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Lawyers
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“... I wonder if we shall ever make a lawyer of you. Don't you know that our first duty is to make things easy for our clients, who are always right, except when they come in conflict with ourselves?”
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“The lawyer hummed and hawed, not because he had any real objections but because it is a lawyer's business to consider remote contingencies, and a straightforward agreement to anything would be wildly unprofessional.”
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“When a man had been a counsel in the criminal courts as long as Kevin had, his mind had only points of view, not convictions any more.”
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“It took man thousands of years to put words down on paper, and his lawyers still wish he wouldn't.”
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“'That is difficult to say exactly,' said Mr. Kirkwood, enjoying, like all lawyers, making the reply to a simple question difficult.”
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“... lawyers never go to law, do they? They know better.”
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“Lawyers make their cake by cooking up other people's troubles.”
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“Lawyers enjoy a little mystery, you know. Why, if everybody came forward and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth straight out, we should all retire to the workhouse.”
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“Lawyers' work required sharp brains, strong vocal chords, and an iron butt.”
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“... lawyers are like morticians — we all need one sooner or later, but better later than sooner.”
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“Besides, you want the unvarnished and ungarnished truth, and I'm no hand for that. I'm a lawyer.”
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“I never saw a lawyer yet who would admit he was making money.”
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“Them lawyers is no better than a sponge for sucking up money.”
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“I had always been so much taken with the way all English people I knew always were going to see their lawyer. Even if they have no income and do not earn anything they always have a lawyer.”
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“Lawyers [are] operators of the toll bridge across which anyone in search of justice has to pass.”
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“Buy a friend; hire a lawyer.”
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“Such poor folk as to law do go, / are driven oft to curse: / But in mean while, the Lawyer thrives / the money in his purse.”
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“If he knew anything, he wouldn't say it until he checked it out for possible libel suits. He thinks in small print.”
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“I do believe that half a dozen commonplace attorneys could so mystify and misconstrue the Ten Commandments, and so confuse Moses' surroundings on Mount Sinai, that the great law-giver, if he returned to this planet, would doubt his own identity, abjure every one of his deliverances, yea, even commend the very sins he so clearly forbade his people.”
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“... we hear of those to whom a lawsuit is an agreeable relaxation, a gentle excitement. One of this class, when remonstrated with, retorted, that while one friend kept dogs, and another horses, he, as he had a right to do, kept a lawyer; and no one had a right to dispute his taste.”
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“... those learned in the law, when they do give advice without the usual fee, and in the confidence of friendship, generally say, 'Pay, pay anything rather than go to law;' ...”
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“McIllvaine, a trial veteran, had been standing out of the crossfire, keeping his mouth shut until it was time to grandstand for the jury. All the courtroom's a stage, and all the men and women in it merely lawyers.”
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“I edged forward on my pew in the gallery so I wouldn't miss a single word. My ex-lover's new girlfriend, Eve Eberlein, was about to be publicly humiliated by the Honorable Edward J. Thompson. I wanted to dance with joy right there in the courtroom. Hell hath no fury like a lawyer scorned.”
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“Everybody hates lawyers, but they don't realize judges are just lawyers with a promotion. Think about it.”
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“Any good poker player will tell you the secret to a winning bluff is believing it yourself. I know this, so by the time I cross-examined the last witness, I believed. I was in deep, albeit fradulent, mourning. Now all I had to do was convince the jury. 'Would you examine this document for me, sir?' I said, my voice hoarse with fake grief. I did the bereavement shuffle to the witness stand and handed an exhibit to Frankie Costello, a lump of a plant manager with a pencil-thin mustache. 'You want I should read it?' Costello asked. No, I want you should make a paper airplane. 'Yes, read it, please.' Costello bent over the document, and I snuck a glance at the jury through my imaginary black veil. A few returned my gaze with mounting sympathy. The trial had been postponed last week because of the death of counsel's mother, but the jury wasn't told which lawyer's mother had died. It was defense counsel's mother who'd just passed on, not mine, but don't split hairs, okay? You hand me an ace, I'm gonna use it.”
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“She had paralegal training, and she was a scam artist, which was a lawyer without the student loans.”
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“One hires lawyers as one hires plumbers, because one wants to keep one's hands off the beastly drains.”
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“Her jealousy never slept.”
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“In the evening Hogg comes. I like him better each time; it is a pity that he is a lawyer; he wasted so much time on that trash that might be spent on better things.”
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“... butting heads at trial was the way attorneys bonded. Kind of like dogs sniffing at each other's hindquarters.”
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“Now I know that lawyers must live, but I've never been able to understand why they have to live so blamed well!”
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“Lawyers like to leave no stone unturned, provided they can charge by the stone.”
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“A lawyer's relationship to justice and wisdom ... is on a par with a piano tuner's relationship to a concert. He neither composes the music, nor interprets it — he merely keeps the machinery running.”
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“His anger will not fall upon you, but upon your legal adviser. And I am not afraid that he will eat me. Lawyers are indigestible.”
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“To me, lawyering is the height of service — and being involved in this profession is a gift.”
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“I hate that stuff — mingling with lawyers and all. I've always thought there must be some reason why the French words for 'attorney' and 'avocado' were the same.”
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“Just-in-your-own words was Mr. Gilmer's trademark. We often wondered who else's words Mr. Gilmer was afraid his witness might employ.”
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“Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to, was a tenet I absorbed with my baby-food. Do it, and you'll often get an answer you don't want, an answer that might wreck your case.”
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“Let you lawyers alone for speed, when you have yourselves for clients.”
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“It is a horrible demoralizing thing to be a lawyer. You look for such low motives in everyone and everything.”
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“Lawyers should never marry other lawyers. This is called inbreeding, from which come idiot children and more lawyers.”
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“The question arises ... whether all lawyers are the same. This is like asking whether everything that gets into a sewer is garbage.”