Peter Barrett: Is there something wrong with that?
Denny Crane: They're evildoers. Yesterday it's a tree, today it's a salmon,
tomorrow it's, "Let's not dig up Alaska for oil because it's too pretty." Let me
tell you something, I came out here to enjoy nature, don't talk to me about the
environment.
Caddyshack (1980)
Judge Smails: I've sentenced boys younger than
you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to do it. I felt I owed it to them.
Caine Mutiny (1954)
Barney Greenwald: I don't want to upset you too much, but at the moment
you have an excellent chance of being hanged.
Cash McCall (1959)
Winston Conway: I'm not a moralist, I'm a lawyer.
Cat Ballou (1965)
Catherine "Cat" Ballou: Why, they did terrible things to my father--they
put manure in his well and they made him talk to lawyers.
The Chamber (1997)
Sam Cayhall: If you spend half as much time trying to be a lawyer instead
of trying to be Dick Tracy, I might not be dead in five days.
E. Garner Goodman: How much do you know about the death penalty?
Adam Hall: I've read everything there is.
E. Garner Goodman: Then you know nothing.
Charmed (1998)
Paige: You used to be a demon *and* a lawyer?
Chinatown (1974)
Evelyn Mulwray: I don't get tough with anyone, Mr. Gittes. My lawyer
does.
A Civil Action(1998)
Jerome Facher: What's your take?
Jan Schlichtmann: They'll see the truth.
Jerome Facher: The truth? I thought we were talking about a court of
law. Come on, you've been around long enough to know that a courtroom isn't
a place to look for the truth.
The Civil War (1990)
Abraham Lincoln: As a nation, we began by declaring that "All men are
created equal." We now practically read it, "All men are created equal,
except Negroes." Soon, it will read "All men are created equal, except
Negroes, and Foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I should
prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving
liberty. To Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and
without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
Class Action (1991)
Maggie Ward: I'm a professional killer. ... I'm a lawyer.
The Client (1994)
Reggie: I have been sober for three years.
Mark: Yeah right, that's what all the drunks say, how they're gonna
get sober and all. They even say they love you but they don't. And then
they come home wasted and beat on you and your mother so bad that you gotta
hit 'em in the face with a baseball bat!
Reggie: You're talkin' about your daddy aren't you?
Mark: Yeah, well, I got rid of him. When me and my mom went into court
to by our divource our lawyer SUCKED as usual, so I went up there and told
the judge myself about all the beatin's, about how he made us sleep in
the street. And that's when my father became my ex-father, and now I got
you, and you're a drunk and a bad lawyer too! So now I'm gettin' rid of
you, you're fired, okay?
Clueless (1995)
Cher: Daddy's a litigator. That's the scariest type of lawyer. Even
Lucy, our maid, is terrified of him. And daddy's so good he gets $500 to
argue with people. But he argues with me for free because I'm his daughter.
Devil's Advocate (1997)
Kevin Lomax: What about love?
John Milton: Overrated. Biochemically no different from eating large
quantities of chocolate.
John Milton: Vanity, definitely my favorite sin.
Dirty Harry (1971)
District Attorney Rothko: Where does it say that you have the right
to kick down doors, torture suspects, deny medical attention and legal
counsel? Where have you been? Does Escobedo ring a bell? Miranda? Why surely
you've heard of the Fourth Amendment? What I'm saying is that man had rights.
Double Jeopardy (1999)
Bobby: I'm a lawyer, what we think isn't supposed to matter.
Easy Rider (1969)
George Hanson: They'll talk to ya and talk to ya and talk to ya about
individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em.
Enemy of the State (1998)
Robert Clayton Dean: Actually, I believe the term "shyster" is reserved
for attorneys of the Jewish persuasion. I believe the proper term for me
is "eggplant."
Erin Brockvich (2000)
Kurt Potter: Wha... how did you do this?
Erin Brockovich: Well, um, seeing as how I have no brains or legal
expertise, and Ed here was losing all faith in the system, am I right?
Ed Masry: Oh, yeah, completely. No faith, no faith...
Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
Bob: I never believed in God. No, I didn't even as a little kid. I
remember this. I used to think even if he exists, he's done such a terrible
job, it's a wonder people don't get together and file a class action suit
against him.
Fathers' Day, (1997)
Carrie Lawrence: What do you mean he lied to you?
Jack Lawrence: Lied right to my face. Big time lie.
Carrie Lawrence: How do you know?
Jack Lawrence: I'm a lawyer. People lie to me all the time.
A Few Good Men (1992)
Lt. Weinberg: Cmdr. Galloway, Lt. Kaffee is considered to be the best
litigator in our office. He successfully plea bargained 44 cases
in 9 months.
Kaffee: One more and I get a set of steak knives.
Sam Weinberg: "I strenuously object?" Is that how it's done? Hm? "Objection,
your Honor!" "Overruled" "No, no. I STRENUOUSLY object." "Oh! You strenuously
object. Then I'll take some time and reconsider."
Daniel Kaffee: Oh, I forgot. You were sick the day they taught law
at law school.
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Archie: Wanda, do you have any idea what it's like being English? Being
so correct all the time, being so stifled by this dread of, of doing the
wrong thing, of saying to someone "Are you married?" and hearing "My wife
left me this morning," or saying, uh, "Do you have children?" and being
told they all burned to death on Wednesday. You see, Wanda, we'll all terrified
of embarrassment. That's why we're so... dead. Most of my friends are dead,
you know, we have these piles of corpses to dinner. But you're alive, God
bless you, and I want to be, I'm so fed up with all this. I want to make
love with you, Wanda. I'm a good lover - at least, used to be, back in
the early 14th century. Can we go to bed?
Archie: All right, all right, I apologize.
Otto: You're really sorry!
Archie: I'm really really sorry, I apologize unreservedly.
Otto: You take it back!
Archie: I do, I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation
was totally without basis in fact, and was in no way fair comment, and
was motivated purely by malice, and I deeply regret any distress that my
comments may have caused you, or your family, and I hereby undertake
not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.
Otto: OK.
The Fortune Cookie (1966)
Harry Hinkle on Willie (Whiplash) Gingrich: Of course he's upset.
He's a lawyer. He's paid to be upset.
The Godfather (1972)
Tom Hagen: Now we have the unions, we have the gambling; an'
they're the best things to have. But narcotics is a thing of the future.
The Godfather, Part III (1990)
Michael Corleone: I don't need tough guys. I need more
lawyers.
Guilty as Sin (1993)
David Greenhill: See, people like us Miriam, we're - we're warm. But
she's a - she's an attorney.
High Fidelity (2000)
Rob Gordon: She suckered me into believing her. It was a sneaky lawyer's
trick. And I fell for it because she's much smarter than me.
Barry: If Laura and her bourgeois lawyer friends can't handle it -
fuck 'em! - let 'em riot! We're Sonic fucking Death Monkeys!
Hook (1991)
Peter Banning: I am not a pirate! It so happens that I am a lawyer!
Peter Banning: Scientists are now using lawyers instead of rats
for their experiments. There are two reasons for this. The scientists don't
become attached to the lawyers and there are some things rats won't do.
Indecent Proposal, (1993)
Jeremy: [on the phone] Let me get this straight. He offered you a million
dollars for a night with your wife? As in *your* wife Diana? And you agreed
to it? I don't know what to say. How could you do something like that?
HOW COULD YOU NEGOTIATE WITHOUT ME? Never negotiate without your lawyer.
Never. For a woman like Diana I could have gotten you at least two million.
Obviously... you don't want to get screwed, and then... screwed.
Inherit the Wind (1960)
Matthew Brady: But your client is wrong. He is deluded. He has lost
his way.
Henry Drummond: It's a shame we don't all possess your positive knowledge
of what is right and what is wrong, Mr. Brady.
Matthew Brady: I do not think about things I do not think about.
Henry Drummond: Do you ever think about things that you do think about?
Drummond: I don't swear for the hell of it. Language is a poor enough
means of communication. We've got to use all the words we've got. Besides,
there are damn few words anybody understands.
Henry Drummond: Suppose God whispered into a Bertram Cate's ear that
an un-Brady thought could still be holy? Must men go to jail because they
find themselves at odds with a self-appointed prophet?
The Insider (1999)
Lawyer: On this case, they'll issue gag orders, sue for breach, anticipatory
breach, enjoin him, you, us, his pet dog, the dog's veterinarian, tie 'em
up in litigation for 10 or 15 years, I'm telling you, they bat a thousand
every time!
Jesse James (1939)
Henry Hull: If there is ever to be law and order in the West,
the first thing we've got to do is take all lawyers out and shoot 'em down
like dogs.
Law and Order (1990)
Ben Stone: The commandment says, "Thou shalt not kill." It does not
say, "Thou shalt not kill only nice people."
Exec. Asst. D.A. John James 'Jack' McCoy: Justice is a by-product of
winning.
Det. Lennie Briscoe: Divorce lawyers... God's way of telling you to
stay single.
Lenny Briscoe: I want to go to law school so I can learn how to turn
gold into lead.
Jack McCoy: You can re-write the law when you're appointed to the Supreme Court.
Arthur Branch: God willing.
Lebensborn (1997)
Dean Wagner: You're going to be a lawyer and you're concerned about
morality?
Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)
Lee Butters: You have the right to remain silent, so shut the fuck
up! You have the right to get an attorney. If you can't afford one, we'll
get you the dumbest goddamn lawyer we've got. If you get Johnnie Cochrane,
I'll kill ya!
Liar, Liar (1997)
Secretary: A burglar tried to break into my friend's house, fell through
a skylight, and cut his leg on a knife on the kitchen counter. He sued
her and won $6,000. Is that justice?
Fletcher Reede: No. I woulda got him ten.
Max Reede: My dad's a liar. He goes to court and lies.
Teacher: Oh, you mean he's a lawyer.
Love and Death (1975)
Boris Dimitrovich Grushenko: Isn't all mankind ultimately executed
for a crime it never committed? The difference is that all men go eventually,
but I go six o'clock tomorrow morning. I was supposed to go at five o'clock,
but I have a smart lawyer. Got leniency!
Boris Dimitrovich Grushenko: Some men are hetero-sexual; some
men are bisexual; some men don't think about sex at all-they become lawyers.
A Man for All Seasons (1966)
Sir Thomas More: I think that when statesmen forsake their own private
conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country
by a short route to chaos.
Sir Thomas More: This country is planted thick with laws from coast
to coast. Man's laws, not God's. And if you cut them down--and you're just
the man to do it--do you really think you could stand upright in the winds
that would blow then?
Sir Thomas More: The world must construe according to its wits; this
court must construe according to the law.
The Mayor of Hell (1933)
Mr. Hemingway: Excuse me, boss. I ain't no lawyer. I can't talk without
thinkin'.
Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
Cassandra: I see disaster. I see catastrophe. Worse, I see lawyers!
Monkey Business (1931)
Lucille: I didn't know you were a lawyer. You're awfully shy for a
lawyer.
Groucho: You bet I'm shy. I'm a shyster lawyer.
Muppet Treasure Island, (1996)
Polly Lobster: I could have been a lawyer, but I just had too much
heart.
Network (1976)
Barbara Schlesinger: These are those four outlines submitted by Universal
for an hour series. You needn't bother to read them; I'll tell them to
you. The first one is set at a large Eastern law school, presumably Harvard.
The series is irresistibly entitled "The New Lawyers." The running characters
are a crusty-but-benign ex-Supreme Court justice, presumably Oliver Wendell
Holmes by way of Dr. Zorba; there's a beautiful girl graduate student;
and the local district attorney who is brilliant and sometimes cuts corners.
The second one is called "The Amazon Squad." The running characters include
a crusty-but-benign police lieutenant who's always getting heat from the
commissioner; a hard-nosed, hard-drinking detective who thinks women belong
in the kitchen; and the brilliant and beautiful young girl cop who's fighting
the feminist battle on the force. Up next is another one of those investigative
reporter shows. A crusty-but-benign managing editor who's always gett--
Nixon (1995)
Richard Nixon: The President can bomb anybody he likes.
North, (1994)
North: Do I need a lawyer?
Winchell: North, this is America. Everybody needs a lawyer.
Other People's Money (1991)
Larry "the Liquidator" Garfield: Lawyers are like nuclear warheads.
I have them because the other guy has them, but the first time you use
them it fucks everything up.
The Paper Chase (1973)
Professor Kingsfield: You come in here with a head full of mush and
you leave thinking like a lawyer.
Professor Kingsfield: Call your mother and tell her you will
never be a lawyer.
People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)
Alan Isaacman: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have heard a lot
today, and I'm not gonna go back over it, but you have to go into that
room and make some decisions. But before you do, there's something you
need to know. I am not trying to suggest that you should like what Larry
Flynt does. I don't like what Larry Flynt does, but what I do like is the
fact that I live in a country where you and I can make that decision for
ourselves. I like the fact that I live in a country where I can pick up
Hustler magazine and read it, or throw it in the garbage can if that's
where I think it belongs.
Isaacman: Unpopular speech is absolutely vital to the health of our
nation.
Larry Flynt: If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me,
it will protect all of you.
Philadelphia (1995)
Joe Miller: Explain this to me like I'm a six year old,
okay? The entire street is clear except for one small area under construction,
with a huge hole that is clearly marked and blocked off, and you decide
you must cross the street at this spot. You fall into the hole and you
want to sue the city for negligence? ...
Mrs. Finley: Yeah. Do I have a case?
Joe: Of course you have a case!
Joe Miller: What do you love about the law, Andrew?
Andrew Beckett: I ... many things .... what do I love most about
the law?
Joe Miller: Yes.
Andrew Beckett: Every now and again, not often, but occasionally,
you get to be a part of justice being done and it really is quite a thrill
when that happens.
Walter Kenton: Some people think you have an attitude problem,
Beckett.
Joe Miller: Low-life, sleazy scumbags. Of course they want a postponement,
I've got a client with a terminal disease.
Judge Garnett: If you look at the opinion polls, when Mr. John
Q. Citizen is asked to rank professions according to the respect he holds
for them... Where are the lawyers? Somewhere below personal fitness trainers
and only slightly above child pornographers. ... And when people lose respect
for lawyers, they lose respect for the law.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
Neal Page: You're a thief, man!
New York lawyer: Close, I'm a lawyer.
Pretty Woman (1990)
Vivian: That would make you a... lawyer.
Edward: What makes you think I'm a lawyer?
Vivian: You've got that sharp, useless look about you.
Primal Fear (1996)
Martin Vail: I speak. You do not speak. All you do is sit there and
look innocent.
Martin: Why gamble with money when you can gamble with people's lives?
That was a joke. All right, I'll tell you. I believe in the notion, that
people are innocent until proven guilty. I believe in that notion because
I choose to believe in that basic goodness of people. I choose to believe
that not all crimes are committed by bad people. And I try to understand
that some very, very good people do some very bad things.
Rainmaker, The (1997)
Rudy Baylor: My dad hated lawyers. ... You might think I became
a lawyer just to piss him off. But you'd be wrong. I've wanted to be a
lawyer ever since I read about the civil rights lawyers in the 50s and
60s and the amazing uses they found for the law. They did what a
lot of people thought was impossible. They gave lawyers a good name.
So I went to law school.
Rudy Baylor: Sworn in by a fool and vouched for by a scoundrel. I'm
a lawyer at last.
Return to Paradise (1998)
Sheriff: Should I beware of lawyers bearing gifts?
Reversal of Fortune (1990)
Alan Dershowitz: Look, you're my student, you, you have a choice. You
don't have to do anything you don't want to do; that is your choice. The
reason *I* take cases -- and here I'm unlike most other lawyers, who are
not professors and therefore have to make a living -- I take cases because
I get pissed off.
Roxie Hart (1942)
Billy Flynn: When you brought me this case, did I ask is she
innocent or is she guilty? All I said was, have you got five thousand dollars.
St. Elmo's Fire (1985)
Kevin: You know there are more people in law school right now than
there are lawyers on the entire planet? Think about that.
Kevin: Love, love, you know what love is? Love is an illusion created
by lawyer types like yourself to perpetuate that other illusion called
marriage to create the reality of divorce and then the illusionary need
for divorce lawyers.
Sex, Lies and Videotape (1987)
John: Do you pay taxes?
Graham: Do I pay taxes? Of course I pay taxes, only a liar doesn't
pay taxes, I'm not a liar. A liar is the second lowest form of human being.
Ann: (from the kitchen) What's the first?
Graham: Lawyers.
She-Wolf of London (1990)
Alan Decker: It's okay. I'm used to the callous attitude mortals have
towards vampires. I'm used to wandering the earth - reviled, hunted, hated.
That's why I became a lawyer.
Sleepers (1996)
Fat Mancho: You got cash, you can buy court justice. On the street,
justice got no price. She's blind where the judge sits. But she ain't blind
out here. Out here the bitch got eyes.
S.O.B. (1981)
Dr. Irving Finegarten: I could sue you for calling me that, Polly! A shyster is a disreputable lawyer. I'M a QUACK!
Star of Midnight (1935)
Inspector Doremus (on Clay Dalzell): You can't break him with words.
Words are his business. He's a lawyer.
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-94)
Capt. Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie: With the first link,
the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden,
the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably. (The Drumhead)
Data to Ardra: The advocate will refrain from making her opponent
disappear. ( Devil's Due)
Q: Legal trickery is not permitted. This is a court of fact.
Picard: I recognize this "court" system as the one that agreed with
that line from Shakespeare, kill all the lawyers.
Q: Which was done.
Picard: Leading to the rule: guilty until proven innocent.
Q: Of course. Bringing the innocent to trial would be unfair. (Encounter
at Farpoint)
Stepmom (1999)
Annabelle Harrison: I'm gonna beep daddy at work.
Rachel Kelly: He's badgering a witness. Eat
Suicide Kings (1997)
Marty: Don't go dying on me. Remember, I'm a lawyer. I've got friends
in hell.
Sweet Hereafter (1997)
Mitchell Stephens: It should be said that my task is to represent
the Walkers only in their anger. Not their grief.
Wanda Otto: Who did they get for that?
Wanda Otto: Their child died, and they got a lawyer.
Mitchell Stephens: Someone calculated ahead of time what it would
cost to sacrifice safety. It's the darkest, most cynical thing to
imagine, but it's absolutely true. And now, it's up to me to
make them build that bus with an extra bolt, or add an extra yard of guard
rail. It's the only way we can ensure moral responsibility in this
society. By what I do.
The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Melvyn Carson Bruder: Prosecutors in Dallas have said for years -
any prosecutor can convict a guilty man. It takes a great prosecutor
to convict an innocent man.
A Time to Kill (1996)
Lucien Wilbanks: It ain't easy saving the world, even one case at a
time.
Jake Tyler Brigance: What are you talking about, quit. You're a hero
Lucien.
Lucien Wilbanks: Hero my ass. Do you think the world needed me beating
cops heads on that picket line. I was needed here. In that courtroom. And
I let them push me, I gave them an excuse to kick me out and now I can
never plead a case in there again. But you can. You're an attorney. Be
proud. You job is to find justice no matter how well she may hide herself
from you. So you go on in there and you do your job.
Tin Men (1987)
Ernest Tilley: You'd think the Constitution would give a guy the right
to hustle.
The Tonight Show (1984)
Johnny Carson: I heard from my cat's lawyer today. My cat
wants twelve thousand dollars a week for Tender Vittles.
Touch of Evil (1958)
Hank Quinlan: A lawyer, all a lawyer cares about is the law.
War of the Roses (1989)
Gavin D'Amato: What's 500 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
... A start!
Wild Things
Baxter: They'll try for twenty million. The cheaper the
lawyer, the higher the demand.
The Winslow Boy (1999)
Sir Robert Morton: Oh, you still pursue your feminist activities?
Catherine Winslow: Oh yes.
Sir Robert Morton: Pity. It's a lost cause.
Catherine Winslow: Oh, do you really think so, Sir Robert? How little
you know about women. Good-bye. I doubt that we shall meet again.
Sir Robert Morton: Oh, do you really think so, Miss Winslow? How little
you know about men.
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Miss Plimsoll: How lucky you lawyers are ... I almost married a lawyer
once. I was in attendance when he had his appendectomy and we became engaged
as soon as he could sit up. Then peritonitis set in and he went like that.
Sir Wilfrid Robarts: He certainly was a lucky lawyer.
Leonard Vole: But this is England, where I thought you never arrest,
let alone convict, people for crimes they have not committed.
Sir Wilfrid: We try not to make a habit of it.
==============================
Fiction
Ambler, Erik, Send No More Roses (1977)
What use is an honest lawyer when what you need is a dishonest one?
Bailey, H. C., Garstons (1930)
Joshua Clunk: Great firms don't murder inventors. It isn't worth
their while. They prefer to swindle 'em. That is quite easy and legal.
Banks, Russell, The Sweet Hereafter (1991)
Mitchell Stephens: People immediately assume we're greedy, that it's
money we're after, people call us proctologists of the profession, and,
yes, there's lots of those. But the truth is, the good ones, we'd make
the same moves for a single shekel as for a ten-million- dollar settlement.
Because it's anger that drives us and delivers us. It's not any kind of
love, either -- love for the underdog or the victim, or whatever you want
to call them. Some litigators like to claim that. The losers.
No, what it is, we're permanently pissed off, the winners, and practicing
law is a way to be socially useful at the same time, that's all.
Barth, John, The Floating Opera (1967)
Men, I think, are ever attracted to the bon mot rather than
the mot juste, and judges, no less than other men, are often moved
by considerations more aesthetic than judicial.
Benet, Stephen Vincent, The Devil and Daniel Webster,
(1939)
Daniel Webster: You seem to have an excellent acquaintance with
the law, sir.
The Devil: Sir, that is no fault of mine. Where I
come from, we have always gotten the pick of the Bar.
Blackmore, R. D., Lorna Doone (1869)
John Ridd: For if ever I saw a man’s eyes become two holes for
the devil to glare from, I saw it that day; and the eyes were those of
the Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys.
Mr. Spank (speaking of Justice Jeffreys): He hath been promised
the handling of poor Master Algernon Sidney, and he says he will soon make
republic of him; for his state shall shortly be headless.
John Ridd: For, according to our old saying, the three learned
professions live by roguery on the three parts of a man. The doctor mauls
our bodies; the parson starves our souls, but the lawyer must be the adroitest
knave, for he has to ensnare our minds. Therefore he takes a careful delight
in covering his traps and engines with a spread of dead-leaf words, whereof
himself knows little more than half the way to spell them.
Carroll, Lewis, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, ch.
12 (1865)
The King: Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to
leave the court.
Let the jury consider their verdict,' the King said, for about the
twentieth time that day. `No, no!' said the Queen. `Sentence first--verdict
afterwards.
Chekhov, Anton, Ivanov Act 1, Scene 3 (1887)
Doctors are like lawyers, only lawyers just rob you, while doctors
rob you and murder you as well.
Collins, Wilkie, Man and Wife (1870)
Sir Patrick Lundie: The law will argue any thing with any body
who will pay the law for the use of its brains and time.
-----The Woman in White (1860)
Mr. Gilmore: It is the great beauty of the Law that it can dispute
any human statement, made under any circumstances, and reduced to any form.
Mr. Gilmore: There are many varieties of sharp practitioners
in this world, but I think the hardest of all to deal with are the men
who overreach you under the disguise of inveterate good-humour. A fat,
well-fed, smiling, friendly man of business is of all parties to a bargain
the most hopeless to deal with.
Cook, Peter, "Sitting on the Bench", from The Complete Beyond
the Fringe (1987)
Yes, I could have been a judge but I never had the Latin, never had
the Latin for the judging, I just never had sufficient of it to get through
the rigourous juding exams. They're noted for their rigour.
People come out staggering and saying "My God what a rigourous exam - and
so I became a miner instead. I'd rther have been a judge than a miner.
Being a miner, as soon as you are too old and tired and sick and stupid
to do the job properly, you have to go. Well the very opposite applies
with judges.
Cross, Amanda, The Question of Max (1976)
Max Reston: One hires lawyers as one hire plumbers, because one
wants to keep one's hands off the beastly drains.
Dickens, Charles, Little Dorritt (1857)
Bar: We lawyers are always curious, always inquisitive, always
picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds, since there is no knowing
when and where they may fit into some corner.
-----Oliver Twist (1839)
Mr. Brownlow: You were present on the occasion of the destruction
of these trinkets, and indeed the more guilty of the two, in the eye of
the law; for the law supposed that your wife acts under your direction.
Mr. Bumble: If the law suppose that ... the law is a ass - a
idiot.
-----The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837)
Mr. Weller: "Battledore and shutlecock's a very good game, when
you a'n't the shuttlecock and the two lawyers the battledore, in which
case it gets too excitin' to be pleasant.
-----A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
Sydney Carton: `It is a far, far better thing that I do, than
I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have
ever known.
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, "The Norwood Builder" in The Return
of Sherlock Holmes (1905)
Sherlock Holmes: "You mentioned your name as if I should recognize
it, but I assure you that, beyond the obvious facts that you are a bachelor,
a solicitor, a Freemason, and an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about
you."
Dunne, Finley Peter, "The Big Fine" in Mr. Dooley Says (1910)
An appeal, Hinnissy, is where ye ask wan coort to show its contempt
f'r another coort.
Eliot, George, Mill on the Floss (1860)
Mr. Tulliver: But I should like Tom to be a bit of scholard,
so as he might be up to the tricks o'these fellows as talk fine and write
wi' a flourish. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these law-suits and arbitrations
and things. I wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' the lad - I should be
sorry for him to be a raskill ...
Falkner, J. Meade, Moonfleet (1898)
John Trenchard: I shall not here set down that letter in full,
although I have it by me, but will put it shortly, because it was from
a lawyer, tricked with long-winded phrases and spun out as such letters
are to afford cover afterwards for a heavier charge.
Faulkner, William, Knight's Gambit (1949)
Gavin Stevens: In my time I have seen truth that was anything
under the sun but just, and I have seen justice using tools and instruments
I wouldn't want to touch with a ten-foot fence rail.
-----Sartoris (1929)
Horace Benbow: The law, like poetry, is the final resort of the
lame, the halt, the imbecile, and the blind, I dare say Caesar invented
the law business to protect himself against poets.
-----The Town (1957)
He was wrong. He's a lawyer, and to a lawyer, if it ain't complicated
it dont matter whether it works or not because if it aint complicated up
enough it aint right and so even if it works, you don't believe it.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, The Crack-up (1945)
The movies are the only court where the judge goes to the lawyer for
advice.
Gardner, Erle Stanley, The Case of the Velvet Claws
(1933)
Perry Mason: "I'm a lawyer. I take people who are in trouble
and I try to get them out of trouble...If the District Attorney would be
fair, then I could be fair.
Perry Mason: I'm a paid gladiator. I fight for my clients. Most
clients aren't square shooters. That's why they're clients. They've got
themselves into trouble. It's up to me to get them out. I have to shoot
square with them. I can't always expect them to shoot square with me.
Perry Mason: It's sort of an obsession with me to do the best
I can for a client. My clients aren't blameless. Many of them are crooks.Probably
a lot of them are guilty. That's not for me to determine. That's for a
jury to determine.
-----The Case of the Perjured Parrot, (1939)
Perry Mason: I never take a case unless I am convinced my client
was incapable of committing the crime charged.
Gay, John, Fables, Pt. ii, no. 1 (1727)
I know you lawyers can with ease
Twist words and meanings as you please;
That language, by your skill made pliant,
Will bend to favor every client.
Gilbert, Michael, Blood and Judgment (1959)
All lawyers are the natural enemies of the police.
Gogarty, Oliver St. John, Tumbling in the Hay (1939)
You might as well try to employ a boa constrictor as a tape measure
as to go to a lawyer for legal advice.
Greenleaf, Stephen, Grave Error (1979)
John Marshall Tanner: Never is a long time. It usually
gives out when you get past forty.
-----Deathbed (1980)
Maximilian Kottle: Do you ever feel that if something good happens
to you, the something bad must surely follow?
John Marhsall Tanner: With me it's more than a feeling.
It's a law.
John Marshall Tanner: His suit - gray, herringbone, priceless
- fit him as well as disgrace fit Nixon.
John Marshall Tanner: I'm not in business to achieve the Humanistic
Calculus; I'm in business to serve my client.
Grierson: Edward, Reputation for a Song (1952)
Sir Evelyn Parks: The witness box, though frequently a forum
for perjuries and evasions, made for justice in the end; it was a sort
of truth machine.
Sir Evelyn Parks: Though a man may sometimes escape the public
consequences of his acts, he cannot escape his own character.
Grisham, John, The Firm (1991)
Lamar Quin: When you were in law school you had some noble
ideas of what a lawyer should be. A champion of individual rights; a defender
of the Constitution; a guardian of the oppressed; an advocate for your
client’s principles. Then after you practice for six months you realize
we’re nothing but hired guns. Mouthpieces for sale to the highest bidder,
available to anybody, any crook, any sleazebag with enough money to pay
our outrageous fees. Nothing shocks you. It’s supposed to be an honorable
profession, but you’ll meet so many crooked lawyers you’ll want to quit
and find an honest job.
-----The Rainmaker (1995)
Rudy Baylor: I will not, under any circumstances, have anything whatsoever
to do with the law. I will allow my license to expire. I will not register
to vote so they can't nail me for jury duty. I will never voluntarily set
foot in another courtroom.
Deck Shifflet: I believe a lawyer should fight for his client, refrain
from stealing money, try not to lie, you know, the basics.
-----A Time to Kill (1989)
Lotterhouse stood slowly; seconds meant minutes. Minutes meant
hours. Hours meant fees, retainers, bonuses, partnerships.
Haggard, H. Rider, She (1887)
I put down the letter, and ran my eye through the Will, which appeared,
from its utter unintelligibility, to have been drawn on the strictest legal
principles.
Hare, Cyril, With a Bare Bodkin (1946)
Francis Pettigrew: The police nearly always pick on the obvius
person. And it is distressing to observe that they are nearly always
right.
Higgins, George, Sandra Nichols Found Dead (1996)
Jerry Kennedy: A lawyer’s not a person who knows the law; a lawyer
is a person who’s learned how to find the law that’s needed in a given
situation. And also how to read it, a correlative that some lawyers overlook,
to the sorrow of their clients.
Huneker, James, Painted Veils (1920)
Lawyers earn their bread in the sweat of their browbeating.
Kallen, Lucille, Introducing C. Greenfield (1979)
A lawyer's relationship to justice and wisdom is on par with a piano
tuner's relationship to a concert. He neither composes the music,
nor interprets it - he merely keeps the machinery running.
Lee. Harper, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question
you don't already know the answer to, was a tenet I absorbed with my baby-food.
Do it, and you'll often get an answer you don't want, an answer that might
wreck your case.
Lever, Charles, The Martins of Cro' Martin (1856)
The most suspectful, unimpulsive, and ungenerously-disposed of all
natures, an old lawyer.
Marryat, Frederick, Poor Jack (1840)
I'm what the sailors call a shark, that is, I'm a lawyer.
Marsh, Ngaio, Death in Ecstacy (1941)
He's everything that a lawyer ought to be. Desiccated, tittuppy, nice
old fuss-pot. Gives one the idea that he is a good actor slightly overdoing
his part.
Melville, Herman, Bartleby the Scrivener (1853)
I am one of the unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury, or
in any way draws down public applause; but in the cool tranquility of a
snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men's bonds and mortgages and
title-deeds.
Montgomery, L.M., Anne of Avonlea (1909)
Anne: I won't undertake to answer Davy's questions... I'm not
an encyclopedia, neither am I a Philadelphia lawyer.
Mortimer, John, "Rumpole and the Man of God", in The
Trials of Rumpole (1979)
Rumpole: I soon found it's crime which not only pays moderately
well, but which is by far the greatest fun.
Guthrie Featherstone: The glory of the advocate is to be opinionated,
brash, fearless, partisan, hectoring, rude, cunning and unfair.
Rumpole: Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence.
Without parole
-----"Rumpole and the Younger Generation", Rumpole of the Bailey
(1978)
Rumpole: A person who is tired of crime is tired of life.
-----"Rumpole and the Married Lady,"
Rumpole: A little silence can come as something of a relief.
In the wear and tear of married life.
-----"Rumpole and the Learned Friends,"
Rumpole: Never plead guilty!
Post, Melville Davisson, "The Sheriff of Gulmore", The Strange
Schemes of Randolph Mason (1896)
Randolph Mason: Justice cannot reach all wrongs, its hands are tied
by the restrictions of the law.
-----"The Grazier", The Man of Last Resort (1897)
Randolph Mason: No man who has followed my advice has ever committed
a crime. Crime is a technical word. It is the law's name for certain acts
which it is pleased to define and punish with a penalty. . . . What the
law permits is right, else it would prohibit it. What the law prohibits
is wrong, because it punishes it.
Rattigan, Terence, The Winslow Boy (1946)
Sir Robert: To fight a case on emotional grounds, Mis Winslow,
is the surest way of losing it. Emotions muddy the issue. Cold,
clear logic - and buckets of it - should be the lawyer's only equipment.
Sir Robert: ... I wept today because right had been done.
Catherine: Not justice?
Sir Robert: No. Not justice. Right. It is easy to
do justice -- very hard to do right.
Rice, Craig, The Wrong Murder (1940)
John J.Malone: Everyone is entitled to one good murder.
John J. Malone: I'm not an officer of the law. My
profession has always put me on the other side of the fence.
Scott, Sir Walter, Guy Mannering (1815)
A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working
mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call
himself an architect.
Swift, Jonathan, Part IV: "A Voyage to the Country
of the Houyhnhnms", ch. 5 Gulliver's Travels, (1726)
Lemuel Gulliver: I said there was a society of men among us, bred up
from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose,
that white is black and black is white, according as they are paid.
To this society all the rest of the people are slaves.
Lemuel Gulliver: Judges ... are picked out from the most dextrous lawyers,
who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against
truth or equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favoring fraud, perjury
and oppression, that I have known several of them to refuse a large bribe
from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing
any thing unbecoming their nature in office.
Lemuel Gulliver: It is likewise to be observed, that this Society
has a peculiar Cant and Jargon of their own, that no other Mortal can understand,
and wherein all their Laws are written, which they take special Care to
multiply; whereby they have gone near to confound the very Essence of Truth
and Falsehood, of Right and Wrong; so that it may take Thirty Years to
decide whether the Field, left me by my Ancestors for Six Generations,
belongs to me, or to a Stranger three hundred Miles off.
Train, Arthur, The Adventures of Ephraim Tutt (1930)
The law offers greater opportunities to be at one and the same time
a Christian and a horse-trader than any other profession.
-----The Confessions of Artemas Quibble (1924)
There are two qualities that make for the highest success in the law
- honesty and dishonesty. To get ahead you must either be so irreproachable
in your conduct and elevated in your ideals that your reputation for viture
becomes your chief asset, or, on the other hand, so crooked that your very
dishonesty makes you invaluable to your clients ... the crooked lawyer
has got to be so crooked that everybody is afraid of him, even the judge.
-----Mr. Tutt’s Case Book, (1936)
"The lawyer is the fellow who evens things up, the champion of all
those who ... must bear the Whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong...the
law's delay.... He fights fire with fire, meets guile with guile, and rights
the legal wrong.
-----The Yankee Lawyer: The Autobiography of Ephraim Tutt
(1943)
So far as we have any real justice in this world we get it less through
the courts than by virtue of the inherent decency of our fellow men.
Traver, Robert, Anatomy of a Murder (1958)
Paul Biegler: Judges, like most people, may be divided roughly
into four classes: judges with neither head nor heart - they are
to be avoided at all costs; judges with head but no heart - they
are almost as bad; then judges with heart but no head - risky but better
than the first two, and finally, those rare judges who possess both head
and a heart.
Paul Biegler: That's what makes the practice of law, like prostitution,
one of the last of the unpredictable professions - both employ the seductive
arts, both try to display their wares to the best advantage, and both must
pretend enthusiastically to woo total strangers.
Paul Biegler: Get the goddam money and trust no one.
Vonnegut, Kurt, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)
Leonard Leech: In every big transaction, there is a magic moment
during which a man has surrendered a treasure, and during which the man
who is due to receive it has not yet done so. An alert lawyer will
make that moment his own, possessing the treasure for a magic microsecond,
taking a little of it, passing it on. If the man who is to receive
the treasure is unused to wealth, has an inferiority complex and shapeless
feelings of guilt, as most people do, the lawyer can often take as much
as half the bundle, and still receive the recipient's blubbering thanks.
Wodehouse, P. G., Heart of a Goof, 1926
The least you can do, as a good womanly woman, is to have a capable
lawyer watching your interests.
Woods, Sara. Malice Domestic (1962)
Antony Maitland: Facts in a court of law are what you can make
the jury believe; no more, no less.
==============================
Other
American Mercury, December 1930
Get a lip for a writ an' I'll lam. [see Goldin,
H.E.]
American proverb
-----The best judge knows the least.
-----A good lawyer, a bad neighbor.
-----The judge is condemned when the guilty man is acquitted.
-----Judges should have two ears, both alike.
-----Lawyer's gowns are lined with the willfulness of their clients.
-----Lawyers, like painters, can easily change white into black.
-----Most good lawyers live well, work hard, and die poor.
-----No matter who loses the lawyer always wins.
-----Three Philadelphia lawyers are a match for the Devil.
-----An upright judge has more regard for justice than for man.
-----An upright judge regards the law and disregards the lawyers and
litigants.
-----When you buy judges someone sells justice.
Anonymous
St. Ives was of the land of beef,
An advocate, and not a thief;
A stretch on popular belief.
Barckley, Sir Richard, Discourse of the Felicitie of Man
(1598)
After that sollicitors were suffered in the middest of them all, to
be as it were the skum gatherers of suites
Bartlett, John R., Dictionary of Americanisms (1859)
"Lake lawyer" -- the Western Mud-fish... Dr. Kirtland says it is..called
the lake lawyer, from its ‘ferocious looks and voracious habits’.
"Lawyer" -- .the black-necked Stilt... On the New Jersey coast
it is some~times called lawyer on account of its ‘long bill’
Bentham, Jeremy, The Elements of the art of packing
as applied to special juries (1821)
The duty of an advocate is to take fees, and in return for those fees
to display to the utmost advantage whatsoever falshoods the solicitor has
put into his brief.
Bierce, Ambrose, The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary
(1967)
Attorney, n. A person legally a[pointed to mismanagaae
one's affairs which one has not himself the skill to rightly mismanage.
Dice, n. Small polka-dotted cubes of ivory, constructed
like a lawyer to lie on any side, but commonly the wrong one.
Innocence, n. The state or condition of a criminal whose
counsel has fixed the jury.
Judge, n. A person who is always interfering in disputes
in which he has no personal interest.
Bok, Curtis, Backbone of the Herring (1941)
It has been said the a judge is a member of the bar who once knew a
Governor.
Boswell, James, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)
Samuel Johnson: A lawyer has no business with the justice or
injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his
opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice of
injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.
Brinklow, Henry, The Complaynt of Roderyck Mars
(1545)
The lawyer can not vnderstond the matter tyl he fele his mony.
The British Apollo, Feb. 2 1708
My Lawyer has a Desk, nine Law-books without Covers, two with Covers,
a Temple-Mug, and the hopes of being a Judge.
Butler, Samuel, Further Extracts from Notebooks (1934)
A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his own property
at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.
Cicero, Pro Flacco 10
When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.
Columbian Magazine, April, 1788
They have a proverb here [in London], which I do not know how to account
for; in speaking of a difficult point, they say, it would puzzle a Philadelphia
lawyer.
Cooper, William, D., A glossary of the provincialisms in
use in the county of Sussex (1836)
Lawyer -- a long bramble full of thorns, so called because ‘when
once they gets a holt an ye, ye doant easy get shut of 'em’.
Cowley, Abraham, Cutter of Coleman-Street, preface(1663)
A cowardly ranting Soldier, an ignorant charlatanical Doctor, a fooling
Cheating Lawyer..have always been, and still are the Principal Subjects
of all Comedies.
Crowne, John, Henry VI, IV(1681)
Must Justice starve because we want a Lawyer's forked distinctions
to feed her neatly with?
Cuomo, Mario, New York Times, Nov. 10. 1986
I am a trial lawyer…. Matilda says that at dinner on a good day I sound
like an affidavit.
Dekker, Thomas, The Virgin Martir, III, iii (1622)
The devil hates a civil lawyer, as a soldier does peace.
English proverb
-----The devils makes his Christmas pies of lawyers' tongues and clerks'
fingers.
-----The three learned professions live by roguery on the three parts
of man. The doctor mauls our bodies, the parson starves our soul,
and the lawyer ensnares our minds.
Foster, G. G., New York in Slices (1849)
He must wait next day for the visits of the ‘shyster’ lawyers, a set
of turkey-buzzards whose touch is pollution and whose breath
is pestilence
Franklin, Benjamin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1734)
A countryman between two lawyers, is like a fish between two cats.
Lawyers, preachers and tomtit's eggs; there are more of them hatched
than come to perfection.
Necessity knows no law; I know some attorneys of the same.
Fraunce, Abraham, The Lawiers Logicke (1588)
It cannot bee, sayde one great Tenurist, that a good scholler should
euer prooue good Lawyer.
Giraudoux, Jean, The Trojan War Will Not Take Place,
act ii, sc. 3 (1935)
We all know here that the law is the most powerful of schools for the
imagination. No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer
interprets the truth.
Goldin, H. E., Dictionary of American
Underworld Lingo (1950)
The lip (lawyer) took a hundred skins (dollars) and never showed (appeared)
in court.
Goldsmith, William, The Good-Natured Man, Act iii (1768)
Lawyers are always more ready to get a man into troubles than out of
them.
Herbert, George, Jacula Prudentum (1640)
Lawyers houses are built on the heads of fools. (also French,
Spanish and Italian proverb)
Holyday, Barton, Technogamia, Act ii, sce. 5 (1618)
A man might as well open an oyster without a knife as a lawyer's mouth
without a fee.
Horn, Andrew, The Mirror of Justices (14th century
English)
Women, serfs, those under the age of twenty-one, open lepers, idiots,
attorneys, lunatics, deaf mutes, those excommunicated by a bishop and criminal
persons are inelegible for appointment to the bench.
Hubbard, Elbert, Contemplations (1902)
Lawyers are men whom we hire to protect us from lawyers.
-----The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (1923)
Lawyer: 1. A person who takes this from that, with the
result that That hath not where to lay his head. 2. An unnecessary
evil. 3. The only man in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.
"Junius", Letters (1820)
Instances..of genius and morality united in a lawyer..are distinguished
by their singularity.
Kerr, Jean, Time Magazine, Arpil 14, 1969
A lawyer is never entirely comfortable with a friendly divorce, anymore
than a good mortician wants to finish his job and then have the patient
sit up on the table.
King, Alexander, Rich Man, Poor Man, Freud and Fruit:
Advice to Amorous Ladies, (1965)
There is a general prejudice to the effect that lawyers are more honourable
then politicians but less honourable than prostitutes. That is an
exaggeration.
Lamb, Charles, The Old Benchers of Middle Temple (1823)
Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.
Lexicon balatronicum : a dictionary of buckish slang, university
wit, and pickpocket eloquence (1811)
Sea Lawyer -- a shark
London Review, November 8, 1862
There is, however, one subject which Mr. Trollope pursues with unremitting
zeal. He cannot bear a lawyer. They are all rogues, not by nature, but
by profession.
Lumholtz, Carl, Among Cannibals : account of four years travels
in Australia and of camp life with the Aborigines of Queensland (1890)
The stem and leaves are studded with the sharpest thorns, which continually
cling to you and draw blood, hence its not very polite name of lawyer-palm.
Mencken, H. L., "Sententiae", A Mencken Chrestomathy
(1916)
Judge - A law student who marks his own examination papers.
Mexican curse
May your life be filled with lawyers.
More, Sir Thomas, Utopia, bk. 2 (1516)
Furthermore they utterly exclude and banish all attorneys, proctors,
and sergeants at the law; which craftily handle matters, and subtly dispute
of the laws.
As for lawyers, a class of men whose trade it is to manipulate cases
and multiply quibbles, they wouldn't have them in the country.
O'Neil, Paul, Life Magazine, June 22, 1959
A criminal lawyer, like a trapeze performer, is seldom more than one
slip from an awful fall. [speaking of criminal defense lawyer Edward Bennett
Williams]
Packard, Edward, Jr., Columbia Forum, Spring 1967
Law students are trained in the case method, and to the lawyer everything
in life looks like a case.
Punch, 1847
He fareth best who loveth best
All fees both great and small
For the Bench declare that etiquette
Of the Bar is "pocket All".
Rogers, Will, The Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949)
The banker, the lawyer, and the politician are still our best bets
for a laugh. Audiences haven't changed at all, and neither has the
three above professions.
"The Lawyers Talking" in Will Rogers Weekly Articles (1935,
1982)
The minute you read something and you can't understand it, you can
be sure it was written by a lawyer. Then, if you give it to another
lawyer to read and he don't know just what it means, then you can be sure
it was drawn up by a lawyer. If its in a few words and is plain,
and understandable only one way, it was written by a non-lawyer.
Every time a lawyer writes something, he is not writing for posterity.
He is writing so endless others of his craft can make a living out of trying
to figure out what he said. Course perhaps he hadn't really said
anything, that's what makes it hard to explain.
-----"Opinion of Will Rogers on the Legal Conscience", in Will
Rogers' Daily Telegrams (1927, 1978)
Personally I don't think you can make a lawyer honest by an act of
the Legislature. You've got to work on his conscience. And
his lack of conscience is what makes him a lawyer.
Sandburg, Carl, Chicago Poems, "Soiled Dove" (1916)
Let us be honest; the lady was not a harlot until she married a corporation
lawyer who picked her from a Ziegfeld chorus.
-----Cornhuskers , "Lawyer" (1918)
A lawyer for the defense clears his throat and holds himself ready
if the word is “Guilty” to enter
motion for a new trial, speaking in a soft voice, speaking in a voice
slightly colored with bitter
wrongs mingled with monumental patience, speaking with mythic Atlas
shoulders of many
preposterous, unjust circumstances.
Silius, Gaius, in Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome
If no one paid a fee for lawsuits, there would be less of them!
As it is, feuds, charges, malevolence and slander are encouraged.
For just as physical illness brings revenue to doctors, so a diseased legal
system entices advocates.
Sleeper, Ann in Roth and Roth, Devil's Advocates:
The Unnatural History of Lawyers (1989)
The startling thing is that lawyers don't seem to like to laugh at
themselves, or even get mildly amused about their profession.
Smyth, William Henry, Sailor's Word-book, (1867)
Sea-lawyer -- an idle litigious 'long-shorer, more given to question
orders than to obey them. One of the pests of the navy as well as of the
mercantile marine.
Sporting Magazine (1794)
A water-lawyer, or, in plainer terms a shark was caught last month
near Workington.
Sullivan, Brendan, Iran Contra hearings, July 9, 1987
I’m not a potted plant. I’m here as the lawyer. That’s my job. [on
being told to allow his client Lt Col Oliver L North to object for himself
if he wished to do so]
Tacitus, Gaius Cornelius, The Annals of Imperial Rome
No commodity was so publicy for sale as the perfidy of lawyers.
Twain, Mark, The Gilded Age (1873)
There is no display of human ingenuity, wit, and power, so fascinating
as that made by trained lawyers in the trial of an important case, nowhere
else is exhibited such subtlety, acumen, address, eloquence.
Veeck, Bill, The Hustler's Handbook (1965)
Next to the confrontation between two highly trained, finely honed
batteries of lawyers, jungle warfare is a stately minuet.
-----Thirty Tons a Day (1972)
Greed vs. greed makes for the kind of lawsuits that are settled between
the lawyers as soon as both sides decide to take what they can get.
Principle vs. principle is a holy war, and no holy war has ever been settled
out of court.
Verres, Gaius, (governor of Sicily, 114-50 B.C.) , in Cicero,
Against
Verres I.14.40
What I steal the first year goes to increase my own fortune, but the
profits of the second year go to lawyers and defense counsels, and the
whole of the third year's take, the largest, is reserved for judges.
Waites, Tom
There's a leak, there's a leak, in the boiler room / The poor, the
lame, the blind / Who are the ones that we kept in charge? / Killers, thieves,
and lawyers / God's away, God's away, God's away / On business, business
/ God's away, God's away, God's away / on business.
"God's Away on Business" on Blood Money, 2002
There are a few things I never could believe / A woman when she weeps
/ A merchant when he swears / A thief who says he'll pay / A lawyer when
he cares / A snake when he is sleeping / A drunkard when he prays.
"Everything Goes to Hell" on Blood Money, 2002
Everybody knows that the game was rigged / Justice wears suspenders
and a powdered wig.
"Sins of the Father" on Real Gone, 2004
Washington Post, March 25, 1977
President Carter has made it clear that he understands how complex
the income tax laws are. To head IRS, he has picked a Philadelphia lawyer.
Wesley, John, Journal, Oct. 1, 1764
I breakfasted..with Mr. B, a black swan, an honest lawyer!
Wilson, John, The Cheats, act 1, sc. iv (1664)
A modest lawyer! - A silent woman! - A paradox in nature.
Wilson,Thomas, The Art of Rhetorique (1553)
The lawyer never dieth a begger. The lawyer can never want a livyng
till the yearth want men.
Wycherley, William, The Plain Dealer (1677)
I shall no more mind you, than a hungry judges does a cause, after
the clock has struck one.
A man without money needs no more fear a crowd of lawyers than a crowd
of pickpockets.
Zevon, Warren, "Lawyers, Guns and Money (1978)
Send lawyers, guns and money; the shit has hit the fan.
==============================
Secondary Sources:
Carruth, Gorton and Ehrlich, Eugene, The Harper Book of American Quotations,
N.Y.: Harper, 1988
Gerhart, Eugene, Quote It Completely, N.Y., Hein, 1998
Horning, Jane E., The Mystery Lover's Book of Quotations, N.Y., Mysterious
Press, 1988
Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com
The MacMillan Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Famous Phrases, N.Y.: Collier
MacMillan Publishing, 1987
Mieder, Wolfgang, Dictionary of American Proverbs, N.Y.: Oxford University
Press, 1992
Nowlan, Robert and Gwendolyn, Film Quotations, Jefferson, N.C: McFarland,
1994
Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., N.Y., Oxford University Press,
1989
Roth, Andrew and Jonathan, Devil's Advocates: The Unnatural History
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© Marlyn Robinson, University of Texas School of Law