quotations about lawyers
Rattle a lawyer's door and you get more lawyers.
C. J. CHERRYH
Chanur's Legacy
There is a certain class of men, in short, we know by the name of lawyers, whom we find swarming in every hole and corner of society.... Their business is with statutes, dictates, decisions, and authority. They go on emptying volume after volume, of all their heterogeneous contents, till they become so laden with other men's thoughts, as scarce to have any of their own. Seldom do their sad eyes look beyond the musty walls of authority, in which their souls are all perpetually immured. And now, as soon as their minds have come to be duly instructed, first, in the antique sophistries, substantial fictions, wise absurdities, and profound dogmas of buried sages, and then fairly liberalized by all the light of modern innovation, and of precious salutary change, do we see them step forward into the world full blown with the most triumphal pretensions, to deal out blessings to mankind. Now, indeed, they are ready to execute a prescription of either justice or injustice--to lend themselves to any side--to advocate any doctrine, for they are well provided with the means in venerable print. Eager for employment, they pry into the business of men, with snakish smoothness slip into the secrets of their affairs, discern the ingredients of litigation, and blow them up into strife. This is, indeed, but laboring in their vocation. For an honest lawyer, if, in strictness, there be such a phenomenon on earth, is an appearance entirely out of the common course of nature--a violent exception, and must therefore be esteemed a sort of prodigy. Abject slaves themselves, these counterfeits of men are now to be the proud dictators of human destiny, and withal the glittering favorites of fortune.
P. W. GRAYSON
Vice Unmasked
The great trial lawyers are the ones who help their jurors by providing them with the tools with which to reach the right verdict.
G. CHRISTOPHER RITTER
Powerful Deliberations
People who use lawyers are not people you would really want to hang around with.
DEBORAH ROSS
attributed, Lives of Lawyers
There is, then, no use in endeavouring to blind yourself to the fact that lawyers are looked upon with little favour by the public. There are, doubtless, various legitimate sources of the aversion entertained towards them. One of these is the "mystery" which always hangs, and always has hung, about the lawyer's "craft." I take this to be one of the very worst attributes of the profession. It is one which has always been fostered and encouraged by the members of the profession themselves. To be the favoured medium for invoking justice is, certainly, to be placed in a somewhat imposing position; and to shroud oneself in the sable gown of mystery, allowing only glimpses of one's sacred virtue occasionally to peep forth, is, doubtless, calculated to strike an awe into beholders. The priests of old did it, and very successfully imposed upon the multitude, till ONE came who taught truth in a few plain words, which the simplest could understand. The members of the profession forget that there is nothing so very sacred about their vocation, that the multitude will be content to look upon their mysterious scrolls, and phrases, and their incomprehensible proceedings, with the same reverence which the priests of old were able to command as the ministers of religion. I fancy the multitude tolerate the mystery which envelopes all persons and things legal, chiefly because they regard lawyers as a "necessary evil"--for as long as there is any law, it must be administered and interpreted by persons especially qualified; and the endeavour would be as misplaced, as it would be hopeless, for persons engaged in other affairs, which are sufficient to occupy all their time and attention, to "turn their own lawyers." The study of the law can never be made either so simple or so attractive, as to avoid the necessity of its being a distinct, and somewhat exclusive, profession.
JOB ORTON SMITH
The Lawyer and His Profession
There are a few reasons why lawyers are so morally corrupt. But the most important reason is because ruthless money hungry, and blood sucking parasites are very attracted to that profession.
AARON ROSS
The Final Chapter
Lawyers are like cheeses. There are lots of good ones, but not everybody likes the taste of some or can afford the best of others.
ROBIN ELLISON
The Pension Trustee's Handbook
It does seem asinine to tolerate a system under which the lawyers always win, whether heads or tails come up.
FRANK CRAMER
The Case of the People Against the Lawyers and the Courts
I think we may class the lawyer in the natural history of monsters.
JOHN KEATS
letter to George and Georgiana Keats, Mar. 13, 1819
As to lawyers, their profession is supported by the indiscriminate defense of right and wrong.
JUNIUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Lawyers are the only civil delinquents whose judges must of necessity be chosen from themselves.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Studying the law and "learning to think like a lawyer" are transformative but not necessarily in a good way. I have always believed people are born with rough ideas of fairness imprinted in their subconscious. In law school, a new lawyer learns to ignore those ideas. Instead, lawyers are taught that procedural rules must take precedence over what a lay person might think is a just result. Those who conclude the legal system is a form of the children's game of "Mother May I" learn to keep that opinion to themselves.
CRAIG VAN MATRE
"Good lawyers strive for justice", Columbia Daily Tribune, April 3, 2016
It is a secret worth knowing, that lawyers rarely go to law.
MOSES CROWELL
attributed, Day's Collacon
Lawyers are like doctors. They've each a secret language of their own so that if you get a letter from one lawyer you've got to take it to another to get it read, just like a doctor sends you to a chemist with a rigmarole that no one else can read, so they can charge you what they like for a drop of colored water.
HAROLD BRIGHOUSE
Hobson's Choice
In tribal times, there were the medicine men. In the Middle Ages, there were the priests. Today, there are the lawyers. For every age, a group of bright boys, learned in their trades and jealous of their learning, who blend technical competence with plain and fancy hocus-pocus to make themselves masters of their fellow men. For every age, a pseudo-intellectual autocracy, guarding the tricks of the trade from the uninitiated, and running, after its own pattern, the civilization of its day.
FRED RODELL
Woe Unto You, Lawyers!
Lawyers are like rhinoceroses: thick skinned, short-sighted, and always ready to charge.
DAVID MELLOR
"Question Time", BBC1, Dec. 3, 1992
Lawyers are like nuclear weapons. By all rights they shouldn't exist, but if some people have them, then you'd better have one, too, just in case.
JOHN GIERACH
Sex, Death, and Fly-Fishing
A lawyer and a cart wheel must be greased.
JOHN R. BEARD
The Rational Primer