Barney Frank Quotes

I had no money nor friends to prepare for the trial till last night.

My lord, I have some matter of law relating to the indictment, and I desire counsel to speak to it.

I practise law almost every day. Exclusively criminal work these days.

I have always had an attorney on retainer, and now I believe I will have to put him to work.

The first thing a good lawyer does is immediately presume the guilt of his client.

My mother negotiated a plea deal, and my father went to trial. I think one thing we notice in their case that kind of stands out is how, in some ways, arbitrary the outcomes in the criminal justice system can be. And they did basically the same thing, identical thing.

Criminal law is one of the few professions where the client buys someone else's luck. The luck of most people is strictly non-transferrable. But a good criminal lawyer can sell all his luck to a client, and the more luck he sells the more he has to sell.

A reputable lawyer will advise you to keep out of the law, make the best of a foolish bargain, and not get caught again.

I got the chance to argue my first case in Supreme Court, a criminal case arising in Alabama that involved the right of a defendant to counsel at a critical stage in a capital case before a trial.

I was in the courtroom prosecuting violent felonies for well over a decade.

The option of solicitor advocacy came on the scene a bit too late for me.

F. Lee Bailey had been an inspiration to me. It was my desire to have him behind the scenes, to rely on his great wisdom and his brainpower, but I did not feel he should be in the courtroom.

Foreman told Ray to plead guilty and he'd then give his brother $500, if Ray didn't cause any problems at the guilty plea hearing, and he could take that $500 and hire a lawyer to set aside the plea. Foreman actually put that in writing.

I think either Robert Blake wither pulled the trigger or hired someone to do it, but it will be a tough case to prove. I think there's a very good chance he may take the stand, and that's what I'm waiting for.

People do not win people fights. Lawyers do.

Lawyers advocate more so than state their own positions.

I was a prosecutor in Brooklyn in the homicide division and then as a senior assistant district attorney.

Not a problem kid or anything like that so when you're in the legal system like that, it's always hard on a person for the first time to go through some things like that.

Ask any experienced defense lawyer: the real risks are for an accused person who is innocent. A guilty defendant has many more options available.

There exist no provisions in our law that perfectly and precisely describe the form of criminality that shall be judged here.

The reality is that most celebrity defendants are extremely unknowledgeable, naive, and vulnerable, and if they get into trouble, they usually call their lawyer friends who handle criminal cases, and if they don't know any, they call their business lawyers, who then refer them to lawyer friends of theirs.

I know what it means to prosecute people.

I am still not at all in favour of offering any defence. Even if the court had accepted that petition submitted by some of my co-accused regarding defence, etc., I would not have defended myself.

Ask any lawyer - if a prosecutor thinks he can win a case, he'll prosecute it.

Virtually all big law firms have good to super-good lawyers. All big law firms don't have great litigators.