LAWYER QUOTES
quotations about lawyers
Good lawyers know the law. Great lawyers know the judge.
ANONYMOUS
How many lawyer jokes are there? One, the rest are true stories.
THOMAS F. SHUBNELL
Greatest Jokes of the Century
Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
BIBLE
Luke 11:52
There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dishonest. I say vague, because when we consider to what extent confidence and honors are reposed in and conferred upon lawyers by the people, it appears improbable that their impression of dishonesty is very distinct and vivid. Yet the impression is common, almost universal. Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief. Resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
memorandum for law lecture, 1850
Lawyers are men who will swear black is white--if they are paid for it.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Lawyers are the foot soldiers of our Constitution.
RENNARD STRICKLAND & FRANK T. READ
The Lawyer Myth
Lawyers have a way of seeing that sets them apart from the rest of us. In some way this special vision makes them invaluable, and in other ways, repulsive. Lawyers are much more focused on rational, logical, and objective criteria to the exclusion of the emotional, subjective, and sometimes irrational responses to the world. Moreover, lawyers like to show no emotion, and possess a particular disdain for the emotions that are found in others, which has the quality of making them seem inhuman.
THANE ROSENBAUM
The Myth of Moral Justice
Where there's a will, there's a lawyer.
ROBERT ELLIOTT GONZALES
Poems and Paragraphs
If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, Aug. 15, 1773
Lawyers are merchants of misery.
NANCY LEVIT & DOUGLAS O. LINDER
The Happy Lawyer
Lawyers are operators of toll bridges which anyone in search of justice must pass.
JANE BRYANT QUINN
attributed, The Lawyer Myth
Why are scientists now using lawyers in laboratory experiments instead of rats? Three reasons: (1) lawyers are more plentiful than rats, (2) there is no danger the scientists will become attached to the lawyers, and (3) there are some things rats just won't do.
GERRY SPENCE
Bloodthirsty Bitches and Pious Pimps of Power
It is in the habits of lawyers that every accusation appears insufficient if they do not exaggerate it even to calumny; it is thus that justice itself loses its sanctity and its respect amongst men.
LAMARTINE
attributed, Day's Collacon
At the most pragmatic level, lawyers are society's professional problem solvers. Lawyers are called upon to make distinctions, to explain how and why cases or experiences are alike or different. Lawyers are expected to restore equilibrium, to be balancers. Every discipline, every profession, every job, and every calling has a cutting edge. At that cutting edge, lines are drawn. Lawyers and judges are society's ultimate line drawers. On one side of the line, the conduct, action, or inaction is proper; on the other side of the line, it is not.
RENNARD STRICKLAND & FRANK T. READ
The Lawyer Myth
It is the lawyers who run our civilization for us -- our governments, our business, our private lives. Most legislators are lawyers; they make our laws. Most presidents, governors, commissioners, along with their advisers and brain-trusters are lawyers; they administer our laws. All the judges are lawyers; they interpret and enforce our laws. There is no separation of powers where the lawyers are concerned. There is only a concentration of all government power -- in the lawyers.
FRED RODELL
Woe Unto You, Lawyers
A lawyer is a gentleman that rescues your estate from your enemies and then keeps it to himself.
HENRY P. BROUGHAM
attributed, "The Fundamental Dilemma of Lawyering"
A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.
MARIO PUZO
The Godfather
Most people ask questions because they want to know the answer; lawyers are trained never to ask questions unless they already know the answer.
LANI GUINIER
Becoming Gentlemen
If there were no bad people there would be no good lawyers.
CHARLES DICKENS
The Old Curiosity Shop
Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.
JEREMY BENTHAM
The Canadian Bar Journal, Jun. 1966