Dennis Hastert Quotes

A good lawyer is a bad Christian.

… the comfortable fiction that all lawyers are skilled or even competent craftsmen in representing the fundamental rights of their clients.

The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency.

For a lawyer to shade or slant his legal advice to advance a private agenda is among the gravest betrayals of his solemn duty as an attorney.

I couldn't do that as attorney general. Why? Because they are my clients. You can't say they're not doing what they ought to be doing when you are the attorney general.

False riches, consisting of money, houses and lands, acquired by selfish means at cost to others and thereafter used selfishly, are almost always used for the oppression of other persons.

As a result, I've been portrayed as a cynical barbarian preying on the very clients I was charged to defend.

I'm not sure I can say there is a clean line between me as an individual and me as a lawyer.

Lawyers have to make a living, and can only do so by inducing people to believe that a straight line is crooked.

Well, there is an attorney-client privilege here that needs to be respected, and it's a privilege that has been found to be worthy of protection by our courts.

Therapists have tremendous power over their vulnerable clients, and it is very easy to take advantage of this power.

New York state ethics rules prohibit lawyers from soliciting gifts from clients 'for the benefit of the lawyer or a person related to the lawyer.'

I will defend anyone as long as the client gives me total control of the case and pays up front.

What are you supposed to do - stop practicing law whenever one of your friends becomes president?

For me, I don't participate in the filming when I represent a reality show star in a case, because that would mean waiving my right to attorney-client privilege, and that would hamper my ability to mount an effective case.

My father wasn't a very good lawyer. He thought the law was sacred and something that was meant to help people. He didn't charge people like he should have... which is why I was allowed to play bars and strip joints when I was 14.

We ought to have a bill ... to close the law schools. Think of the public service we could do. We could take away their [lawyers] licenses to steal.

Money-crimes have an abstract quality. History is laden with the victims of gold, but their remains are odorless.

We know of officers who develop inappropriate relationships with victims of domestic abuse. They have ignored their professional duty and their moral responsibility.

There are no client conflicts, only bad explanations.

We're trying to make sure that financial advisers act like lawyers and doctors. When you go to a lawyer or doctor, they have an obligation to put your best interests first. Financial advisers don't.

It's when the lawyers themselves become bad guys that you begin to have a serious problem.

I fire lawyers frequently.

The attorney doesn't decide what to do; the client ultimately decides what to do.

It is interesting that I have gone through the process of representing clients as an ex-athlete. I am certainly not naive to think that the possibility of corruption isn't there.