Quotes About Legal

There was something unfair about a system in which a little kid was brought into a courtroom and surrounded by lawyers arguing and sniping at each other under the scornful eye of a judge, the referee, and somehow in the midst of this barrage of laws and code sections and motions and legal talk the kid was supposed to know what was happening to him. It was hopelessly unfair.

It takes just one, he says over and over. You hear that all the time in this business. One big case, and you can retire. That's one reason lawyers do so many sleazy things, like full-color ads in the yellow pages, and billboards, and placards on city buses, and telephone solicitation. You hold your nose, ignore the stench of what you're doing, ignore the snubs and snobbery of big-firm lawyers, because it takes only one.

And every defendant, regardless of how despicable the person or his crime, is entitled to a lawyer. Most laymen don't understand this and don't care. I don't care either. This is my job.

This is not a problem peculiar to Oklahoma, far from it. Wrongful convictions occur every month in every state in this country, and the reasons are all varied and all the same—bad police work, junk science, faulty eyewitness identifications, bad defense lawyers, lazy prosecutors, arrogant prosecutors.

shook hands. She thanked him for his pro bono

The presumption of innocence is now the presumption of guilt. The burden of proof is a travesty because the proof is often lies. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt means if he probably did it, then let's get him off the streets.

Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt means if he probably did it, then let's get him off the streets.

he's now in hiding, in another state. I give him cash to live on." "Is that legal?" "That's not a fair question in coal country. Nothing is black-and-white in my world. The enemy breaks every rule in the book, so the fight is never fair. If you play by the rules, you lose, even when you're on the right side.

Deck has reduced the Canons of Ethics to the Big Three: Fight for your client, don't steal, try not to lie.

But a year in jail for an innocent man is pure luck in our system.

You know what they say—the reason divorce is so expensive is because it's worth it.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

They're all long shots, but we win more than we lose. I've walked eight of my clients out of prison.

God help us, if ever in this great country we turn our heads while people who have not had fair trials are executed. That almost happened in this case.

Jailhouse snitches testify every day in this country. Other civilized countries prohibit them, but not here.

John Grisham

The sixteen grand jurors sat around a long, square table

Neither do we. We're not cops with guns. We're lawyers with subpoenas.

No smile, not a trace of warmth or humor, all business. Could she really be a party to the wrongful conviction of a man who'd been on death row fifteen years? It was hard to believe.

When the State, with its limitless resources, commences a fraudulent case and cheats at every turn, then cheating is legitimized. There is no level playing field. There is no fairness. The only honorable alternative for a lawyer fighting to save an innocent client is to cheat in defense. However, if a defense lawyer is caught cheating, he or she gets nailed with

He nodded at the big leather bags. "What's in there?" "Papers." "Papers?" "Papers." "What kind of papers?" Toilet paper, she thought. I spend my vacations traveling the Caribbean collecting toilet paper. "Legal documents, crap like that. I'm a lawyer.

the jury that conniving her way into wills handwritten by her old and vulnerable bosses was a devious pattern.

It's just depositions," Jake had said. "You'll be bored out of your mind. Death by deposition.

You weren't required to divulge all of your witnesses and describe what they were going to say, no sir. It was trial by ambush.