Quotes About Lawyers

The ethical practices of lawyers are probably no worse than those of other professions. Lawyers bring some of the trouble on by claiming in a sanctimonious way that they are interested only in justice, not power or wealth. They also suffer guilt by association. Their clients are often people in trouble. Saints need no lawyers: gangsters do.

American government is not dominated by engineers, it is dominated by lawyers. Engineers are interested in substance and building things; lawyers are interested in process and rights and getting the ideology correctly blended. And so there is sort of no really concrete plan for the future.

Some people are saying there's going to be a third World War. I hope not. I really think this is a time that people can start to mend things by negotiations, dealings. We know about dealings, don't we? We have brilliant lawyers. Why don't we have brilliant lawyers standing up and working for peace?

The billable hours is a classic case of restricted autonomy. I mean, you're working on - I mean, sometimes on these six-minute increments. So you're not focused on doing a good job. You're focused on hitting your numbers. It's one reason why lawyers typically are so unhappy. And I want a world of happy lawyers.

The public regards lawyers with great distrust. They think lawyers are smarter than the average guy but use their intelligence deviously. Well, they're wrong. Usually they are not smarter.

Want to know where the action in a culture is? Watch where new language is turning up and where the lawyers collect, usually in that sequence.

For hundreds of years the use of the word 'man' has troubled critical scholars, careful translators, and lawyers. Difficulties occur whenever and wherever it is important for truth-seeking purposes to know what is being talked about and the context gives no intimation whether 'man' means just a human being irrespective of sex or means a masculine being and none other.

In recent years personal injury attorneys and trial lawyers have attacked the food industry with numerous lawsuits alleging that these businesses should pay monetary damages to those who, of their own accord, consume too much of a legal, safe product.

I think that the difference between The Sopranos and the shows that came before it was that it was really personal. There had been a lot of dramas, a lot of really good ones, a lot of really bad ones, but they were always franchise shows about cops, or doctors, or lawyers. They weren't about the writer himself.

All the libel lawyers will tell you there's no libel any more, that everyone's given up.

There is more to American politics than fat cats and their political friends. There are serious-minded liberals who fight the good fight on many issues, ecologically oriented politicians who remain true to their cause, and honest people of every political stripe who are not beholden to any wealthy people. But there are not enough of them, and they are often worn down by the constant pressure from lobbyists, lawyers and conventional politicians.

It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors.

One minute I'm robbing a dope house. Next minute I'm the youngest heavyweight champion of the world. I'm only 20, 19, with a lot of money. Who am I? What am I? I don't even know who I am. I'm just a dumb child who's being abused and robbed by lawyers. I'm just a dumb pugnacious fool. I'm just a fool who thinks he's someone. Then you tell me I should be responsible.

Tell me a boat full of lawyers just sank.

My father and his brothers were all lawyers, so I think that the expectation was probably for me to grow up to be an attorney, but it never really fascinated me that much. I was more interested in building things.

Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise, in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

In the old days all you needed was a handshake. Nowadays you need forty lawyers.

No other profession is subject to the public contempt and derision that sometimes befalls lawyers. the bitter fruit of public incomprehension of the law itself and its dynamics.

It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.

I don't know why his lawyers didn't tell him, 'You don't have to answer any questions about your private life, Mr. President. Let them sue you. Take the heat. You don't have to answer.'

To put it another way, every love relationship is based upon unwritten conventions rashly agreed upon by the lovers during the first weeks of their love. On the one hand, they are living a sort of dream; on the other, without realizing it, they are drawing up the fine print of their contracts like the most hard-nosed of lawyers. O lovers! Be wary during those perilous first days! If you serve the other party breakfast in bed, you will be obliged to continue same in perpetuity or face charges of animosity and treason!

I would've liked to have been a better businessman when I was younger. And of course, I couldn't, because it wasn't part of my atmosphere. I never lived with accountants, I never lived with lawyers.

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.

Now Barack Obama, who campaigned for transparency, is the President defending secret negotiations on new trade agreements that are largely being written by corporate lawyers and lobbyists. He would give corporations the key to the treasury while he gets the authority to fast track another hammering of working people and the environment. Yet the only people who get a real tongue-lashing from this President's White House are progressives around town who dare to call him on the carpet for abandoning his promises.

Lawyers like to leave no stone unturned, provided they can charge by the stone.

Palestine needs earth, but it does not need lawyers.

I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers.

I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals: for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Counsellor Such-a-one, and Judge Such-a-one: so with physicians - I will not speak of my own trade - soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth. This is the system upon which I have governed myself many years, but do not tell.

Emotional truths woven by lawyers in the court of law are apparently more important than the truths of actual events. I have grown to fear for those whose innocence became trapped within the legal system.

Freud pointed out, in his Problem of Lay Analysis, that it is extremely unlikely that a young man who would throw the best years of his life into the cloistered drudgery of getting an M.D. degree, could possibly make a good psychoanalyst; so he preferred to look for young analysts among the writers, the lawyers, the mothers of families, those who had chosen human contact. But in their economic wisdom, the Psychoanalytic Institute of Vienna (and New York) overruled him.

There may be said to be three sorts of lawyers, able, unable, and lamentable.

In the courtroom, it's where a lawyer really becomes an actor. There's a very fine line between delivering a monologue in a play and delivering a monologue to a jury. I've always felt that way - I've been in a lot of courtrooms. The best lawyers are really theatrical.

I was very much a child of the 1960s. I protested the Vietnam War and grew up in a fairly politicized home. My father was like a cross between William Kunstler and Zorba the Greek. I grew up among left-wing lawyers.

They let out on hire their passions and eloquence. [Referring to lawyers.]

I think, though, that we need to be armed with the critical thinking skills that lawyers and scientists and journalists such as yourself have. We all need to have those as we make our way through the day. And they're not that hard to acquire.

In I'm Not A Racist, But..., Lawrence Blum offers answers for our time about what race is, who is a racist, and ways for people to talk about the racialized features of our society without falling into name-calling or defensiveness. With exemplary moral and analytic clarity, Blum offers educators, students, lawyers, judges, leaders, and citizens tools for building a nation of equality, comity, and respect for each person.

Tell the trial lawyers to get out of your state and to quit costing businessmen and women.

Lawyers on TV always tell their clients not to say anything. The cops say that thing: 'Anything you say will be used against you.' Self-incrimination. I looked it up. Three-point vocab word. So why does everyone makes such a big hairy deal about me not talking? Maybe I don't want to incriminate myself. Maybe I don't like the sound of my voice. Maybe I don't have anything to say.

Today, lawyers are attacking more; they're attacking everything. A good example is the O.J. Simpson case.

Some people think about sex all the time; some people think of sex some of the time; and some people never think about sex: they become lawyers.

Jewish people, we don't need the money. We're doctors and lawyers. It's the Christians who can't hold a steady job and have to go on TV and ask for money.

I don't want to create responsible shows with lawyers in them. I want to invade people's dreams.

We educated, privileged lawyers have a professional and moral duty to represent the underrepresented in our society, to ensure that justice exists for all, both legal and economic justice.

It is a maxim of cryptology that what one man can devise, another can unravel. This principle keeps armies of tax lawyers and accountants employed, but adds nothing to our national productivity.

With a face like this, there aren't a lot of lawyers or priest roles coming my way. I've gotta face that was meant for a mug shot and that's what I've been doing for the past thirty years. If I play a cop, it's always a racist cop, or a trigger-happy cop or a crooked cop - but by and large I play cowboys, bikers, and convicts.

I think functioning as a business manager can be a hindrance to having a real dialogue with the artist. I do think that artists need good lawyers and accountants, because they're dealing with serious money. But an artist who stands behind a manager? That's a little different. I think that can be a bad buffer.

I am not one to generalize, but cartoonists, as a group, exhibit a level of social sophistication generally associated with pie fights. In high school, when the future lawyers were campaigning for class president, the future cartoonists were painstakingly altering illustrations in their history books so that Robert E. Lee appeared to be performing an illegal act with his horse.

In the 1970s, Washington women lawyers were getting organized. Grouping together gave us courage. And we overcame.