My anti-authoritarian instincts let me directly to criminal defense work.

I would never take a case that had to do with abusing children. They're the true innocents. All of the rest of us, we have smears and stains, but they're helpless. I couldn't add my talent, which is prodigious, to a defense of someone even accused of hurting a child. I would never defend a cop - though I did on a few private cases, when cops were acting not as cops but as private citizens. Other than that, I represented everybody who came by.

There's a lot of active radical thought today but not much action.

I spoke in front of a huge gathering in Seattle, and someone got up and said, "I'm just so afraid." I said, "The only way not to be afraid is to join with other people who are also afraid."

I'm particularly committed to the political people who needed defense. I understand that they're fighting a bigger war than just, "Let me go get some money for cocaine tonight."

You're working not for the corporate interest, not for the government interest, not for your own self-interest. You have a higher calling.

You know that question: What do you do when you think the client's guilty? The real question is: What you do when you think a client's innocent?