Quotes & Sayings About Lawyers And Clients

Legal practice is, to a great extent, ethically ambivalent. Lawyers pledge to represent their clients zealously, and so they are charged, where their client is wrong, with trying to make the weaker argument appear the stronger. Yet, they also see themselves as officers of the court, or agents of the state, and in that role they should seek to enforce the law as intended and must act honestly. — Joel P. Trachtman

The truth was, the more he got portrayed as an unprincipled, ruthless prick, the more clients flocked to him. Because when it came to divorce, people wanted a ruthless prick. They lined up for one. — Michael Crichton

Divorce lawyers stoke anger and fear in their clients, knowing that as long as the conflicts remain unresolved the revenue stream will keep flowing. — Craig Ferguson

Any attorney with a conscience always speaks the truth. An attorney can and should practice law in a scrupulous manner, but some dishonest attorneys disregard ethical mandates in order to win. Unethical attorneys shape their clients stories, which is a fancy way of assisting them tell a fib. — Kilroy J. Oldster

One vote, one act or one person can change the course of history. I also thought of the lawyers who daily and tirelessly labor in the vineyards of justice - men and women who represent their clients with integrity, ethics and professionalism, and who think nothing of it as that is what lawyers do. Yet, often these individuals are the very people who change the world. — Martha Barnett

The lawyers have escaped most criticism [and undeservedly so]. The tax shelters [were approved by lawyers, who got paid huge commissions to do so] and every miscreant had a high-falutin' lawyer at his side. Why don't more law firms vote with their feet and not take clients who have signs on them that say, "I'm a skunk and will be hard to handle?" I've noticed that firms that avoid trouble over long periods of time have an institutional process that tunes bad clients out. Boy, if I were running a law firm, I'd want a system like that because a lot of firms have a lot of bad clients. — Charlie Munger

For just a heartbeat I picture the life I could've had if I'd joined a sterile corporate law firm on the partner track. I imagined meeting my clients in paneled wood conference rooms instead of re-purposed storage closets that smell like bleach and pee. I imagine shaking the hand of a client whose hand isn't trembling from meth withdrawal or abject terror at a justice system he doesn't trust. — Jodi Picoult

Attorneys are more inclined to gouge clients than some other professionals are such as medical doctors and dentist simply because most clients do not need continuous legal care. Comparable to undertakers, legal work does not generate many repeat clients. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Lawyers claim that their clients have been grossly mistreated, which is what criminal defense lawyers are paid to do. — Ken Starr

In college, I wanted to be Perry Mason, the hottest defense lawyer around. Then I realized that defense lawyers represented the scum of the earth, and most of their clients were guilty. Kinda blew the image for me. In my sophomore year, I took a journalism course and was hooked. I discovered investigative reporting, and soon realized I could be judge, jury, and prosecutor. So who needed to be a lawyer — Rick Pullen

If you are unfortunate enough to be involved in legal action, you've got to realize that it's a three-way fight: There's you, there's your opponent, and there's your lawyer. And your lawyer is not on your side. His job is to get as much money as possible out of you, frequently in collusion with the other side's lawyer, and then move on to another client. — Peter Brimelow

Mostly, though, he made people laugh, with wicked impersonations of everyone around him: clients, lawyers, clerks, even the cleaning woman. When Pickwick Papers came out, his former colleagues realized that half of them had turned up in its pages. His eyes - eyes that everyone who ever met him, to the day he died, remarked on - beautiful, animated, warm, dreamy, flashing, sparkling - though no two people ever agreed on their colour - were they grey, green, blue, brown? - those eyes missed nothing, any more than did his ears. He could imitate anyone. Brimming over with an all but uncontainable energy, which the twenty-first century might suspiciously describe as manic, he discharged his superplus of vitality by incessantly walking the streets, learning London as he went, mastering it, memorizing the names of the roads, the local accents, noting the characteristic topographies of the many villages of which the city still consisted. — Simon Callow

Prospective clients who want to kill their husband, torture a business partner, break the government's legs, hire Roy Cohn," Ken Auletta wrote. "He is a legal executioner - the toughest, meanest, loyalest, vilest, and one of the most brilliant lawyers in America. He is not a very nice man." Trump served as a supporting witness in the piece. "When people know that Roy is involved, they'd rather not get involved in the lawsuits and everything else that's involved," Trump said. Cohn "was never two-faced. You could count on him to go to bat for you," which was exactly what Trump wanted Cohn to do in the racial-bias case. Cohn — Michael Kranish

The window is the reason the death row inmates go to the visiting room to see their lawyers and investigators. The lawyers think their clients want to see them. No, they want to see the window. — Rene Denfeld

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

A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other professionals offering services for pay - such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients?
It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors. — Robert A. Heinlein

There are lawyers who believe in client-centered representation and who are dedicated on the same level I feel I was dedicated. — Lynne Stewart

By making defense lawyers more central to criminal litigation than they already were and by dramatically enlarging the range of legal claims they could raise on their clients' behalf, Warren's Court increased the gap between rich and poor defendants-and, given the racial distribution of poverty in midcentury America, between black and white defendants as well. Because the time and quality of defense counsel mattered more than before, those defendants who could buy better quality attorneys and pay them to work more hours were more advantaged than before. Relatively speaking, their poorer counterparts grew more disadvantaged. The justice system grew less egalitarian through the Supreme Court's efforts to make it more so.
The — William J. Stuntz

Practicing law in a general practice litigation firm can quickly sap an attorney's enthusiasm for life as well as their inner will to pursue their line of trade that they invested years of schooling qualifying to perform. In phone calls, an attorney listens to clients scream, cry, and curse, make wild accusations, and threatening to harm other people. Because the client is paying the firm, they feel entitled to act obscenely. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The last word smelled of desperation,and the old lawyer sighed. 'I can tell you that the law is an ocean of darkness and truth, and that lawyers are but vessels on the surface. We may pull one rope or another, but it is the client, in the end, who charts the course. — John Hart

He recognized it and knew it. In others - clients, witnesses, or sometimes adversaries, he had seen or heard it: A gesture, a phrase, or a tone which exposed unintended truth in the beat of a second. — Jackson Burnett

Imagine a legal system in which lawyers were equated with the clients they defended and were condemned for representing controversial or despised clients. — Alan Dershowitz

Since lawyers are thinkers and not feelers, and their moral development is locked into the rigidity of maintaining law and order, they often come across as impersonal, insensitive, amoral, and not particularly human to the clients they serve. — Thane Rosenbaum

Lawyers should not be charged with the same crimes as their clients. Trials related to political charges are not in accordance with human rights. — Shirin Ebadi

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

There are some lawyers who think of themselves as basically instruments of whoever their clients are, and they pride themselves on their professional craft. — Cass Sunstein

Most lawyers who win a case advise their clients, "We have won," and when justice has frowned upon their cause ... "You have lost. — Louis Nizer

Apparently it was unethical for lawyers to sleep with their clients. This from a man who offered legal representation to assassins. — Carrie Vaughn

Lawyering is very individualistic. There are lawyers who are going to be that persistent birddog, they're never going to give up on the client, they're going to defend people. — Lynne Stewart

The ethical practices of lawyers are probably no worse than those of other professions. Lawyers bring some of the trouble on by claiming in a sanctimonious way that they are interested only in justice, not power or wealth. They also suffer guilt by association. Their clients are often people in trouble. Saints need no lawyers: gangsters do. — Lawrence M. Friedman

New York state ethics rules prohibit lawyers from soliciting gifts from clients 'for the benefit of the lawyer or a person related to the lawyer.' — Bill Dedman

From the beginning, Mandela and Tambo was besieged with clients. We were not the only African lawyers in South Africa, but we were the only firm of African lawyers. For Africans, we were the firm of first choice and last resort. — Nelson Mandela

Lawyers have been known to wrest from reluctant juries triumphant verdicts of acquittal for their clients, even when those clients, as often happens, were clearly and unmistakably innocent. — Oscar Wilde