Legal Argumentation Quotes

If you take a position under the Constitution that is against the majority view, you have to explain it well enough that maybe you can persuade some of that majority to agree with you.

We shouldn't have to be burdened with all the technicalities that come up from time to time with shrewd, smart lawyers interpreting what the laws or what the Constitution may or may not say.

Good judges are always open to the possibility of changing their minds based on the next brief that they read, or the next argument that's made by an attorney who's appearing before them, or a comment that is made by a colleague during the conference on the case when the judges privately discuss the case.

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.

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

At Chicago I offer a course on Emotion, Reason and the Law that law students just love. But I am not there as a lawyer, my job is to teach philosophy.

I'm used to litigating against incredibly competent, high-quality lawyers that are very good chess players.

When I was at the Justice Department, there were these people who I called legal Houdinis, who - they would find any law; they would find a loophole and a way around it and often very tendentious and not true, and, you know, these are people who didn't respect the rule of law. But, you know, those people were there.

Now two punctilious envoys, Thine and Mine, Embroil the earth about a fancied line; And, dwelling much on right and much on wrong, Prove how the right is chiefly with the strong.

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

Dissents are appeals to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of another day.

I'm clearly not a major legal genius.

I consider myself sort of like a pseudo lawyer. Like, I'm convinced I can solve every case and argue my way.

There has been a notion that my job is to press the Administration's policies at every turn and announce true conservative principles through the pages of my briefs. It is not. I'm the Solicitor General, not the Pamphleteer General.

Usually, to promote a new work, I'll aspire to be published in the 'Columbia Law Review' or the 'Stanford Law Review' and to have at least five really enticing footnotes.

Bluster, sputter, question, cavil; but be sure your argument be intricate enough to confound the court.

I think he could defend it at a bar association meeting, but not before real people.

As the lawyer, I found most of it was a matter of research, which I was great at - that's what I did to death - and then basically persuading people that you're right, and they're wrong... I found that the easiest of all the professions to impersonate.

Your job as a trial attorney is to try to convey to the jury the essence of the people you represent.

As a lawyer, I hate to use the "on the one hand, but the other".

That's the best way to practice law, is writing about it and not having to be in the courtroom!

Im a soulless lawyer. Give me any opinion and I can argue it.

Whenever you're going into oral argument, it's preferable to be able to weave the arguments together. That gets harder when you split the argument into pieces.

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