject,
And I challenge law. Attorneys are denied me,
And therefore personally I lay my claim
To my inheritance of free descent. — William Shakespeare

I hate politics, hate deals, and deal-making, hate meeting with attorneys and agents. — Kathie Lee Gifford

Actually, attorneys say, copying a purchased CD for even one friend violates the federal copyright code most of the time. — Charles Duhigg

Usually when attorneys are assembling a jury, they're just looking for sheep that are easily impressed. — Johnny Kelly

College graduates and women with higher earnings are now more likely to marry than women with less education and lower wages, although they generally marry at an older age. The legal profession is one big exception to this generalization. Female attorneys are less likely to ever marry, to have children, or to remarry after divorce than women in other professions. But an even higher proportion of male attorneys are childless, suggesting there might be something about this career that is unfriendly to everyone's family life, not just women's. — Stephanie Coontz

I'm climbing into a vehicle that has a powerful influence on our culture. I'd like to make it do something good. The media is populated with attorneys, psychologists and pundits but there are only three physicians: me, Dr. Oz and Sanjay Gupta. We are the only MDs who practice medicine and have board certifications in one or two fields. That's it. — Drew Pinsky

Now, obviously, Meredith Whitney didn't sink Wall Street. She'd just expressed most clearly and most loudly a view that turned out to be far more seditious to the social order than, say, the many campaigns by various New York attorneys general against Wall Street corruption. If mere scandal could have destroyed the big Wall Street investment banks, they would have vanished long ago. This woman wasn't saying that Wall Street bankers were corrupt. She was saying that they were stupid. These people whose job it was to allocate capital apparently didn't even know how to manage their own. — Michael Lewis

Forensic auditing: These auditors sniff out fraud and other crimes. Forensic means "of the law," and forensic auditors often discover information that's used as litigation support - to help attorneys make their cases. — Maire Loughran

I think most defense attorneys honestly believe the principle that says, 'Better 10 guilty go free than even one possibly innocent person be convicted.' — Alan Dershowitz

Look, the president can discharge all 93 U.S. attorneys for no reason at all, but not for a bad reason. — Arlen Specter

Virginia and Maryland attorneys argued this is a national problem and needs a national solution. I'm hoping that with a federal court agreeing this is inequitable, Congress will now act and do the right thing for the District. — Walter Smith

Unfortunately, several companies are attempting to deceive consumers through the unauthorized use of my image or my name, and my attorneys are pursuing those making these false claims. — Mehmet Oz

Law firms can create environments for abusive relationships. This is especially true if an attorney has no self-direction, has no independent means of financial support, and has massive student loan indebtedness. You've basically made yourself an indentured servant. — Robin D. Hart

Most of the attorneys just want the publicity of the trial. They don't care about the man at all. If there was some kind of writ that could get me out of here tomorrow, they wouldn't bring it, because they all want to go through the whole trial and wring every last drop of publicity out of the whole thing. — Charles Manson

American law firms annually hire scores of brilliant lawyers. While the public perceives attorneys as engaging in dilatory tactics, presenting false evidence, making frivolous arguments to the court, and overcharging clients, the vast majority of attorneys are honest and hardworking, the type of person most people would enjoy as a neighbor. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Most attorneys practice law because it gives them a grand and glorious feeling. You give them a grand - and they feel glorious. — Milton Berle

Necessity knows no law; I know some attorneys of the same. — Benjamin Franklin

In Virginia, for example, fees paid to court-appointed attorneys for representing someone charged with a felony that carries a sentence of less than twenty years are capped at $428. — Michelle Alexander

Change cannot and will not happen overnight. But the intent to evolve will produce opportunities for growth. — Robin D. Hart

Jail is more commonly-suited to those less-commonly able to finance a defense (or to potentially pander the prosecution). The choices for council is either a retained lawyer or, by default, a public defender. In the later of these two, the common title in jail was 'public pretender'. — H. Kirk Rainer

He was getting to the point that he didn't understand why tax attorneys didn't just kill themselves. — Orson Scott Card

I've given up men."
At that, he arched a brow.
Be strong. Be confident. Be ... Neytiri from Avatar. Okay, so Neytiri was a mythical creature, not to mention animated, but still. She was strong and
confident, and that's all that matters at the moment. "It's true. At first, I was just going to give up attorneys, but that seemed immature - and far too
exclusive, so I'm playing it safe and giving up all the penis-carrying humans." Because that was so much more mature. — Jill Shalvis

Courtrooms are battlegrounds where society's bullies and the oppressed clash, where the victims of abusers seek recompense, and where parties cheated by scalawags seek retribution. Because of the high stakes involved, the parties are not always honest, and justice depends upon an array of factors including the prevailing case precedent, the skills of the legal advocates, and the merits of each party's claims and counterclaims. — Kilroy J. Oldster

If things went according to death notices, man would be absolutely perfect. There you find only first-class fathers, immaculate husbands, model children, unselfish and self-sacrificing mothers, grandparents mourned by all, businessmen in contrast with whom Francis of Assisi would seem an infinite egoist, generals dripping with kindness, humane prosecuting attorneys, almost holy munitions makers - in short, the earth seems to have been populated by a horde of wingless angels without one's having been aware of it. — Erich Maria Remarque

We've sued out-of-state power plants that are polluting our air and led a coalition of attorneys general from Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and Massachusetts against efforts in the U.S. House of Representatives to remove critical environmental regulations that protect New York communities from toxic pollution. — Eric Schneiderman

There is no client as scary as an innocent man.
J. Michael Haller, Criminal Defense Attorney, Los Angeles, 1962. — Michael Connelly

Sure, he had left some parts out - how they had offered to pay the Rinskys more than the house was worth, for example - but this wasn't about being balanced. Attorneys take sides. The other side, if and when they responded, would give their spin. You were supposed to be biased. That was how the system worked. — Harlan Coben

The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problems should largely be solved by them. — Rudolf Virchow

I made no pretense of doing balanced reporting about murder. I was appalled by defense attorneys who would do anything to win an acquittal for a guilty person. — Dominick Dunne

When people of color are killed in the inner city, when homeless people are killed, when the "nobodies" are killed, district attorneys do not seek to avenge their deaths. Black, Hispanic, or poor families who have a loved one murdered not only don't expect the district attorney's office to pursue the death penalty -which, of course, is both costly and time consuming- but are surprised when the case is prosecuted at all. — Helen Prejean

I used to cold call labels and pretend I was one of their artist's attorneys. I'd say, 'This is Jay-Z's attorney, we need to speak with Craig Kallman,' you know, owner of Atlantic, and they'd say, 'Right away,' and then I'd be like, 'Please just listen to my demo tape!' — Benny Blanco

We teach boys to be such men as we are. We do not teach them to aspire to be all they can. We do not give them a training as if webelieved in their noble nature. We scarce educate their bodies. We do not train the eye and the hand. We exercise their understandings to the apprehension and comparison of some facts, to a skill in numbers, in words; we aim to make accountants, attorneys, engineers; but not to make able, earnest, great- hearted men. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I've been told by the prosecutors and by my own attorneys I should go to law school. I guess I have a knack for it. — Monica Lewinsky

It wasn't in the states best interest to let the jury know, they said it would raise doubt that John Gacy acted alone. The defence attorneys didn't bring it out because it didn't have..it didn't go along with their insanity defence, showing others were involved. — John Wayne Gacy

I remember when I was twenty-five," he said. "No client comes to you when you're twenty-five. It's like when you are looking for a doctor. You don't want the new one that just graduated. You don't want the very old one, the one shaking, the one twenty years past his prime. You want the seasoned one who has done it so many times he can do it in his sleep though. Same thing with attorneys. — Daniel Amory

boys. Defense attorneys for the whole crappy world." Bob's new apartment — Elizabeth Strout

There has to be some limit to what lawyers can take from their clients. Otherwise, cagey attorneys end up with the lion's share of the settlement and the victims end up with little more than scraps. — Dennis Hastert

Crimes of the century differ from the garden variety of murders. They involve wealth, celebrity and powerful attorneys, and live on for decades after the verdict has been rendered. — Armand Deutsch

Jonathan Green had a firm handshake, clear eyes, and a jawline not dissimilar to Dudley Do-Right's. He was in his early sixties, with graying hair, a beach-club tan, and a voice that was rich and comforting. A minister's voice. He wasn't a handsome man, but there was a sincerity in his eyes that put you at ease. Jonathan Green was reputed to be one of the top five criminal defense attorneys in America, with a success rate in high-profile criminal defense cases of one hundred percent. Like Elliot Truly, Jonathan Green was wearing an impeccably tailored blue Armani suit. So were the lesser attorneys. Maybe they got a bulk discount. I was wearing impeccably tailored black Gap jeans, a linen aloha shirt, and white Reebok sneakers. Green said, Did Elliot explain why we wanted to see you? — Robert Crais

Appeal. Guy's like you get all excited about the appeal. Don't you see that I view the very existence of an appeal as a disastrous failure? No much worse, a personal affront of the highest order for which I blame you. — Sergio De La Pava

The Latin term pro bono, as most attorneys will attest, roughly translated means for boneheads and applies to work done without charge. — Sue Grafton

Other Bengalis gossiped about him and prayed their own children would not ruin their lives in the same way. And so he became what all parents feared, a blot, a failure, someone who was not contributing to the grand circle of accomplishments Bengali children were making across the country, as surgeons or attorneys or scientists, or writing articles for the front page of The New York Times. — Jhumpa Lahiri

I hate my own attorneys! — Kid Rock

Beefs against debt collectors are consistently among the top complaints received by both the FTC and state attorneys general. — Gary Weiss

I am asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so many Americans. — Barack Obama

The partnership is part of a flourishing industry that pairs plaintiffs' lawyers with state attorneys general to sue companies, a collaboration that has set off a furious competition between trial lawyers and corporate lobbyists to influence these officials. — Anonymous

Many writers have reported being able to forestall the petty annoyances of life by maintaining the shared illusion that they are working at something productive...a facility they share with prostitutes and attorneys. — Kenneth B. Lifshitz

In its proper meaning equality before the law means the right to participate in the making of the laws by which one is governed, a constitution which guarantees democratic rights to all sections of the population, the right to approach the court for protection or relief in the case of the violation of rights guaranteed in the constitution, and the right to take part in the administration of justice as judges, magistrates, attorneys-general, law advisers and similar positions. — Nelson Mandela

Surely I missed the Bloodsucking Your Client class in law school, since all evidence points to me being the poster boy for Financially Ruined Defense Attorneys. — Jodi Picoult

The victims I've worked with taught me that individuals want to believe they are entitled to justice. My community taught me that when the choice is clear-cut enough, so do entire counties.

We have become profoundly discouraged about whether we have such choices. My own experience is that we do, if we are willing to pay the price. We need better data to make decisions based on performance, but getting that data is a matter of passing the right laws requiring crunchable statistics and mandatory public reports. The rest is on us. If Tip O'Neil was right, if all politics is local, then our local district attorneys are the place to start. Crime is local. What we do about it is as close as the nearest voting booth. — Alice Vachss

I do believe that half a dozen commonplace attorneys could so mystify and misconstrue the Ten Commandments, and so confuse Moses' surroundings on Mount Sinai, that the great law-giver, if he returned to this planet, would doubt his own identity, abjure every one of his deliverances, yea, even commend the very sins he so clearly forbade his people. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Nothing so enchants attorneys general, their eyes generally fixed on higher public office, as slinging accusations against successful financial executives. Preening press conferences and fawning media coverage are virtually guaranteed, whether or not the charges have substance. — Kenneth Langone

He's one of those attorneys who think of the law as a game, not a morality play. I'm told that'd the kind you want. — Lionel Shriver

But we didn't have the financial structure, like the right attorneys, the right managers, the right accountants, and we were going against the grain of what black entertainers is supposed to do. — Solomon Burke

I've been in several situations where police officers and district attorneys have had the cooperation of people in the news media without either endangering the reporter or compromising their sources. — Edwin Meese

One of the most fundamental questions people have about defense attorneys is, 'How can you do that? How can you go to bat everyday for a person that you may not know is guilty but you have a pretty good idea that he's not so innocent?' It's a question that defense attorneys answer for themselves by not addressing. — David E. Kelley

Accordingly, the word "Facebook" appeared in a full one-third of divorce filings in 2011. All of this provides excellent fodder for the 81 percent of divorce attorneys who admit searching social media sites for evidence that can be used against their clients' spouses. For instance, all the data shared on Facebook and Twitter and all the cell-phone call records and GPS locational data that neatly recorded whose cell phone was next to whose and when become fair game in the battle royal that can be divorce proceedings. The pictures innocently taken of you at all those parties over the years, blurry-eyed with drink in hand, now become evidence of unfit parenting, a nugget of gold for opposing counsel during cross-examination. — Marc Goodman

Virchow was the perfect role model for anyone who wanted to change the world, or at least lessen the inequality between the rich and poor. One of Farmer's favorite Virchow quotes was "The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problems should largely be solved by them." Virchow viewed the world in a way that made sense to Farmer, his vision a comprehensive one that included pathology - the study of disease - with social medicine, politics, and anthropology. Farmer, — Tracy Kidder

I always get that cautionary warning right before I get off the phone with an interviewer. It's: 'Good luck with the show. I really like it, and if this goes wrong, you'll be hearing from my attorneys. — Jon Stewart

I have money. I have properties I didn't buy, cars and carpets, antiques and jewels-and none of them means a damn to me if I don't have her. So-give me a number. — Emma Chase

The National Association of Attorneys General's proposal to make the chief law enforcement officers of the states more accountable, if not certainly more professional, ought to be titled: "The Pam Bondi Party's Over Intervention Act." When an elected attorney general spends more time in airline VIP lounges awaiting to go wheels up to some exotic lobbyist campaign contribution holiday than she does in court, it is probably time to reign in the rumaki. — Anonymous

We at the Bureau have the most exciting and satisfying jobs in the world. In a society that stresses individual achievement - where you pull yourself up by your bootstraps - the Legal Aid Bureau helps those without boots. By providing access to justice to tens of thousands of Marylanders each year, Legal Aid attorneys and support staff bring equity and stability to society. — Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling