These contemporary takes are worthy of the Bard himself. This Lawyer Is Thorough⌠The attorney tells the accused, âI have some good news and some bad news.â âWhatâs the bad news?â asks the accused. âThe bad news is, your blood is all over the crime scene, and the DNA tests prove you did it.â
Although law professors remain fond of telling students theyâre going to teach them how to think like a lawyer, you donât have to attend law school to enhance your own logic and critical thinking skills. Approach a problem from all angles. To see all the possible issues in a set of facts, lawyers look at the situation from different perspectives.
" One insider secret is that most lawyers are overworked, exhausted, and not earning as much as they could," Rodgers says. Burnout, stress, and depression are incredibly common among lawyers.
Check out these hilarious stories from lawyers and judges. You'll never look at a court of law the same way again! A young man named George had surgery to correct an ugly scar on his hand. The surgeon grafted skin from Georgeâs chest onto his hand⌠except George had a hairy chestâŚso now he had a hairy hand as well.
This article contains the best lawyer quotes: funny, inspirational, and famous quotes about lawyers and their careers. It also includes thank-you quotes for lawyers for those who have benefited from their services and wish to find the right words to show appreciation.
"If there were no bad people there would be no good lawyers.â âCharles Dickens
"Thank you for representing me. My situation would be much worse without your research, diligence, and hard work."
Did you know that lawyer jokes are so old they can be found in the works of Shakespeare? These contemporary takes are worthy of the Bard himself.
I work in a courthouse, so when I served jury duty, I knew most of the staff. As I sat with other prospective jurors listening to a woman drone on about how long the process was taking, a judge and two lawyers passed by, giving me a big hello. A minute later, a few maintenance workers did the same.
If youâre interested in becoming a lawyer, youâll need a degree. But as these court transcripts reveal, the question is, in what?
I was in juvenile court, prosecuting a teen suspected of burglary, when the judge asked everyone to stand and state his or her name and role for the court reporter. âLeah Rauch, deputy prosecutor,â I said. âLinda Jones, probation officer.â âSam Clark, public defender.â âJohn,â said the teen who was on trial. âIâm the one who stole the truck.â
An investment banker decides she needs in-house counsel, so she interviews a young lawyer. âMr. Peterson,â she says. âWould you say youâre honest?â
Justice isnât just blindâitâs snickering at these real courtroom give-and-takes:
When my 88-year-old mother was called for jury duty, she had to submit to questioning by the opposing lawyers. âHave you ever dealt with an attorney?â asked the plaintiffâs lawyer. âYes. I had an attorney write my living trust,â she responded. âAnd how did that turn out?â âI donât know,â she said. âAsk me when Iâm dead.â
âIf you want to improve your chances of securing the best lawyer to take your case, you need to prepare before you meet them,â advises attorney Stephen Babcock. âGet your story, facts, and proof together well before your first meeting.â This not only ensures that you understand your own needs, but it helps a good lawyer to ascertain whether he or she can actually help you. âWe want the best clients too. Proving youâre organized and reliable helps us.â
â Winning cases can be lost because of a client who lies or exaggerates just as easily as because of a lawyer who tells the client what the client wants to hear instead of what is true.â So when dealing with attorneys, donât just look for honestyâbe honest.
When hiring an attorney, a potential money pit is âexpensesâ outside of the lawyerâs billable hours. Expenses include everythingâcopying and faxing costs, hiring expert witnesses, and even traveling via private jet, points out attorney Justin C. Roberts. Some lawyers donât just pass the charges along; instead, they charge an additional percentage fee. Whatever their method, you need to know it up front so there wonât be any surprises when the bill arrives.
On reading a demand letter, the other person will often say, âthis isnât worth the troubleâ and they quickly settle. But hereâs a secret from Knight: You donât need a lawyer to write a demand letter. You can do it yourself. Just make it look as formal as possible, and you may find your dispute goes awayâno charge to you.
In fact, a lawyer should try to stay out of court. âIn my experience, a good lawyer always finds every opportunity to keep a case from being decided by a judge, and only relents on trying a case before the bench when all alternatives have been exhausted,â attorney, Jason Cruz says.
Personal injury attorney Byron Browne tells Readerâs Digest of a woman whoâd been injured in an accident and claimed she could no longer perform at work. While it may be true that there were some activities she could no longer perform, a private investigator unearthed a treasure trove of professional adult films the woman had shot since the accident, proving thereâs performing, and then thereâs performing, and this woman was performing just fine, apparently.
Speaking of funny judges, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina had us in tears when she told us about an exotic dancer who, having pleaded guilty on a drug charge, was sentenced to wearing an ankle monitor. Just a few days after sentencing, however, the woman was back in the courtroom, seeking an exception because the ankle monitor was kind of âruining her vibeâ at the strip club. In response, Judge Aquilina offered a veritable Solomon-esque solution: âBedazzle that thing to match your outfits. Motion denied.â
Poetic justice. Judges have latitude when it comes to how they write their opinions and some run with it. For example, hereâs how Justice Goldberg (a federal appeals court judge in Texas) began his 1986 opinion in the case of United States v. Batson:
When all was said and done (and won), the client asked to be put in touch with the expert. Why? Because he wanted to know exactly when he would die and how⌠as if the expert were a psychic and not an actuary.
More legal hilarity comes from Frank Caprio, Providenceâs Chief Municipal Judge in Rhode Island and now the star of Caught in Providence, who, âjudgingâ by the stories he recently shared with Readerâs Digest, has clearly has heard everything.
The âHairy Handâ. A young man named George had surgery to correct an ugly scar on his hand. The surgeon grafted skin from Georgeâs chest onto his hand⌠except George had a hairy chestâŚso now he had a hairy hand as well. George sued the surgeon and was awarded âthe difference in value between a 100 percent good hand⌠and a hairy hand.â.
Burnout, stress, and depression are incredibly common among lawyers. Make sure you take advantage of mental health days, vacation days, and sick days, and if you're truly struggling (or your colleagues are), consult a mental health practitioner. 15. You probably won't be rich.
Being a lawyer means being a writer. Just when you thought those law school papers were done, that's not quite the case. "I'm a litigator, which can be a bit like writing a term paper every night for the rest of your life," Devereux says.
You probably won't spend much time in court. All the movies that show lawyers only working when they're in court are not at all accurate. " In fact, you might never see a courtroom," Devereux says. You'll probably be spending a lot of time alone, in an office, researching cases, and processing paperwork.
You may not pass the bar on the first try. The bar exam wasn't exactly designed with everyone in mind. " Hereâs the thing. The bar examâlike most academic exams in our countryâwas first developed by white, affluent, powerful men (a.k.a. the patriarchy) who very much wanted to retain their power," Rodgers says.
And it may allow you to move around or work remotely. "Because trademarks and copyrights are regulated by a federal agency, you can work with trademark and copyright clients from any state. This gives you lots of flexibility if you donât want to be stuck in the state in which you are barred," says Rodgers. 6.
It's not easy to make partner (or become a part-owner of a firm instead of an employee), even if you're a top performer. "In my experience, most people I worked with did not make partner," Jamie says. Often, it's worth it to leave and go to another firm to get to that level, she admits.
" Law school doesn't really teach you how to practice law," Devereux says. It turns out, you have a lot left to learn. "In the beginning, it may seem like nearly every time you are assigned a task, it's something that you've never done before," she adds. But don't worry, eventually, with more practice (pun intended) you'll get the hang of the skill set and type of law you're practicing. "The anxiety should subside after a couple of years when you've developed a decent base of skills," Devereux says.
Thinking like a lawyer also means not taking anything for granted. Understanding why something happened, or why a certain law was enacted, enables you to apply the same rationale to other fact patterns and reach a logical conclusion. ...
Lawyers refer to why a law was made as its ââpolicy.ââ. The policy behind a law can be used to argue that new facts or circumstances should also fall under the law.
Thinking like a lawyer also requires using judgment. Just because a logical argument can be made doesnât mean that argument is good. Judgment is necessary to determine whether a given line of reasoning or conclusion is in anyoneâs best interests or advances society as a whole, or if itâs destructive and dangerous.
1. Approach a problem from all angles. To see all the possible issues in a set of facts, lawyers look at the situation from different perspectives. Putting yourself in othersâ shoes allows you to understand other points of view.
The girl sues the store for her injuries and wins because the judge rules the store owner was negligent in not sweeping the floor. Thinking like a lawyer means identifying which of the facts were important to the judge in deciding the case.
For example, the New York law against people wearing masks in public places is to prevent a mass crime or a riot, since you don't know the assailant's identity undercover.
And the Arizona one, about camel shooting prohibitions, stems from United States Camel Corps, an army experiment to use these animals for military forces. So there, as improbable as these laws might seem, they do have comprehensive explanations.
Add source. Governing a big country is a tough job, and you are bound to be hated by half of the population you're ruling. Now, bear in mind, that the person on top, is also responsible for the laws, upon which, the whole democratic system is based.