Legal Ethics and Reform
Famous Quotes & Interesting Statistics About Lawyers, Judges, etc.
Note: A new item is added to this list every week. Check back to have your
preconceptions about our legal system challenged. After finishing this
page, your are invited to visit An Earlier Famous
Quotes and Interesting Statistics Page.
Lawyers, America's most hated group after child molesters, are the
biggest
cash donor to the Democrats: in this race a whopping US $73
million. Next
comes Hollywood, with $25 million, big public sector unions, $12.6
million,
and teachers unions. Jews, though only 2% of the population,
provide
almost half the Democratic Party's funding, and are its most influential
single group. Italians and Irish, once Democratic stalwarts,
long ago
decamped to the Republicans. Blacks and union members provide the
party's
foot soldiers. Gays, and young women who are deeply
influenced by
Hollywood TV sitcoms and talk shows, vote strongly Democratic.
. Eric Margolis
"As a business, the greatest challenge is too many
lawyers pursuing a reduced number of clients. As a
profession, the greatest challenge is too many lawyers
who don’t understand that it is a profession."
- W. Wright Danenbarger, New Hampshire attorney - quoted
in New Hampshire Online Editions, January, 1995.
"Law firms are in an economic squeeze. The profession is
oversturated."
- Richard B. Couser, New Hampshire attorney quoted in
New Hampshire Online Editions, January, 1995.
"There is a lot more litigation involving lawyer malpractice.
It is definitely a growing trend."
- Chuck Douglas, New Hampshire attorney quoted in New Hampshire
Online Editions, January, 1995.
"Legal handbooks these days do everything but condone
outright lying."
- U.S. News and World Report, January 30, 1995.
"Between 1877 and 1934, more than 70% of the presidents,
vice presidents, and cabinet members combined were lawyers."
- Donald R. Matthews.
"Today, government attorneys comprise about 15% of all
American lawyers."
- Paul Wice.
"Said one nonlawyer, ‘Lawyers draw up laws so nobody
including themselves can understand them. It makes
business for them. Judges have to decide in courts what
laws mean and sometimes they reverse themselves. Laws
could be drafted that would be clear and simple if they
wanted to.’ Another nonlawyer is quoted, ‘Lawyers make
lousy legislators because they have too much of a technical
attitutde. They can’t look at it as a layman can. They can’t
see practical problems. They are too much interested in legal
technicalities. The lawyer is good to defend you or give you
legal advice; he’s not good to represent all the people. The
average layman is better equipped to be a legislator.’ "
- Eulau and Sprague’s study on lawyers in the state legislatures
of NJ, OH, TN, and CA, 1964.
"If the bar is to state quite honestly the measure of its
participation in public life, it must admit that law-trained
persons maintain a complete monopoly over one branch
of government, and considerable effective control over
the other two."
- Esther Lucile Brown.
"When will there be too many lawyers? Never"
- Thomas E. Brennan, President, Thomas M. Cooley Law School,
from a 1996 form letter to prospective law students.
"dis-sim-u-late \ vt : to hide under a false appearance :
DISSEMBLE ~ vi : to engage in dissembling -
dis-sim-u-la- tion ....
"dis-sem-ble \ vt 1 : to hide under a false appearance 2 :
to put on the appearance of : SIMULATE ~ vi : to put on a
false appearance : conceal facts, intentions, or feelings
under some pretense syn see DISGUISE -- dis- sem-bler ..."
- Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, 1972 Ed.
"It is lawyers who run our civilization for us - our governments,
our businesses, our private lives... We cannot buy a home
or
rent an apartment, we cannot get married or try to get divorced,
we cannot leave our property to our children without calling
on
the lawyers to guide us. To guide us, incidentally, through
a
maze of confusing gestures and formalities that lawyers have
created... The legal trade, in short, is nothing but a high-class
racket.
- Fred Rodell, Professor of Law, Yale University, Woe Unto
You, Lawyers.
"In the late 1940s, there was one lawyer for every 790
people, according to national figures. By early 1990, that
number had jumped to one lawyer for every 320 people...
Everyone must know at least one lawyer in Tallahassee.
Leon County claims one lawyer for every 93 residents. In
Jacksonville and surrounding Duval County, there is one
lawyer per every 354 residents. At the other end of the
coast in Dade County, there is a lawyer for every 197
residents."
- Denny Fraser, What to do with Too Many Lawyers?
"The number of lawyers employed by the Federal
government has grown rapidly over the years and
appears to be continuing to increase. Between 1954
and 1970, the number of self-employed lawyers in the
U.S. increased by 19% while the number of lawyers in
the Federal government increased by 108% and the
number employed by state government increased by 167%."
- Richard L. Abel.
"The better the society, the less law there will be. In heaven
there will be no law... In hell there will be nothing but
law,
and due process will be meticulously observed."
- Grant Gilmore, Age of American Law.
"... it is never too late to challenge the usurpation of power...
Usurpation - the exercise of power-not-granted is not legitimized
by repetition."
- Raoul Berger, Professor of Law, Harvard University.
"Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty.
Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace.
Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice."
- Lin Yutang, Chinese-American Philosopher.
"For one of the most revealing things about the lawyers’
trade is the unanimous inability or unwillingness, or both,
on the part of lawyers to explain their brand of professional
pig Latin to men who are not lawyers...It is this fact more
than any other - the fact that lawyers can’t or won’t tell
you
what they are about in ordinary English - that is responsible
for the hopelessness of the non-lawyer in trying to cope with
or understand the so-called science of law. For the lawyers’
trade is a trade built entirely on words."
- Fred Rodell, Professor of Law, Yale University, Woe Unto
You, Lawyers.
"The [American Bar Association] represents less that
one half (37%) of the legal profession, and that membership
has been steadily dropping. Membership has been falling
throughout the nineties - from a high of 362,104 in 1991-92
to 333,831 in 1995-96... The number of ABA members who
are judges has dropped dramatically. Between 1988-89 and
1995-96, the number of judicial members fell from 5,488 to
3,295, a decrease of more than 40%."
- The Judicial Selection Monitor, December 1996/January 1997
issue.
"Ye that are studying under lawyers,
follow not your preceptors
in abuses or wrong cases,
as if a man could not be a lawyer
unless he practiced such
evil. God has not given laws to make
out of right wrong, and
out of wrong right, as the unchristianlike
lawyers do, who study law
only for the sake of gain and profit."
.
" Every lawyer is sorely vexed
at me because I preach so harshly
against the craft; but
I say I, as a preacher, must reprove what is
wrong and evil. If I reproved
them, as Martin Luther, they need not
regard me, but forasmuch
as I do it as a servant of Christ, and
speak by God's command,
they ought to hearken unto me; for
if they repent not, they
shall everlastingly be damned; but I, when
I have declared their sins,
shall be excused. If I were not constrained
to give an account for
their souls, I would leave them unreproved."
. Martin Luther on Lawyers
"The worst place to learn about
the U S Constitution is in law school ... in most law schools
students who tahe Constitutional Law don't read the Constitution or the
Federalist Papers ... all they study is some Supreme Court opinions ..."
. Charles Kesler of the Clarmont Institute in California
"Subject: A Little Company of about 500 employees
Can you imagine working at the following company? It has a little
over 500 employees with the following statistics:
29 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have bankrupted at least two businesses
3 have been arrested for assault
71 can't get a credit card due to bad credit ratings
14 have been arrested on drug related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are defendants in lawsuits
and in 1996 alone, 84 were stopped for drunk driving
Can you guess which organization this is?
A hint, you'll recognize them and won't be too surprised.
Give Up?
Its the 535 members of the U S Congress. This is the same group that
cranks out hundreds upon hundreds of new laws designed to keep the rest
of us in line."
. from an e-mail sent to this web site by an unnamed
author
"the top 1/4 of 1% of the wealthiest people give 80% of all campaign
contributions in the U.S."
.Robert McCjesney, Prof. University of Illinois
"only 1/4 of 1% of the movies shown at American Theaters are of foreign
origin"
.Robert McCjesney, Prof. University of Illinois
"A judicial activist is a judge who interprets the
Constitution to mean what it would have said if he instead of the Founding
Fathers had written it."
. Former Sen. Sam Ervin
"Actual questions asked in the Courtroom: How far apart were the
cars when the collision occurred? ... Were you present when your picture
was taken? ... You were there until the time you left. Is that true? ...
These stairs that went down to the basement; did they go up, also?"
. Taken from News from Home a publication of the Mother of Good
Counsel Home; St. Louis, MO
"The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science that smiles
in your face while it picks your pocket."
. H.L. Mencken
"Be frank and explicit with your lawyer. It is his business to confuse
the issue afterwards."
. Anonymous
"There is never a deed so foul that something couldn't be said for the
guy; that's why there are lawyers."
. Melvin Belli
"When there is a rift in the lute, the business of the lawyer is to
widen the rift and gather the loot."
. Arthur Garfield Hays
"The trial lawyer does what Socrates was executed for: making the worse
argument appear the stronger." --
. Judge Irving Kaufman
"They all laid their heads together like as many lawyers when they are
gettin' ready to prove that a man's heirs aint got any right to his property."
-
. Mark Twain
"A lawyer is a man who helps you get what is coming to him." --
. Laurence J. Peter
"Litigation is the basic legal right which guarantees every corporation
its decade in court." --
. David Porter
"What's the use of that, Wendell, a lawyer can't be a great man!"
. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., on his son's plans to attend law school
"A man who never graduated from school might steal from a freight car.
But a man who attends college and graduates as a lawyer might steal the
whole railroad."
. President Theodore Roosevelt, attempting to persuade his son to become
a lawyer
"There are more lawyers just in Washington, D.C. than in all of Japan.
They've got about as many lawyers as we have sumo wrestlers."
. Lee Iacocca, on the lack of litigation among Japanese businesses
"The ideal client is the very wealthy man in very great trouble."
.John Sterling
"He saw a lawyer killing a viper on a dunghill hard by his own stable;
And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind of Cain and his brother Abel."
.Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"A peasant between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats."
. Spanish proverb
Take Me To: