LAWYER QUOTES IV
quotations about lawyers
A lawyer is an odd sort of fish, first rotten, then green, then ripe.
ROBERT CHRISTY
Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases
There were lawyers who promoted quarrels to get fees. But they were the pariahs of the profession. The best lawyers were peacemakers, and though, of necessity, professional partisans when engaged in litigation, they were generally honorable partisans.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
No group has a greater responsibility today in helping maintain our free institutions of society than the lawyer. In fact, being a man of the law, he is uniquely equipped through training, outlook and experience to be a leader of his fellow citizens. American history confirms his tremendous contribution--helping draw up the basic documentation of our freedom, serving as a leader in local, state and national government, participating in the affairs of community life. At this hour, America especially needs the leadership of the lawyer. The moral fabric of our Nation is badly torn. Disrespect for law and order is widespread. The very principles of free government are being scorned and perverted. Flouting the law has almost become a hobby for some individuals.
J. EDGAR HOOVER
Texas Bar Journal, Feb. 22, 1964
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
The Myth of Moral Justice
Successful trial lawyers are like heat-seeking missiles carrying payloads of information prejudicial to their opponent's case, constantly looking for the chance to unload their cargo, right up until the final moments of trial.
DAVID BERG
The Trial Lawyer
[The Utopians] have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws, and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause, and trust it to the judge, as in other places the client trusts it to a counsellor; by this means they both cut off many delays and find out truth more certainly; for after the parties have laid open the merits of the cause, without those artifices which lawyers are apt to suggest, the judge examines the whole matter, and supports the simplicity of such well-meaning persons, whom otherwise crafty men would be sure to run down; and thus they avoid those evils which appear very remarkably among all those nations that labour under a vast load of laws.
SIR THOMAS MORE
Utopia
I cannot believe that a republic could subsist if the influence of the lawyers in public business did not increase in proportion to the power of the people.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
Democracy in America
Lawyers are like that famous vampire-bat, said to exist in Hungary, which seizes on a creature, and never lets go while there is blood left.
WALTER BESANT
Dorothy Forster
Lawyers are like rabbits. They have a nasty habit of multiplying.
LEO REILLY
How to Outnegotiate Anyone
Lawyers are in the business of advocacy, not judgment.
ALLAN C. HUTCHINSON
Is Killing People Right?
If you cannot avoid a quarrel with a blackguard, let your lawyer manage it, rather than yourself. No man sweeps his own chimney, but employs a chimney-sweeper, who has no objection to dirty work, because it is his trade.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
As to the essentials of a good lawyer, I have some very definite convictions. He should have a keen sense of right and wrong and a firm belief in basic moral values. I would hate to trust the welfare or protection of the life or property of any of my clients to a lawyer who had no respect for moral values, or one who had a callous indifference as to what was basically right and wrong.
JOSEPH T. KARCHER
New Jersey Lawyer, Nov. 1986
Lawyers are like wine--you can pay a lot of money for a fancy bottle that tastes like vinegar, or you can find a good deal that fits your budget and your palate alike.
KAREN A. COVY
When Happily Ever After Ends
It is an ill cause that the lawyer thinks shame o'.
JOHN RAY
A Complete Collection of English Proverbs
Lawyers are fleas on the hide of human nature.
STEPHEN KING
"1922", Full Dark, No Stars
Jury--Twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
LENORA OLIVER
Herald, 1938
Lawyers are ideological enemies of informal justice.
RICHARD L. ABEL
Lawyers in Society
Lawyers generally know too much of law to have a very clear perception of justice.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.
WILL ROGERS
"Helping the Girls with Their Income Taxes", The Illiterate Digest
Some lawyers are like unto the camel, which, before drinking out of a brook, maketh the water turbid with his foot.
ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD
"Abraham a Sancta Clara", Collected Papers