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.

The only way not to be afraid is to join with other people who are also afraid.

If you make a mistake as a prosecutor, your mistakes go home, whereas if you make a mistake defending, they go to jail.

I took anything that came across my doorstep. I started getting a reputation.

I got a job as a children's librarian at PS 175 in Harlem, and that changed everything. That was an epiphany. I didn't know Harlem existed. I didn't know there was such a place, because I grew up in white Queens, where five miles is 100 miles.

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.

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.