The Lincoln Lawyer Quotes
"The morning air off the Mojave in late winter is as clean and crisp as you’ll ever breathe in Los Angeles County. It carries the taste of promise on it."
"You could say his name is also permanently scratched onto my Christmas list."
"I always say cases go in like a lion and come out like a lamb."
"I don’t deal in guilt and innocence, because everybody is guilty. Of something."
"The law was not about truth. It was about negotiation, amelioration, manipulation."
"The law was a large, rusting machine that sucked up people and lives and money. I was just a mechanic."
"I had come to think of it in very simple terms. The law was not about truth. It was about negotiation, amelioration, manipulation."
"But at the moment it was made, it was just another choice made of necessity and routine."
"I wasn’t one of the bar’s favorite sons. They had come at me before. More than once."
"Sometimes I’m not sure which side of the bars I am on."
"Your Honor, all grandstanding aside, what should not be forgotten is that the victim in this case was brutally —"
"Remember what I said. Don't talk to strangers. Don't talk to anybody."
"Every attorney who works the machine has two fee schedules."
"From where I hunt, they are the rarest and most highly sought beast in the jungle."
"He can keep gas in the tank for two to three years."
"She spoke to no one and she did not look back at me."
"Trying to shop prosecutors can be dangerous."
"I have a call in to Louis’s mother to see how she wants to handle it, whether to put up property or go with a bond."
"If we're going to be working together, I guess I should ask what you want to be called."
"I get twenty-five hundred for today and Louis already approved that."
"We can talk about an appeal if and when it becomes necessary."
"I think there is a lot of money to be made on this case and we’re about to go get the first installment."
"You want to convict a man and put him in a cage for life, then put up the fucking evidence."
"If it wasn’t him, who else could it have been? Give me a break with that."
"I’m jealous and I’m already tired of hearing about it."
"If you weren’t in law school, where were you?"
"All the rest of the time you can say what you want and whatever makes you feel good."
"As a defense attorney I lived in the gray areas."
"You're a bottom-feeding scum sucker and one's a fish."
"Prostitutes can be victims, too. Even amateurs."
"The one thing that was certain now was that the franchise — and the big payday that came with it — was back in play."
"The case was going to go the distance to trial unless Roulet took the state’s offer."
"I felt angry. At Roulet, at Levin, and most of all at myself."
"I only succeeded in embarrassing myself in the DA’s office."
"I can’t deal with a client who doesn’t level, who doesn’t see the percentage in telling his own attorney what is going on."
"I won’t plead guilty to something I didn’t do."
"Your life and livelihood are on the line here."
"A mother will do what she has to do to protect her young."
"We can’t be adversaries if we can’t stay on the same case together."
"You got me drunk so you could find out what I knew."
"Don’t worry about me. I’ll lay what I want and lay off what I want."
"This is great. I am so happy to hear you say that."
"I don’t care what you’re telling me. I can’t deal with a client who doesn’t level, who doesn’t see the percentage in telling his own attorney what is going on."
"You’re not going to need customers anymore where you’re going."
"He said that he asked your guy what he was in for and your guy said, ‘For giving a bitch exactly what she deserved.’"
"To legally defend you I didn’t need to know the answer to that question. If I asked my clients if they were guilty of the crimes they were charged with, very few would tell me the truth. And if they did, I might not be able to defend them to the best of my ability."
"He’s in San Quentin. You were up at the Q today."
"My greatest fear had been realized, realized for two years but I hadn’t known it. Not until now. I had been presented with innocence but I had not seen it or grasped it."
"Something as rare as a true miracle — an innocent man — had come to me and I hadn’t recognized it. I had turned away."
"Every one of them was a liar and every one of them could easily be shown as such in court."
"A trial was a slingshot. The key was in the preparation."
"Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time."
"You could sing that song all day and the Dodgers could lose twenty–zip to the Giants and I’d still have a great time."
"The start of baseball season is a rite of spring that draws downtown workers by the thousands."
"There is nothing like the start of a season, before all the one–run losses, pitching breakdowns and missed opportunities. Before reality sets in."
"The cases were lucrative and steady and we had fun."
"That was L.A. Something for everyone and a little irony to boot."
"Deep down I knew that Raul had gotten too close to Louis Roulet."
"He was shot one time in the chest. Something small, looks like a twenty–two to me but we’ll wait on the coroner for that."
"All I know is I should have been afraid of one thing but I was afraid of the complete opposite."
"There’s always an electric feel to the start of a trial. A nervousness that attacks deep in the gut. So much is on the line. Reputation, personal freedom, the integrity of the system itself."
"I can only liken it to the anxiety and tension of standing at the front of a church on your wedding day."
"I was one man standing before the giant maw of the system."
"And against this all I had was myself. And a guilty client."
"I didn’t really need one, either. Levin had given me everything I needed."
"Something about having those twelve strangers sit in judgment of your life and work always jumps things up inside."
"I’ve never gotten used to it, and the truth is, I never want to."
"You defend me on this case. You do your best, you get paid the big bucks, you win and I walk away."
"But you are wrong about everything else, Mick. Levin wasn’t trying to help me. He was trying to bury me and he was getting too close."
"If you fuck with me you will never be free of me. Are we clear on that?"
"You never stop paying until you reach the point of no return. That’s what this is about. The point of no return."
"I had to admire the plan and the ingenuity at the same time that it made me feel the dread of desperation."
"My father was a lawyer. Mickey Cohen was his client."
"Thanks for the ride," I said. "You guys can search my house and my office and my car for as long as you want, but I have to tell you, you are wasting your time."
"That sounds like legal jargon and bullshit, Haller," Lankford said.
"What's the difference between a catfish and a defense attorney?"
"You're a bottom–feeding shit sucker," I said. "And the other one's a fish."
"Everybody can be a victim. Prostitute or pope, doesn't matter. A victim is a victim."
"One's a bottom–feeding, shit–eating scum sucker. The other's a fish."
"You're a sleazy defense lawyer with two ex–wives and an eight–year–old daughter. And we all still love you."
"I believed that Minton was feeling the pressure and was wavering. I wanted to push him toward a decision and thought maybe giving him the lunch hour would help."
"Normally, I would have objected to this because I would want to know if I had to put a witness on the stand directly after lunch."
"It was customary for the prosecutor to throw out a low-ball disposition at the first sign of trouble."
"It’s my duty to bring your offer to my client and I will do that. But I’m also going to tell him he’d be a fool to take it."
"I think it’s clear sailing from here. Have a good lunch."
"After we came back into court from Four Green Fields I purposely ignored Minton."
"The offer was a substantial reduction but Roulet, if he took it, would still be sentenced to four years in prison."
"I think that’s a little strong, Ted, considering how your ace just held up on the stand."
"He needed a conviction — any conviction — on this case."
"My clients rarely had the money to pay my fees, let alone for PowerPoint presentations."
"If I couldn’t convince them, nothing from a computer could, either."
"She came into this courtroom today and flat out lied to the judge and the jury and the whole wide world."
"You have to listen to their lies and just wait your chance. Of course, it makes you angry. I am innocent! I did not do this!"
"I’m not worried. In fact, you ought to come up and check it out. Old school versus new school, a battle for the ages."
"Just because the DA’s office has a communication problem, my client has to suffer the consequences of not being informed that the state had a witness against him?"
"Perfect timing," I whispered back. "I'm good to go."
"Stop touching me. We have new information we can't bring up on cross."
"Listen to me. It doesn't matter because I can still destroy him."
"I don't know because I never talked to him. I'm not that stupid as to have a discussion about cigarettes and murder with a total fucking stranger!"
"Is it because nobody likes a snitch, Mr. Corliss?"