Litigation Quotes

Forensic auditing: These auditors sniff out fraud and other crimes. Forensic means "of the law," and forensic auditors often discover information that's used as litigation support - to help attorneys make their cases. ~ Maire Loughran

[I]f the policy of the Government, upon vital questions affecting, the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their Government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I think that one of the motivating factors was in my last year of law school: we had a competition, and I won the competition; it was judged by several of the federal judges at the time. I got a tremendous amount of encouragement to pursue litigation from them at the time. ~ Robert Shapiro

Litigation takes the place of sex at middle age. ~ Gore Vidal

The two areas growing fastest - IP litigation and labor & employment - together make up only 13% of law firm revenue, while the six shrinking segments account for 32% of revenue (note that the practice areas displayed account only for about 75% of total revenue, presumably because displaying them all would require more detail than would be useful). ~ Bruce Macewen

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

However, today due to civil litigation funded by cults this option for families has been eliminated. Instead, the only form of cult intervention now practiced is voluntary-with the exception of minor children under the direct supervision of a custodial parent. ~ Rick Ross

Litigation is the pursuit of practical ends, not a game of chess. ~ Felix Frankfurter

The antitrust litigation currently in the federal courts in the U.S. against Monsanto will be the test case in the life sciences, just as the Microsoft case was the test case in the information sciences. ~ Jeremy Rifkin

I was a litigation lawyer, working in downtown Toronto. I was successful, yet I was very unfulfilled. I had the sense that I really wasn't living according to my values, and I didn't have the passion or sense of mission I was looking for. ~ Robin S. Sharma

We have not noticed how fast the rest has risen. Most of the industrialized world--and a good part of the nonindustrialized world as well--has better cell phone service than the United States. Broadband is faster and cheaper across the industrial world, from Canada to France to Japan, and the United States now stands sixteenth in the world in broadband penetration per capita. Americans are constantly told by their politicians that the only thing we have to learn from other countries' health care systems is to be thankful for ours. Most Americans ignore the fact that a third of the country's public schools are totally dysfunctional (because their children go to the other two-thirds). The American litigation system is now routinely referred to as a huge cost to doing business, but no one dares propose any reform of it. Our mortgage deduction for housing costs a staggering $80 billion a year, and we are told it is crucial to support home ownership, except that Margaret Thatcher eliminated it in Britain, and yet that country has the same rate of home ownership as the United States. We rarely look around and notice other options and alternatives, convinced that "we're number one. ~ Fareed Zakaria

We have at least 125 communities in Arizona at risk from wildfire, not because of review processes or litigation delays but because of a lack of federal funding on the ground to actually begin the projects. ~ Janet Napolitano

Who am I? Who am I?"
"You're Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You're the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You're the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. You're a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. You're a swimmer. You're a baker. You're a cook. You're a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You're an excellent pianist. You're an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I'm away. You're patient. You're generous. You're the best listener I know. You're the smartest person I know, in every way. You're the bravest person I know, in every way. You're a lawyer. You're the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. You're a mathematician. You're a logician. You've tried to teach me, again and again. You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you."

"And who are you?"
"I'm Willem Ragnarsson. And I will never let you go. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

Beth will come back and coach Gretchen and Kailey on how to say the right things. I don't know if anyone is coaching the boys, but it seems unfair. Why do Gretchen and Kailey have to learn how to be the right kind of victims? ~ T.E. Carter

In all death penalty cases, spending time with clients is important. Developing the trust of clients is not only necessary to manage the complexities of the litigation & deal with the stress of a potential execution; it's also key to effective advocacy. A client's life often depends on his lawyer's ability to create a mitigation narrative that contextualizes his poor decisions or violent behavior. Uncovering things about someone's background that no one has previously discovered--things that might be hard to discuss but are critically important--requires trust. Getting someone to acknowledge he has been the victim of child sexual abuse, neglect, or abandonment won't happen without the kind of comfort that takes hours and multiple visits to develop. Talking about sports, TV, popular culture, or anything else the client wants to discuss is absolutely appropriate to building a relationship that makes effective work possible. ~ Bryan Stevenson

My dear boy, in Ireland the midwife uses one hand to hold the baby's best fighting arm from the font water, and grips its jaws with the other lest the goes to litigation about it. Says O'LiamRoe ~ Dorothy Dunnett

This is a Pandora's box, for endless litigation, for division in society setting one group against another, and we must for that reason, for community cohesion, resist this bill. ~ Stewart Jackson

Doctors need to be held accountable, since power corrupts. There must be complaints procedures and litigation, commissions of enquiry, punishment and compensation. At the same time if you do not hide or deny any mistakes when things go wrong, and if your patients and their families know that you are distressed by whatever happened, you might, if you are lucky, receive the precious gift of forgiveness. ~ Henry Marsh

The 1850s proved to be the decade of the most prolific patent litigation in America's history. Lincoln himself was involved, as well as his most three prolific cabinet members: Chase, Seward and Stanton. ~ Darin Gibby

A physicist that I know commented that many other scientific disciplines, such as geology, anthropology, astronomy, are also challenged by biblical fundamentalism, but their people seem to be able to get on with their work without worrying unduly. Only Darwinians seem thrown into a frenzy that sends them running to litigation and demanding censorship. His explanation was that it's a rival religion. ~ James P. Hogan

What is taking place here should be made very clear: Citizens who are completely innocent of any legal wrongdoing and simply minding their own business--not seeking any litigation and neither convicted nor accused of any legal infraction, criminal or civil--are ordered into court and told to write checks to officials of the court or they will be summarily arrested and jailed, Judges also order citizens to sell their houses and other property and turn the proceeds over to lawyers and other cronies they never hired. Summoning legally unimpeachable citizens to court and forcing them to empty their bank accounts to people they have not hired for services they have neither requested nor received on threat of physical punishment is what most people would call a protection racket. . . Yet family court judges do this as a matter of routine. This is by far the clearest example of what we political scientists term a "kleptocracy," or government by theives. ~ Stephen Baskerville

I think that practising the law, particularly litigation, and particularly in Glasgow, has always been difficult enough without adding to it by having problems with professional colleagues or former colleagues. ~ Len G. Murray

By the late Stalin period, the right of complaint was so thoroughly a part of this political culture, in which civil law and litigation were frequently meaningless, that there were special mailboxes in the concentration camps of the Gulag labeled, "To the Supreme Soviet", "To the Council of Ministers", "To the Minister of Internal Affairs", and "To the Prosecutor General". ~ Lynne Viola

I had a job transcribing a biotechnology-litigation seminar. You put headphones on and fast-forward and stop with your feet. There were a lot of 'um's.' ~ Adam Schlesinger

So my attorneys brought litigation in the U.S. federal courts. The judge ruled in our favor. ~ Jeremy Rifkin

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser - in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough. ~ Abraham Lincoln

In Connecticut, my understanding, although I haven't seen the actual litigation, is that they want to measure every other year and not provide annual assessment as is required in the statute. ~ Margaret Spellings

People meet writers and are bowled over when the writer is friendly to them and invites them to his house for a glass of wine or to shoot up heroin or whatever they do, and they talk their heads off, and a year later it comes out in a book, and there follow years of bitter and fruitless litigation, and that is why you should always keep a writer at arm's length. ~ Garrison Keillor

America with 4% of the world's population has 50% of the worlds lawyers ... tort lawyers love to point out that 1% of America's health care cost is used to pay malpractice insurance ... but most doctors practice defensive medicine to avoid malpractice litigation ... these costs are not included in the 1% number above. ~ Richard Lamm

In the old days, you would have one lawyer to handle everything: speeding tickets, buying a house, contracts, litigation, real estate, copyrights, leasing, entertainment, intellectual property, forensic accounting, criminal offenses ... the list goes on. Now, you have to have a separate lawyer for each one of those categories! ~ James Belushi

Environmental agencies in China are hamstrung by local officials who put economic growth ahead of environmental protection; even the courts are beholden to local officials, and they are not open to environmental litigation. ~ Ma Jun

We copied laws and regulations from western countries, but enforcement remains weak, and environmental litigation is still quite near impossible. ~ Ma Jun

Three features mark the Anglo-American system as different from all others. One is the extent to which our law is formed in litigation. Another feature is the way we conduct these cases: we pit antagonists against each other, to cast up from their struggles the material of decisions. A third- and largest in the public consciousness- is the trial by jury. ~ Charles Rembar

In the strange heat all litigation brings to bear on things, the very process of litigation fosters the most profound misunderstandings in the world. ~ Renata Adler

Less regulation plus less taxation plus less litigation always equals more innovation and job creation. ~ Marsha Blackburn

When my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1991, I asked him if he had any regrets, and he said no. I was a burnt-out litigation solicitor in my thirties, hating my life, and his cancer made me re-evaluate it all. ~ Michelle Paver

As one gets older, litigation replaces sex. ~ Gore Vidal

As much progress as we think we've made with legislation, litigation and education, anti-Semitism still continues to be the No. 2 hate crime in the United States. You can't eliminate it, but you can try to keep a lid on it. ~ Abraham Foxman

Any street cop knows you will be sued or involved in some type of litigation throughout your career. ~ Mark Fuhrman

I cannot concern myself with the intolerable affections and frivolous actions of a cruel, selfish, and litigious society. I must treasure the invisible muteness and inherent intelligence that nature blessed me with at birth. I shall endeavor to find beauty in living, striving, suffering, and dying in nature's glorious wonderland of grasslands, forest, rivers, and seas situated under an of infinite canopy of glittering stars. Perhaps when I reach the end of this long scroll I will finally leave behind me the tragic sense of ignobly that haunts my nights and begin living in a world filled with infinite sunshine and boundless delight. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

There are many reasons for increased spending on health care, including an aging population, technological change, perverse incentives, supply-induced demand, and fear of malpractice litigation. The broader point is that the basic underlying problem does not entail misbehavior or incompetence but rather stems from the nature of the provision of labor-intensive services. ~ William J. Baumol

Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the somber renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings. I mean long journeys across gray space. I mean danger, the edge of every void, the circumstance of one man imparting an erotic terror to the dreams of the republic. Understand the man who must inhabit these extreme regions, monstrous and vulval, damp with memories of violation. Even if half-mad he is absorbed into the public's total madness; even if fully rational, a bureaucrat in hell, a secret genius of survival, he is sure to be destroyed by the public's contempt for survivors. Fame, this special kind, feeds itself on outrage, on what the counselors of lesser men would consider bad publicity-hysteria in limousines, knife fights in the audience, bizarre litigation, treachery, pandemonium and drugs. Perhaps the only natural law attaching to true fame is that the famous man is compelled, eventually, to commit suicide.
(Is it clear I was a hero of rock'n'roll?)
Toward the end of the final tour it became apparent that our audience wanted more than music, more even than its own reduplicated noise. It's possible the culture had reached its limit, a point of severe tension. There was less sense of simple visceral abandon at our concerts during these last weeks. Few cases of arson and vandalism. Fewer still of rape. No smoke bombs or threats of worse explosives. Our followers, in their isolation, were not concerned with precedent now. They w ~ Don DeLillo

It is odd how learned persons fail to see that new terms and definitions are apt to mean new doubts and litigation. ~ Frederick Pollock

Some marriages depend on domestic arguments the way the courts depend on litigation. ~ Mason Cooley

When then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued me in 2003 over my stewardship as a director of the New York Stock Exchange, the NYSE's legal expenses were more than $100 million, which made it perhaps the priciest litigation in the state's history. ~ Kenneth Langone

Sixteenth-century litigation combined the qualities of tedium, hardship, brutality, and injustice that tested character and endurance, with the element of pure chance that appealed to the gambler, the fear of defeat and ruin, and the hope of victory and humiliation of the enemy. It had everything that war can offer except the delights of shedding blood. ~ Lawrence Stone

We find an abundance of anger and the desire to destroy the opposition in any competitive human environment. Hate sparks contest, and in the modern world, attorneys are the paid gladiators of warring parties. Attorneys are for hire to the highest bidder. Attorneys ply their trade by dealing in the commerce of anger and hatred. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

What had driven the litigation-loving Bengali to turn his gentle green valley into a pocket edition of hell?'

John Younie, the judge who tried the Chittagong Armoury Raid Case. ~ Manoshi Bhattacharya

Through no-fault divorce, one parent can now declare unilaterally that the marriage has "broken down" and invite the state in to take control and remove the other parent without the parent having committed any legal transgression. What the government then offers to the parent who invites it in is the promise that her invitation will be rewarded; the state will establish her as a puppet government, a satrap of the state within the family. This requires that not the faithless but the faithful parent be punished. ~ Stephen Baskerville

The biggest government waste: The death penalty. An individual death-penalty case could climb to $100 million, much of it spent at the litigation level. Also, DNA evidence has exonerated nearly 300 death-row inmates. ~ John McLaughlin

Litigation was war. A war that usually inflicted heavy casualties on both sides. ~ Kenneth Eade

I think my greatest moment in business was when the first Southwest airplane arrived after four years of litigation, and I walked up to it and I kissed that baby on the lips and I cried. ~ Herb Kelleher

Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Gene patents are the point of greatest concern in the debate over ownership of human biological materials, and how that ownership might interfere with science. As of 2005 - the most recent year figures were available - the U.S. government had issued patents relating to the use of about 20 percent of known human genes, including genes for Alzheimer's, asthma, colon cancer, and, most famously, breast cancer. This means pharmaceutical companies, scientists, and universities control what research can be done on those genes, and how much resulting therapies and diagnostic tests will cost. And some enforce their patents aggressively: Myriad Genetics, which holds the patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes responsible for most cases of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, charges $3,000 to test for the genes. Myriad has been accused of creating a monopoly, since no one else can offer the test, and researchers can't develop cheaper tests or new therapies without getting permission from Myriad and paying steep licensing fees. Scientists who've gone ahead with research involving the breast-cancer genes without Myriad's permission have found themselves on the receiving end of cease-and-desist letters and threats of litigation. ~ Rebecca Skloot

Did you ever hear of a congress of lawyers for simplifying the law and discouraging litigation? What ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

We don't we agree that litigation reform to lower the cost of healthcare would be a good starting point? ~ Newt Gingrich

Practicing law in a general practice litigation firm can quickly sap an attorney's enthusiasm for life as well as their inner will to pursue their line of trade that they invested years of schooling qualifying to perform. In phone calls, an attorney listens to clients scream, cry, and curse, make wild accusations, and threatening to harm other people. Because the client is paying the firm, they feel entitled to act obscenely. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Fractal litigation, whereby the flapping of a butterfly's wings on one side of the world resulted in a massive compensation claim on the other. ~ Steve Aylett

I was a chief justice. And before that, I was a district court judge, handled major felonies, including capital murder cases; and I handled major civil litigation. ~ Louie Gohmert

I always try to tell a good story, one with a compelling plot that will keep the pages turning. That is my first and primary goal. Sometimes I can tackle an issue-homelessness, tobacco litigation, insurance fraud, the death penalty-and wrap a good story around it. ~ John Grisham

I was a litigation lawyer. That's all very logical. Become a litigation lawyer. Become successful. Have a nice office. But there was some pull inside of me saying, self-publish this book. I followed that intuition and it's been a great choice for me in my life. ~ Robin S. Sharma

I was a litigation lawyer, following the crowd off the proverbial cliff, when I pressed the pause button. ~ Robin S. Sharma

I enjoy personal injury cases. I've tried quite a few of those. And, frankly, any kind of litigation that is trouble-shooting, whether it's equities, suits and injunctions, or whatever. ~ F. Lee Bailey

Litigation is a tool used by negotiators. ~ Gerard I. Nierenberg

Superfluous focus on accounting and other procedural details is preventing U.S. industry from competing with rough-and-ready rivals in Asia that can build thousands of factories and skyscrapers while the United States dithers with environmental-impact litigation, re-computation, and backup of accounting reports. ~ George Gilder

Litigation only makes lawyers fat. ~ Wilbur Smith

Listen, we all have to agree that there is too much litigation going on in this world. But every year it seems to multiply tenfold. Why can't we stop it? Well, it's because the lawmakers in Congress and the Senate are almost all lawyers, too! ~ James Belushi

In a litigation-happy society, clear agreements often prevent small disagreements from becoming big ones. ~ Harvey MacKay

I am actually for the first time looking forward to a litigation. ~ O.J. Simpson

Litigation is notoriously time-consuming, inefficient, costly and unpredictable. ~ Charlie Munger

Our civilization is shifting from science and technology to rhetoric and litigation. ~ Mason Cooley

While we believe there are fruitful opportunities to update and improve old rules, we do not want to set up a review process that could create a litigation morass. ~ Fred Thompson

So are there lots of cows?" she asked before she could stop herself. "On the ranch, I mean."
Zane didn't spare her a glance. "Some."
"Like twenty?"
He glanced at her then, before turning his attention back to the road. "We run several thousand head of steers. Those are the ones that end up on your barbecue. I have another few hundred head of cows for breeding purposes."
"No bulls?" she asked, unable to keep from grinning.
He sighed the sigh of the long suffering. "A dozen or so."
"A dozen bulls for a few hundred cows?"
Mr. Hunk-in-a-hat, who had put his hat on the seat between them when he'd climbed into the cab, chuckled. "Yup."
"Yet another example of our patriarchal society ignoring the rights of cows."
"You worried about cows' rights?" He sounded both incredulous and amused. "You a lawyer?"
"No. And I'm not concerned about cows' rights. Of course I want them treated humanely, as any civilized person would, but I'm not crazy."
"What are you, then?"
"What?"
He glanced at her. "If you're not a lawyer, what are you?"
"Oh." For a second she thought he'd been referring to her mental state. "I work in real estate."
Fortunately Zane didn't ask any questions about her career. She didn't think that telling him she'd been suspended for litigation would improve his opinion of her. ~ Susan Mallery

LIf someone tries to steal your watch, by all means fight them off. If someone sues you for your watch, hand it over and be glad you got away so lightly. ~ John Mortimer

Once you get involved with bloodsport litigation, you can not only get drunk on your own greed but start to believe your own lies. ~ Jello Biafra

Being a professional musician doesn't mean you spend 12 hours a day playing music. It means you spend up to 12 hours a day taking care of business, dealing with litigation, with the various characters who've stolen your interests, or fending off hostile lawsuits from former members of the band. ~ Robert Fripp

Whereas, it is hereby decreed to all felines of the Middle Kingdom: They are enjoined to observe every provision of the judicial codes unless such provisions aforesaid have been abrogated heretofore, though any abrogation is liable to reinstatement at any time whatever and shall be effective retroactively without recourse on behalf of said felines whether or not said felines are presently or will be engaged in litigation. This decree is not susceptible to appeal. ~ Lloyd Alexander

Imagine a day when all plants and trees go on a strike, a bandh just for a day. All of us will die for want of oxygen." Reading this, I was instantly reminded of Bolivia's recent legislation (in December 2010) to grant all nature equal rights as humans. Justice William O. Douglas, writing against a 1972 decision by the United States Supreme Court, wrote, "Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation ... So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life ... The voice of the inanimate object, therefore, should not be stilled. ~ Anonymous

Back in the mid-1980s, congressional hearings were held after we brought this litigation, and held up the first experiment. At that time, I went in front of Congress, along with the major agencies involved with this. ~ Jeremy Rifkin

Frivolous lawsuits are booming in this county. The U.S. has more costs of litigation per person than any other industrialized nation in the world, and it is crippling our economy. ~ Jack Kingston

A network neutrality rule could result in mere 'slaps on the wrist' or involve such expensive and difficult litigation procedures that no small company or consumer could ever bring a case. ~ Marvin Ammori

The argument culture urges us to approach the world - and the people in it - in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as 'both sides'; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you're really thinking is to criticize. ~ Deborah Tannen

By making defense lawyers more central to criminal litigation than they already were and by dramatically enlarging the range of legal claims they could raise on their clients' behalf, Warren's Court increased the gap between rich and poor defendants-and, given the racial distribution of poverty in midcentury America, between black and white defendants as well. Because the time and quality of defense counsel mattered more than before, those defendants who could buy better quality attorneys and pay them to work more hours were more advantaged than before. Relatively speaking, their poorer counterparts grew more disadvantaged. The justice system grew less egalitarian through the Supreme Court's efforts to make it more so.
The ~ William J. Stuntz

Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Oh this young man has had a very trying rookie season, with the litigation, the notoriety, his subsequent deportation to Canada and that country's refusal to accept him, well, I guess that's more than most 21-year-olds can handle... Ogie Ogilthorpe! ~ Jim Carr

When you're thrust into litigation, you obviously have to make sure you're prepared to deal with that. ~ Roger Goodell

I don't really believe in moral victories. You can have them when you're dealing with public opinion, but in litigation, you want to win the case. I want to win. ~ David Boies