Adversarial Process Quotes

I'm in the real world, some people try to steal from me, and I stop them, frequently, take them to court. I love a good lawsuit. It's fun.

A defendant can use discovery to run out the clock on the plaintiff and to make the plaintiff run out of money.

As a lawyer, I could engage in killer litigation with the best of them. It was war, after all.

Liberal democracy has endured because its institutions are designed for handling morally hazardous forms of coercive power. It puts the question of how far government should go to the cross fire of adversarial review.

It was an interesting experience to work alongside the solicitor general's team and then turn around and argue against them. You certainly grow as a lawyer from getting such a varied set of experiences.

Having lawyers involved never leads to good things.

In cross examination, as in fishing, nothing is more ungainly than a fisherman pulled into the water by his catch.

I don't really believe in moral victories. You can have them when you're dealing with public opinion, but in litigation, you want to win the case. I want to win.

I had just won the lawsuit against Melrose Place.

Life as a barrister never was terribly real to me, and courtrooms were always a place of fantasy to me. They had nothing to do with discovering the truth, really, of course.

A judge is supposed to be able to make a decision, and when you make a decision, very often one party - and very often both - are a little disappointed.

The insurance companies hate the idea of being sued in court like the devil hates holy water.

Mere access to the courthouse doors does not by itself assure a proper functioning of the adversary process.

I don't view prosecutors and attorneys as natural enemies. ... Though their roles are oppositional, the two simply have different roles to play in pursuit of the larger purpose, realizing the rule of law. ... This is not to deny that the will to win drives those efforts. ... Rather, it is simply to insist that ultimately, neither the accused nor society is served unless the integrity of the system is set above the expedient purposes of either side.

When the police officers knock on your door with a warrant, they don't expect you to give them a tour. It's supposed to be an adversarial process so that it's used in these extraordinary powers are applied only when there's no alternative. Only when they're absolutely necessary, and only when they're proportionate to the threat faced by these individuals.

I know from my own experience that lawsuits can be a very slow, wasteful, and needlessly acrimonious way to resolve a problem.

The point of a presidential campaign is to put the candidate through the ringer: to force him to get banged up by his opponents and the press, and to have to answer the difficult and uncomfortable questions, be investigated, and learn the thrust and parry of political swordplay.

A lawsuit can be a weapon.

Good lawyers win so-so lawsuits. Great lawyers can win lawsuits in which you have little or no chance to win.

A trial is not a search for truth. It is a contest and, often, one that produces no winners.

A lawsuit is to ordinary life what war is to peacetime. In a lawsuit, everybody on the other side is bad. A trial transcript is a discourse in malevolence.

The Law likes to be argued with. Take away words and where is the Law? Silence always annoys it.