Legal Argument Quotes

My Lord, it is difficult to reply in a restrained fashion. My learned friend must not use words such as 'Communist' lightly, when he refers to Kantor. Kantor is not a Communist. My learned friend has used the tactics of McCarthyism in an endeavor to smear him. I think, with respect, my learned friend is allowing himself to run away with facts that are not there.

When you file an amicus brief, and you represent a state, the court reads your brief. It is a powerful position to make the legal assault from.

In 2015, an opera opened about me and Justice Antonin Scalia. It's called 'Scalia/Ginsburg.' The composer, Derrick Wang, has degrees in music from Harvard and Yale. Enrolled in law school, he was reading dueling opinions by me and Justice Scalia and decided he could compose an appealing comic opera from them.

Criminal cases require strategy, and prosecutors should attempt to prove only what can be proved.

When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler.

We all come to the [Supreme] Court with our bags fully packed. What we take out of them may not have been used before, but they were there.

A dissent in a court of last resort is an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day when a later decision may possibly correct the error …

I got the chance to argue my first case in Supreme Court, a criminal case arising in Alabama that involved the right of a defendant to counsel at a critical stage in a capital case before a trial.

I think the prosecution had all the evidence in front of them to have won the case.

If you're a prosecutor, and you believe the defendant is guilty, you only talk about ultimate truth, but not intermediate truth. If you're the defense attorney, you care deeply about intermediate truth, but you tend to neglect ultimate truth.

One problem was that my direct testimony was in writing, so a lot of people didn't get to see it. I hope they see it, because I think it built a very strong case.

We cannot say that we love the rule of law and reject arguments that appeal to the rule of law as technicalities and hair splitting.

However, I keep reminding them that this issue is not a new issue that has come out for this election. This issue has been in the courts for two years and two months now.

Objection!" Metz shouts. Grounds?" the judge asks. Well...he's my witness!

Law is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained.

So I don't blame Boies for the decision of the Court at all.

Any good trial lawyer knows that if you've got one credible expert or scientific study, then you can let the jury decide.

I later spent... five to eight months in hospitals in New Jersey, always on an involuntary basis, and always attempting a legal argument for release.

One of the challenges for lawyers can be explaining, first of all, what the legal issue is and, second, its significance. And both of those are important.

The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law.

It's the duty of a lawyer to represent anyone for whom a responsible argument could be made.

There is - you know, there's receipts for rented cars and license plates and guns and hand prints and palm prints and fingerprints. You know, I want to wait until I'm in a court.

Most of our writings are not political theory but advocacy scholarship—amicus briefs ultimately designed to persuade the Court to adopt our various notions of the public good

I have, on several occasions, disagreed with decisions of Justice Souter.

I would be able to defend my actions, no matter what [evidence] they had on me.