Abraham Lincoln Quotes

Around the courthouse when defense lawyers are chatting about their cases, the only question they ask each other is can you put your guy on the stand? Those conversations always assume the defendant is guilty. The question is just about the degree of difficulty in presenting a defense.

I would be able to defend my actions, no matter what [evidence] they had on me.

A lawyer is just like an attack dog, only without a conscience.

Who calls a lawyer rogue, may find, too lateUpon one of these depends his whole estate.

Possession is eleven points in the law.

Necessity gives the law and does not itself receive it.

Ignorance of the law excuses no man.

Fiat justitia et ruant coeli. Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall. See Ferdinand I 320:1.

This matter is in litigation. All of you know lawyers. They are adamant that you don't say anything.

The law compells no man to impossible things. The argument ab impossibili is forcible in law.

None shall take advantage of his own wrong.

TECHNICALITY, n. In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused his neighbor of murder. His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of the head fell upon one shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder." The defendant was acquitted by instruction of the court, the learned judges holding that the words did not charge murder, for they did not affirm the death of the cook, that being only an inference.

Poor Grendel's had an accident. So may you all.

Lawyers serve a purpose, and we couldn't operate as society without them. They can make things more complicated and difficult, but there are certain times where the need for them is crucial to an argument or an event or an issue.

The exception tests the rule.

In this court the parties changed positions as nimbly as if dancing a quadrille.

Lawyers-a profession it is to disguise matters.

I used to say that, as Solicitor General, I made three arguments of every case. First came the one that I planned-as I thought, logical, coherent, complete. Second was the one actually presented-interrupted, incoherent, disjointed, disappointing. The third was the utterly devastating argument that I thought of after going to bed that night.

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.

Nay, do not think I flatter. For what advancement may I hope from thee, That no revenue hast but thy good spirits To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flattered?

All judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty should escape.

Though very poor, may still be very blest.

A maxim in law has more weight in the world than an article of faith.

Donald Trump and his personal attorney want to lay the foundation to discredit whatever Bob Mueller comes up with. They're essentially engaging in a scorched-earth litigation strategy that is beginning with trying to discredit the prosecutor.

The presumption of innocence only means you don't go right to jail.