"The senior partner studied the resume for the hundredth time and again found nothing he disliked about Mitchell Y. McDeere, at least not on paper. He had the brains, the ambition, the good looks. And he was hungry; with his background, he had to be. He was married, and that was mandatory."
"The theory is that a strong marriage means a happy lawyer, and a happy lawyer is a productive lawyer, so the bottom line is profits."
"There's an unwritten rule at the firm—what we do away from Memphis stays away from Memphis."
"He seemed incapable of creating such chaos, but much of what he saw below could be blamed on him. And that was fine. He was ninety-one, paralyzed, strapped in a wheelchair and hooked to oxygen."
"Everyone I have told about the brief is dead."
"...there are those who believe that there is no Darby Shaw. In other words, she's just too good to be true."
“The president had shifted to the 'we' mode now, something he invariably did when a potentially unpopular decision was at hand. For the easy ones, it was always 'I.' When he needed a crutch, and especially when he would need someone to blame, he opened up the decisionmaking process and included Critz.”
“Don't compromise yourself - you're all you have.”
“Some people have more guts than brains.”
“I'm alone and outgunned, scared and inexperienced, but I'm right.”
“I don't feel stupid, just inadequate. After three years of studying the law, I'm very much aware of how little I know.”
“Please give me fifty more years of work and fun, then an instant death when I'm sleeping.”
“A battered wife is a married woman until she gets a divorce. Or until she kills the bastard.”
“All students enter law school with a certain amount of idealism and desire to serve the public, but after three years of brutal competition we care for nothing but the right job with the right firm where we can make partner in seven years and earn big bucks.”
“He's my client, and he's counting on me. I'll take him, warts and all.”
“There are few things in life worse than a long-winded lawyer.”
“Like a snake creeping through the undergrowth, I sneak into the law school well past noon and hours after both of my scheduled classes have broken up.”
“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.”
“Life on the run was filled with dreams, some at night during sleep, real dreams, and some when the mind was awake but drifting. Most were terrifying, the nightmares of the shadows growing bolder and larger. Others were pleasant wishes of a rosy future, free of the past. These were rare, Patrick had learned. Life on the run was life in the past. There was no closure”
“You advised him not to get a lawyer, giving as one of your reasons the opinion that lawyers are a pain in the ass. Gentlemen, the pain is here. -Reggie Love”
“The theory was simple: If a man had enough sense to accumulate a bunch of cash, then he would certainly make a worthy U.S senator.”
“It's amazing how lies grow. You start with a small one that seems easy to cover, then you get boxed in and tell another one. Then another. People believe you at first, then they act upon your lies, and you catch yourself wishing you'd simply told the truth.”
"The man with the rubber boots stepped into the elevator behind me, but I didn't see him at first. I smelled him though, the pungent odor of smoke and cheap wine and life on the street without soap."
"I didn't dare think of the future; the past was still happening."
"We got into this business because we thought the law was a higher calling. We could fight injustice and social ills, and do all sorts of greats things because we were lawyers."
"Privileged people don't march and protest; their world is safe and clean and governed by laws designed to keep them happy.”
"Grand larceny was nothing to laugh at, especially since I was guilty.”
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