Eugene Scalia Quotes

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

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

Every trial lawyer knows what it is like to sit patiently while the other side puts on its case. Inevitably they make a few points that appeal to the jury, and waiting for the opportunity to respond can be painful. The desire to jump up immediately - to point out the flaws in logic or the factual distortions - is often overpowering.

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

As a rule lawyers tend to want to do whatever they can to win.

For me, I don't participate in the filming when I represent a reality show star in a case, because that would mean waiving my right to attorney-client privilege, and that would hamper my ability to mount an effective case.

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

The way we won all those cases was not be spending all of Reynold’s money, but by making the other son of a bitch spend all his.

Appellate advocacy, particularly at the Supreme Court, is really intimate. I mean, you're just a few feet away from the Chief Justice. You know, if you're sweating, they see you.

Almost without exception, President Obama begins serious policy discussions by explaining why everyone else is wrong. After he assigns straw men to your views, he enthusiastically attempts to knock them down with a theatrically earnest re-litigation of what you've missed about his brilliance.

I actually had the opportunity to stand at the lectern in the Supreme Court and face the justices, which was really a powerful thing for me.

Lawyers know that certain witnesses are simply not going to be cooperative and are not going to answer the questions. And what matters at that point is what is your question? Because everything you want the jury to know should be in your question, or everything you want the jury to wonder about should be in your question.

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

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

In this court the parties changed positions as nimbly as if dancing a quadrille.

Lawyers spend their professional careers shoveling smoke.

In law it is good policy to never plead what you need not, lest you oblige yourself to prove what you can not.

I went to law school and took a law degree, and counseled all my clients to plead insanity.

Lawyers-a profession it is to disguise matters.

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 used to say that, as Solicitor General, I made three arguments of every case. First came the one that I planned-as I thought, logical, coherent, complete. Second was the one actually presented-interrupted, incoherent, disjointed, disappointing. The third was the utterly devastating argument that I thought of after going to bed that night.

Our strategy was to give Judge Hoffman a heart attack. We gave the court system a heart attack, which is even better.

Fallacious and misleading arguments are most easily detected if set out in correct syllogistic form.

First you win the argument, then you win the vote.

Good morning. You have a moment?" It's clever the way she says it, not as a question. I would have to contradict her in order to have my moment back. I make a note to use the method in the future.