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Lawyers Quotes

Browse 103 quotes about Lawyers.

Lawyers Quotes

“Like Paddy Moran says about being a divorce lawyer: "Clients call us at their darkest hour. Whether they want out or their spouse does, they're angry, hurt and anxious or just plain vindictive. We become their new best friends. At some point, it's over, and it's like we never existed. Bye-bye, best friends. Usually, they never want to hear from us again.”

“I believe that there is something in all of us that is seeking expression, that wants to be heard, that wants to be accepted and respected and loved. We each express ourselves in different ways - through manipulation or domination, through receiving and giving pain, through crying, through loving, through giving hope and inspiration to others. We are all seeking the same thing - expression of who we are and what we want from this life.”

“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.”

“Díjele que entre nosotros existía una sociedad de hombres educados desde su juventud en el arte de probar con palabras multiplicadas al efecto que lo blanco es negro y lo negro es blanco, según para lo que se les paga. El resto de las gentes son esclavas de esta sociedad. Por ejemplo: si mi vecino quiere mi vaca, asalaria un abogado que pruebe que debe quitarme la vaca. Entonces yo tengo que asalariar otro para que defienda mi derecho, pues va contra todas las reglas de la ley que se permita a nadie hablar por si mismo. Ahora bien; en este caso, yo, que soy el propietario legítimo, tengo dos desventajas. La primera es que, como mi abogado se ha ejercitado casi desde su cuna en defender la falsedad, cuando quiere abogar por la justicia -oficio que no le es natural- lo hace siempre con gran torpeza, si no con mala fe. La segunda desventaja es que mi abogado debe proceder con gran precaución, pues de otro modo le reprenderán los jueces y le aborrecerán sus colegas, como a quien degrada el ejercicio de la ley. No tengo, pues, sino dos medios para defender mi vaca. El primero es ganarme al abogado de mi adversario con un estipendio doble, que le haga traicionar a su cliente insinuando que la justicia está de su parte. El segundo procedimiento es que mi abogado dé a mi causa tanta apariencia de injusticia como le sea posible, reconociendo que la vaca pertenece a mi adversario; y esto, si se hace diestramente, conquistará sin duda, el favor del tribunal. Ahora debe saber su señoría que estos jueces son las personas designadas para decidir en todos los litigios sobre propiedad, así como para entender en todas las acusaciones contra criminales, y que se los saca de entre los abogados más hábiles cuando se han hecho viejos o perezosos; y como durante toda su vida se han inclinado en contra de la verdad y de la equidad, es para ellos tan necesario favorecer el fraude, el perjurio y la vejación, que yo he sabido de varios que prefirieron rechazar un pingüe soborno de la parte a que asistía la justicia a injuriar a la Facultad haciendo cosa impropia de la naturaleza de su oficio. Es máxima entre estos abogados que cualquier cosa que se haya hecho ya antes puede volver a hacerse legalmente, y, por lo tanto, tienen cuidado especial en guardar memoria de todas las determinaciones anteriormente tomadas contra la justicia común y contra la razón corriente de la Humanidad. Las exhiben, bajo el nombre de precedentes, como autoridades para justificar las opiniones más inicuas, y los jueces no dejan nunca de fallar de conformidad con ellas. Cuando defienden una causa evitan diligentemente todo lo que sea entrar en los fundamentos de ella; pero se detienen, alborotadores, violentos y fatigosos, sobre todas las circunstancias que no hacen al caso. En el antes mencionado, por ejemplo, no procurarán nunca averiguar qué derechos o títulos tiene mi adversario sobre mi vaca; pero discutirán si dicha vaca es colorada o negra, si tiene los cuernos largos o cortos, si el campo donde la llevo a pastar es redondo o cuadrado, si se la ordeña dentro o fuera de casa, a qué enfermedades está sujeta y otros puntos análogos. Después de lo cual consultarán precedentes, aplazarán la causa una vez y otra, y a los diez, o los veinte, o los treinta años, se llegará a la conclusión. Asimismo debe consignarse que esta sociedad tiene una jerigonza y jerga particular para su uso, que ninguno de los demás mortales puede entender, y en la cual están escritas todas las leyes, que los abogados se cuidan muy especialmente de multiplicar. Con lo que han conseguido confundir totalmente la esencia misma de la verdad y la mentira, la razón y la sinrazón, de tal modo que se tardará treinta años en decidir si el campo que me han dejado mis antecesores de seis generaciones me pertenece a mí o pertenece a un extraño que está a trescientas millas de distancia.”

“On social barriers, VJ Simon, the Indian-Jewish venture capitalist in The Best People observed: "Some of those rich and powerful people I met risked a few dollars with me. They only risked money. They didn't risk their social status. We never met at one of their clubs. We had lunch at Elegante. I thought of it as the five o' clock curtain.”

“By 'Perry Mason moment,' I mean that climactic instant during a trial when you have just done something fantastic and everyone in the courtroom knows it. Your brilliant question or some stunning admission you coerced from a witness has left the opposing lawyer reeling, his mouth agape, and jurors amazed and entertained. The case is won; the rest of the trial is a formality. Your friends and colleagues are itching to congratulate you as soon as a recess is called. Only a supreme effort of will on your part, coupled with the knowledge that the judge and jurors are watching, keeps you from high-fiving everyone in sight.”

“You want a story? Fine I'll tell you a story. a true story. Back in 2009. A lot of things were going wrong in 2009… I would go to a room to talk to lawyers about various employers not paying their people enough money. Different thoughts would run through my head. For instance, why, instead of just paying people their wages (it’s not that hard, minimum wage plus overtime where applicable) is this business paying a ridiculous lawyer to come and try to bullshit me… or something. A few years later a different thought would pop in my mind from time to time. Why would the United states federal government hire a hardcore alcoholic like myself (thanks to the University of Michigan) to enforce these Labor laws and run around with a badge and stuff. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one.”

“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.”

“Lawmakers, who rarely have an insight of a truly progressive and civilized society, decide on the perimeters of law based on their biases and knacks, and rarely on actual scientific evidence. It's like asking the blind to show the path. So, for law to be of actual use in the society at our current evolutionary stage, it must be cooked in the vessel of scientific findings with the fire of reasoning and compassion.”

“No one 'just adopts'.”

“Sheriff Jake Bonnel is a no-nonsense man. I agree that his ways are rather harsh, but I don't see that changing. He does not cotton to this new way...lawyers and laws protecting criminals. Before things began to change out here, we hung criminals in short order. Now we find this way and that to keep them alive. We made rights for outlaws when they should have lost all rights except due process of a fair trial. I'm a judge, and I wonder to myself now and then, what have we done? I fear we will one day have passed so many laws that it will be a crime to try the vilest of criminals.”

“If no one had an army, armies would not be needed. But the same can be said of most lobbyists, PR specialists, telemarketers, and corporate lawyers. Also, like literal goons, they have a largely negative impact on society. I think almost anyone would concur that, were all telemarketers to disappear, the world would be a better place. But I think most would also agree that if all corporate lawyers, bank lobbyists, or marketing gurus were to similarly vanish in a puff of smoke, the world would be at least a little bit more bearable.”

“Specialists in information technology are the new lawyers. Long ago, lawyers realized that they could make themselves culturally essential if they made the vernacular of contracts too complex for anyone to understand except themselves. They made the language of contracts unreadable on purpose. (Easy example: I can write a book, and my editor can edit a book . . . but neither one of us can read and understand the contract that allows those things to happen.) IT workers became similarly unstoppable the moment they realized virtually every machine powering the modern world is too complicated for the average person to fix or calibrate. And they know this. This is what makes an IT guy different from you. He might make less money, he might have less social prestige, and people might look at him in the cafeteria like he’s a nitpick—but he can act however he wants. He can be nice, but only if he feels like it. He can ignore the company dress code. He can lie for no reason whatsoever (because how would anyone understand what he’s lying about). He can smoke weed at lunch, because he’ll still understand your iMac better than you. It doesn’t matter how he behaves: The IT department dominates technology, and technology dominates the rest of us. And this state of being creates a new kind of personality. It creates someone like Kim Dotcom, a man who’s essentially an IT guy for the entire planet.”

“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.”

“It's kind of funny to me listening to [prosecutors] 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.”

“The other amazing thing about prosecution that prosecutors don't realize while they are in the job is the time they have available to them as opposed to lawyers in the private practice of law. Prosecutors have an incredible amount of time to sit with one another around their offices and talk. Talk about war stories. Talk about this or that cop. Talk about the case. That's what floored me the most when I got out of it - how much free time I'd had and didn't realize it.”

“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 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.”

“We are learning that through striving for justice, tears and laughter, seem more dynamic and shared as each step is taken with communal courage together. Record a legacy, they truly lived, not once stepped back on the path that beckoned. I am proud of my partner, of my family, of our friends. We have learned to value the quiet patience of gentle support both, unspoken and felt, heard and embraced. And if we seem cryptic in message at times, we wish to lift to the world the cause as artists, using the language of our nature and craft, to address the twisted currents of current laws and corruption, where ears are dulled from light by agendas, that the beauty of Art may be expressed in the reclaiming of itself, from the wreckage of the court system mired with soiled attorney and tainted judge. Colors to where there is grey, to lift the hues cast in cast iron graves, stamped Summary Judgement, with no judgement applied. So together we formulate, and forge what is possible, while tear stains cheek, falling upon lighted smile, in thought of our loved ones, that keeps our current path clear.”

“In answer to which, I assured his honor that in all points out of their [lawyers'] own trade, they were usually the most ignorant and stupid generation among us, the most despicable in common conversation, avowed enemies to all knowledge and learning; and equally disposed to pervert the general reason of mankind, in every other subject of discourse as in that of their own profession.”

“THE ORGANIC FOODS MYTH A few decades ago, a woman tried to sue a butter company that had printed the word 'LITE' on its product's packaging. She claimed to have gained so much weight from eating the butter, even though it was labeled as being 'LITE'. In court, the lawyer representing the butter company simply held up the container of butter and said to the judge, "My client did not lie. The container is indeed 'light in weight'. The woman lost the case. In a marketing class in college, we were assigned this case study to show us that 'puffery' is legal. This means that you can deceptively use words with double meanings to sell a product, even though they could mislead customers into thinking your words mean something different. I am using this example to touch upon the myth of organic foods. If I was a lawyer representing a company that had labeled its oranges as being organic, and a man was suing my client because he found out that the oranges were being sprayed with toxins, my defense opening statement would be very simple: "If it's not plastic or metallic, it's organic." Most products labeled as being organic are not really organic. This is the truth. You pay premium prices for products you think are grown without chemicals, but most products are. If an apple is labeled as being organic, it could mean two things. Either the apple tree itself is free from chemicals, or just the soil. One or the other, but rarely both. The truth is, the word 'organic' can mean many things, and taking a farmer to court would be difficult if you found out his fruits were indeed sprayed with pesticides. After all, all organisms on earth are scientifically labeled as being organic, unless they are made of plastic or metal. The word 'organic' comes from the word 'organism', meaning something that is, or once was, living and breathing air, water and sunlight. So, the next time you stroll through your local supermarket and see brown pears that are labeled as being organic, know that they could have been third-rate fare sourced from the last day of a weekend market, and have been re-labeled to be sold to a gullible crowd for a premium price. I have a friend who thinks that organic foods have to look beat up and deformed because the use of chemicals is what makes them look perfect and flawless. This is not true. Chemical-free foods can look perfect if grown in your backyard. If you go to jungles or forests untouched by man, you will see fruit and vegetables that look like they sprouted from trees from Heaven. So be cautious the next time you buy anything labeled as 'organic'. Unless you personally know the farmer or the company selling the products, don't trust what you read. You, me, and everything on land and sea are organic. Suzy Kassem, Truth Is Crying”