Felix Adler Quotes

The rules and principles of case law have never been treated as final truths but as working hypotheses, continually retested in those great laboratories of the law, the courts of justice. Every new case is an experiment, and if the accepted rule which seems applicable yields a result which is felt to be unjust, the rule is reconsidered.

I certainly have a pretty settled pattern at this point of what I do substantively in terms of reviewing briefs, record materials, cases, etc.

I just had the sense that at least the books that I had read about law just didn't really have enough of that.

Our lady the Common Law is a very wise old lady though she still has something to learn in telling what she knows.

My job is to interpret the law based on how the legislature and the court has done it and then, of course, to use our system of justice to develop some new legal tools and new concepts.

Law school! A man must read law in the court house.

I guess law was always interesting to me because you deal with constants. I like to deal with constants, abstracts, constants and reason and ration, rational approaches to things. I don't know, I never really thought why I wanted to study law. But if you ask me whether I would do it again, absolutely.

I take judge-made law as one of the existing realities of life.

I have an affinity for the law. I like looking at the small type on contracts, and if I could have afforded law school, I probably would have gone.

What I really like about law is that it's not an endless discourse like history or philosophy. In law, there comes a point where problems have to be solved, and cases decided.

I soon found law school an unmitigated bore.

Law is a formless mass of isolated decisions.

It is the merit of the common law that it decides the case first and determines the principles afterward.

You’ve got to expect that there will be twists and turns [in court opinions], especially with major doctrine.

Constitutions are interpreted differently from statutes.

Great cases like hard cases make bad law.

The study of law is, after all, largely the study of history.

Law builds upon and, I should like to claim, is one of the liberal arts. It uses words of persuasion and changing definitions for practical ends.

I got into law school to supplement my business background. I'm not planning to practice law.

The glorious uncertainty of the law was a thing well known and complained of, by all ignorant people, but all learned gentleman considered it as its greatest excellency.

The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law.

I have a thirst - it's an awful word, but I'm thirsty for knowledge. I like knowing things, the odder the better, the more obtuse the better.

The value of a decision as a precedent is very much enhanced by the care with which it has been considered, and if the opinion itself shows that other decisions of the same court, or of other courts upon the same point, have been reviewed and examined, it adds to the value of the decision made on each consideration.

I went to law school after college.

I like practicing law.