Lawyer Skills Quotes

A good lawyer knows the law; a clever one takes the judge to lunch.

The good lawyer is the great salesman.

In the courtroom, it's where a lawyer really becomes an actor. There's a very fine line between delivering a monologue in a play and delivering a monologue to a jury. I've always felt that way - I've been in a lot of courtrooms. The best lawyers are really theatrical.

As a lawyer, I can assure you that a lot of document drafting is repetitive, involving cutting and pasting from templates. But the best lawyers bring a unique perspective to the process and anticipate clients' problems.

A Seattle lawyer once interrupted his lengthy cross-examination of a witness and exclaimed, "Your Honor, one of the jurors is asleep." "You put him to sleep," replied the judge. "Suppose you wake him up."

Extemporaneous speaking should be practised [sic] and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech. And yet there is not a more fatal error to young lawyers than relying too much on speech-making. If any one, upon his rare powers of speaking, shall claim an exemption from the drudgery of the law, his case is a failure in advance.

I think I would have been a reasonably good lawyer. I have a faculty for making sense of mountains of information.

I listened very, very carefully to the world around me to pick up the signals of when trouble was coming. Not that I could stop it. But it made me observant. That was helpful when I became a lawyer, because I knew how to read people's signals. When a witness hesitated, my mind would race to the conclusion that he was trying to hide something. What was it? I'd dissect the story in my brain and nine times out of ten figure out a hole they were trying to avoid.

As a trial lawyer, intelligence is important only in the sense that it allows you to play the game, if you will. Without it, you don't even have a ticket into the competitive arena. But beyond that, it doesn't get you very far at all.

I'm a lawyer; I win arguments for a living.

I was originally going to be a lawyer, and the only thing I remember from the art of cross-examination is - you can see this one coming up Sixth Avenue - never ask a question the answer to which you do not know.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practised and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public.

Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer's avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech.

I played a lawyer once, and I had about three or four weeks before we shot, so I was able to go to court and watch lawyers at work. Some were good lawyers and some were bad lawyers, but it was essential. The more time you have to prepare, the better. Always.

Remember that it is not the lawyer who knows the most law, but the one who best prepares his case, who wins.

A lawyer who does not know men is handicapped.

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

You see, some lawyers have the talent, have the charisma, but no discipline. They come into court unprepared, without having done their research.

Dershowitz may be a genius in some ways, but he's not necessarily the advocate you want on your side.

A judge can manipulate the law. A smart lawyer can keep a killer out of jail.

Most people ask questions because they want to know the answer; lawyers are trained never to ask questions unless they already know the answer.