Top 155 Attorney Quotes

Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights supports youth reentry projects because my father cared deeply about children and young people involved in the juvenile justice system, part of his focus while serving as attorney general.

I see how attorneys are, and nobody is really on your side. It’s about money. The attorney is not chasing after your money; he’s chasing after his fee.

Having served as both attorney general and deputy attorney general in the Justice Department, I had responsibility for supervising the FBI, working on virtually a daily basis with its senior leadership.

You know, as attorney general, there’s no issue more important than making sure you are safe, that your families are safe.

I grew up in a two-parent household. We all played sports, all sports, which cost a lot of money. My pops was an attorney; he went to College of the Holy Cross with Clarence Thomas. My mom worked a bit, then gradually came home and took care of us full time.

As you may know, previously as Attorney General and now as Governor, I have supported legislation to close the gun show loophole in North Carolina.

As attorney general, I’ve led a victim-centered office.

As a young prosecutor, I used the Bureau of Criminal Investigation extensively. I saw that there were problems with BCI. Frankly, I thought I could fix them. I thought if I was successful, I could really make a difference as attorney general.

One of the people that wrote a forward to my book is Gerry Spence, whom I admire. Gerry is a friend of mine, and Gerry’s perhaps the leading criminal defense attorney in the country.

When I was attorney general, we had the strongest public integrity unit in the country.

Being an independent reporter with legal knowledge fits me better than being an attorney who is representing one side or one goal.

Americans deserve an attorney general that will be honest with them, they deserve an attorney general who will uphold the basic standards of political independence and accountability.

If I am going to pick and choose the laws I defend, I wouldn’t be doing my duty as attorney general.

Though the Attorney General of the United States carries many responsibilities and undertakes many tasks, there can be none more important than the pursuit of civil rights on behalf of all the people of this country.

When I left the San Francisco DA’s office, I went down to the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, and I was able to try a tremendous amount – very serious cases and working in gang neighborhoods, impoverished neighborhoods – really make a difference and be impactful in those communities.

The attorney general should be enforcing the law, not policy.

I don’t believe newspaper reporters can substitute for a district attorney, but a newspaper has a very valid investigative role. Newspaper reports on corruption in government, racketeering and organized crime conditions can be very helpful to your communities and the whole country.

Thousands of people go to jail, go to prison, every year without even meeting with an attorney.

When states like Alabama and Arizona passed some of the harshest immigration laws in history, my Attorney General took them on in court and we won.

Your job as a trial attorney is to try to convey to the jury the essence of the people you represent.

If the events of September 11, 2001, have proven anything, it’s that the terrorists can attack us, but they can’t take away what makes us American – our freedom, our liberty, our civil rights. No, only Attorney General John Ashcroft can do that.

I noticed that this defense attorney is a very, very intelligent man, and he’s very cool and he’s very knowledgeable, and I think that personally I’d like to have an attorney like him.

The inattention of the Bush administration to the threat from al Qaeda had results. Shortly before 9/11, Bush’s attorney general, John Ashcroft, turned down FBI requests for some 400 additional counterterrorism personnel.

In some states, the attorney general is appointed, but in New York state it’s an independently elected position. The New York attorney general has an obligation to the people first, to her conscience and to the rule of law, not to the governor, and not to the legislature.

It was hard to imagine a little boy who looked like me could someday help a president confirm a Supreme Court justice, or even run for attorney general. But here we are.

When you have an attorney giving you advice, it would be nice to know what their financial relationship is to the advice.

This is a true story. The day after Reagan won, I was walking into the courthouse when someone said that they’d bet Reagan would appoint me U.S. attorney.

Do we want an Attorney General who will play politics with the law, play politics with the court and just play politics with international conventions designed to protect our troops? I do not want to play that kind of politics. I am going to vote against Alberto Gonzales.

As Attorney General of Alabama, I have never hesitated to stand up to the EPA before when it was wrong.

I have always wanted to run for Attorney General, and I always wanted to have a baby, but I did not think I would be doing them at the same time.

I realized how important it was to have a good team – manager, attorney and label. It’s not just about putting out a record and somebody signing you.

Isn’t it nice of the IRS to tell the media where to ambush me before they tell me that the U.S. Attorney is suing me?

I think when you play a role, you always have to be a defense attorney for that character.

As attorney general, I’ve launched a specialized unit to protect voting rights.

I think what we ought to be focusing on is that we are on path for the release of 75,000 pages of documents in connection with John Roberts’ work in the White House, as in the counselor’s office and as his time working as an assistant in the office of the attorney general.

I am humbled to have been asked by President-elect Trump to serve as Attorney General of the United States.

It’s always been my dream to be an attorney, and I’m that weird breed of human being that loves being in a courtroom.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and I found that out when I was Attorney General in Massachusetts.

My mom is an entertainment attorney, and she brought me to a BMI panel for people who were interested in becoming artists. While I was there, her friends kept peer pressuring me to go and sing in front of everyone because I was a very, very shy girl.

When the law says you’re entitled to an attorney, it doesn’t mean you’re entitled to an attorney who sleeps or an attorney who doesn’t do his job.

I had a dream to be an attorney. I don’t know if I ever would’ve passed the bar or not, but that was my dream.

Wells Fargo’s internal review only covers unauthorized accounts dating back to 2011. News reports and court documents suggest these problems might have existed long before then. The 2013 ‘Los Angeles Times’ articles led to the L.A. city attorney’s office investigation into Wells Fargo’s sales practices.

The resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder is met with both pride and disappointment by the Civil Rights community. We are proud that he has been the best Attorney General on Civil Rights in U.S. history and disappointed because he leaves at a critical time when we need his continued diligence most.

When I took office in 2011, I made a commitment that the Office of Attorney General would find ways to do more while spending fewer taxpayer dollars.

New Yorkers have been fortunate to have Andrew Cuomo as our Attorney General – protecting working New Yorkers against the banks, insurance companies and big corporations.

In a democratic country, when a man is accused, he’s accused from a document issued by the public attorney.

When a New York attorney general brings a lawsuit against a prominent business person, there are two things you can count on out of that office – lots of political bluster and little accountability.

After Huguette Clark died in 2011 at age 104, 19 relatives challenged her will, claiming she was mentally ill and had been defrauded by her nurse, attorney and accountant.

I’m happy every time I stand up in court and say, ‘George Brauchler for the people of Colorado…’ I take no shame in that; I take pride in that. My mom took pride in being an attorney, too.

The defendant wants to hide the truth because he’s generally guilty. The defense attorney’s job is to make sure the jury does not arrive at that truth.

My parents would always have us, as many times as we could, sit together for dinner and talk about what was happening in our lives, and so we created a great recipe where I could be completely honest with my mother and to an extent my father, being an attorney.

As a past attorney general I consider a WTO Brexit to be a disaster for us as, leaving aside the economic damage it will cause, it would trash our reputation for observing our international obligations – as it must lead to our breaching the Good Friday Agreement with Ireland on the Irish border.

I saw the legal system close up, and I understood that it was built by lawyers for lawyers, and unless you have an attorney to navigate it, you’re not going to be successful.

Look, Bill Barr can choose to be a lying partisan hack. It just means he needs to go work for the Trump campaign but he can’t be attorney general. That’s a position that requires independence, integrity, an oath to the constitution.

During the periods in my marriage when I chose to stay home with my kids rather than work as an attorney, it caused me no end of anxiety. Despite the fact that I knew I was contributing to our family by caring for our children, I still felt that my worth was less because I wasn’t earning.

I sit here as the first African-American attorney general, serving the first African-American President of the United States. And that has to show that we have made a great deal of progress. But there’s still more we have to travel along this road so we get to the place that is consistent with our founding ideals.

I wasn’t meant to be an attorney, but I was meant to go to law school.

My earliest memories are when my father was the attorney general at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. We would go to visit him at the Justice Department and take the tunnel over to the FBI building and watch the sharpshooters at practice.

My father was an attorney.

Attorney General Becerra was the leading force behind the lawsuit to protect the Affordable Care Act. Yes, he had the audacity to maintain protections for people with pre-existing conditions and for those suffering from mental illness.

Since my election as Oklahoma attorney general in 2010, I have been a proud member of a group of federalism-minded state attorneys general who have methodically, indeed relentlessly, worked to restore the proper balance of power between the federal government and the states.

Our country is fortunate to have Bill Barr, a man of integrity who has served two U.S. Presidents, as our Attorney General.

I will be the defense attorney for all Italians.

As the United States attorney in Manhattan, I have come to worry about few things as much as the gathering cyber threat.

I couldn’t vote to confirm any candidate who supports executive amnesty. The attorney general is a top law enforcement officer in this country – the senior person – and anyone who occupies that office must have fidelity to the laws of the United States duly passed, and to the Constitution of the United States.

If you violate Nature’s laws you are your own prosecuting attorney, judge, jury, and hangman.

I don’t get into conversations or information about anything that the president does with his personal attorney.

I’ll trust an attorney before I’ll trust a doctor.

During my time as a judge, as a justice, and as attorney general, I’ve had one overarching goal, and that is a strict interpretation and application of the laws and the Constitution. I would be Madisonian.

As Attorney General, my most important responsibility is keeping New Yorkers safe by enforcing the laws that protect our people from harm. But another fundamental part of my job is to seek to advance the basic American principle of equal justice under law.

I’d been wanting to audition for the Raiderettes for a while. The irony is that I didn’t have time when I was in law school, but as a practicing attorney I did. I’ve been dancing since I was 3, so it’s natural to want that part of my life, the love of performing, satisfied.

When I was a young man, I used to dream maybe someday I could be an alderman. Instead of that I became an attorney general, a senator, a vice president, a Democratic nominee.

Some commentators have attacked the special counsel regulations as giving the attorney general the power to close a case against the president, as Mr. Barr did with the obstruction of justice investigation into Donald Trump. But the critics’ complaint here is not with the regulations but with the Constitution itself.

When I ran for attorney general, I promised to protect our seniors – and just look at what we’ve accomplished. From stopping scammers and cracking down on abuse to fighting for lower prescription drug costs, I’ve always put our seniors first.

Every state in America has an end of life directive or durable power of attorney provision. For the peace of mind of your children and your spouse as well as the comfort of knowing the government won’t make these decisions, it’s a very popular thing. Just not everybody’s aware of it.

And then for the first time in history a Cook County state’s attorney was reelected for a third time.

We provided complete protection to witnesses – right of attorney, right of record, right to cross-examine, and open hearing if they desired. Only Mr. Lane asked for an open hearing.

As attorney general, I have a duty to defend the laws and constitution of the State of Missouri.

Al Gonzales is a dedicated public servant and exceptionally qualified to be our nation’s next Attorney General. I know that a lot has been said about Judge Gonzales’ life story. It is a story of the fulfillment of the American Dream.

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.

The Department of Justice must be nonpartisan and uphold the rule of law. Likewise, the leader of that department – the Attorney General – must always be independent and focused on doing the right thing, regardless of the politics.

I wanted to be an attorney. My mother would say I never stopped talking. I always had a lot of questions to ask, and I was never satisfied with the answer. A lot of things I wasn’t satisfied by.

Building trust between law enforcement officers and the communities we serve is one of my highest priorities as attorney general.

There’s something about sitting face-to-face with an attorney in an office that enables people to come to grips with the very idea of divorce – or to reconsider the idea. Like a number of my colleagues – not all – I offer that preliminary consultation for free.

People used to ask me: ‘Well, was it the power that attracted you to Bill Clinton?’ And I said, well, how much power do you think the attorney general of Arkansas has? Of course not. It wasn’t that for me. I just a thought he was wonderful in general.

I started my career in the private sector and then became U.S. attorney. I think I was a stronger U.S. attorney, and I frankly think I am a stronger Chair of the SEC, because of that experience.

My father is a practicing criminal law attorney in the Seattle area.

My dad is a judge, but he started off as an attorney. He is one of my biggest role models; both of my parents are. So, from a young age, I said I wanted to be an attorney.

I was appointed United States attorney on September 10, 2001. And I spent the next seven years of my career fighting terrorism and putting terrorists in jail.

Unfortunately, from what I can see from my vantage point as the U.S. Attorney here, illegal insider trading is rampant and may even be on the rise.

In San Francisco, I am proud to say that one of my first mandates as district attorney was that my staff would never ask the court to impose money bail. If we believe someone is too dangerous to be released, then it doesn’t matter how wealthy they are – we should ask the court to detain them.

The best job I ever had was to be the United States attorney and what I loved… it was an apolitical position. I stood up always to represent the United States of America. Never one party or another. And I very much view that as this role for the DNI.

Being attorney general has truly allowed me to be a voice for justice for the people of Illinois and oftentimes the country – and I love it.

I started off as a prosecutor and I would be sitting there, waiting for the defense attorney to come, and they would either bypass me because they would assume that I’m not the attorney or they would assume that I was the legal secretary or a paralegal – never the attorney.

I am running for Attorney General because I believe there is no higher calling than the pursuit of justice.

Ninety-five percent of the work in the attorney general’s office is civil litigation and regulatory work, and I think I certainly have a lot more experience in that than most of the folks who have served in the office.

The attorney general would call at 5 o’clock in the evening and say: ‘Tomorrow morning we are going to try to integrate the University of Mississippi. Get us a memo on what we’re likely to do, and what we can do if the governor sends the National Guard there.’

I was assigned to do a job by the attorney general, and that was to find out whether crimes were committed.

Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, has seen a few financial schemes in his time. As the lead local prosecutor in the world’s financial capital, he has battled frauds like the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which stole billions of dollars from investors worldwide.

Running for attorney general troubled me. Because I was worried I would simply become just a figurehead and that’s not me.

Politics is still the No. 1 sport in town and the scoreboard shows the U.S. attorney’s office leading.

I do want to make clear that I am personally committed to the integrity of the Department of Justice. Since becoming acting attorney general, I have run the department to the best of my ability, with fidelity to the law and to the Constitution.

My father and his brothers were all lawyers, so I think that the expectation was probably for me to grow up to be an attorney, but it never really fascinated me that much. I was more interested in building things.

The attorney general is the only one who can authorize what’s called an emergency FISA.

The U.S. Attorneys who comprise the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee play a critical role in carrying out the Department of Justice’s important work, including its efforts to reduce violent crime, combat the opioid crisis, protect the most vulnerable, and enforce the rule of law.

I think what Trump will be judged on by the folks that voted for him… is whether things start to get a little bit better over the next few years. And ultimately, that doesn’t depend on whether Jeff Sessions is the attorney general.

I used to cold call labels and pretend I was one of their artist’s attorneys. I’d say, ‘This is Jay-Z’s attorney, we need to speak with Craig Kallman,’ you know, owner of Atlantic, and they’d say, ‘Right away,’ and then I’d be like, ‘Please just listen to my demo tape!’

My top priority as Attorney General is to continue the fight against violent crime, and step it up wherever needed.

I am an attorney.

On a personal level, I’ve seen a lot in my time as attorney general, but few things have affected me as greatly as my visit to Ferguson. I had the chance to meet with the family of Michael Brown. I spoke to them not just as attorney general but as a father of a teenage son myself.

I’d like to continue being involved with issues that animated my time as attorney general – criminal-justice reform and civil rights especially. I don’t just want to give speeches; I’d like to involve myself in this work in a systematic way.

The one thing I learned from five years of law school is that I definitely didn’t want to be an attorney.

It simply cannot be that the president can name his own temporary attorney general to supervise an investigation in which he and his family have a direct, concrete interest.

It’s called ‘The 10th Muse.’ I’m the 10th daughter of Zeus – the forgotten Muse. By day, I’m a district attorney; by night, I fight crime with my martial-arts skills.

There is one instance that we cite in the report where in one of the conversations a member of organized crime is talking to another member of organized crime and he suggests that Attorney General Kennedy should be murdered.

It’s too late for that – trying to second guess it. It’s over. I’m worried about how to get the kids through school and still write and practice law and take power of attorney.

It was a privilege to serve as the assistant attorney general for civil rights, a role that allowed me to enforce the Civil Rights Act and help make its promise a reality.

My dad is an attorney. I’ve always been interested in it. My sons are probably going to law school.

I was a crown attorney in my home town in Nova Scotia, and I learned that victims of crime needed better laws to better protect them. I saw politics as a means to improve this protection for them.

It is the honor of a lifetime to serve as Director. I long ago grew to know and admire the FBI from my earliest days as a line prosecutor to my years as assistant attorney general.

Days after being sworn in as the nation’s top law enforcement officer, Trump’s attorney general, the virulently anti-LGBTQ Jeff Sessions, revoked lifesaving guidance promoting the protection and dignity of transgender students.

We are engaged in immediate conversations with the White House on deliberations over a successor whom we hope will continue in the general direction of Attorney General Holder.

I initiated the State’s investigation of Governor Blagojevich and have prosecuted public officials, including a sitting democratic state representative and democratic State’s Attorney.

Liberals tried to oust Attorney General Jeff Sessions when news emerged that his congressional testimony did not clearly articulate his minimal, par-for-the-course communications with the Russian ambassador while he was a Senator.

I don’t want to hear again from the attorney general or anyone on this floor that this government has shown it can be trusted to use the power we give it with restraint and care.

I have a record as attorney general that is separate from my personal beliefs.

As attorney general I see my role as defender both of press freedom and of the fair administration of justice.

No responsible scholar who thinks a sitting president cannot be indicted also thinks an attorney general can try to truncate a process of oversight – by Congress, for example – by ‘pre-clearing’ the president in advance.

In 2007, Michael Grimm, former Marine, former FBI agent, accountant and attorney, was poised for success as a small business owner. Instead, as alleged, Grimm made the choice to go from upholding the law to breaking it. In so doing, he turned his back on every oath he had ever taken.

I have a J.D., but I’m not a practicing attorney as far as entertainment law goes.

I am not a member of any organization listed by the Attorney General as subversive. In any instance where I lent my name in the past, it was certainly without knowledge that such an organization was subversive. I have always been essentially and foremost an American.

We also quoted Robert Luskin, Rove’s attorney, acknowledging that Rove did speak to Cooper late on the week prior to the article coming out, which would have been July 10 or 11.

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.

Writing fueled me, and my task was to make it fit into my life. I practiced my trade as an attorney, and on weekends and holidays, I typed away. I assumed a nom de plume, Selena Montgomery, to separate my fiction from more academic publications.

On my first day in office as Ohio attorney general, I authorized Ohio to join the multistate lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare.

Dan Donovan was the district attorney at one point who could not indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, who choked Eric Garner on video, for the whole country to watch, for the whole world to watch. And he actually, immediately after that, won a seat in Congress. He beat a Democrat to get into Congress.

I think if I weren’t an actress, I might have made a halfway decent attorney! I like the way they think.

While I’m the Attorney General, we will address each issue with one question: What’s the right thing to do?

It is no secret that I believe my son, Attorney General Beau Biden would make a great United States Senator – just as I believe he has been a great Attorney General. But Beau has made it clear from the moment he entered public life, that any office he sought, he would earn on his own.

I’m not just the tough chick from Atlanta who’s an attorney. I’m a girl who wants to be courted and have the love of her life.

Prior to any questioning, the person must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed.

Shame on Congressman Brooks for his lack of faith in President Trump’s and Attorney General Sessions’ commitment to work together to make America great again.

I wasn’t unsympathetic as a defense attorney, but my strong feelings for the victims were getting in my way. I identified too much with the victim.

While President Obama may not have ordered any surveillance of Trump or his advisors, the real question is whether he or Attorney General Loretta Lynch were aware of or approved of any surveillance of Trump and his staff during the campaign.

Given my last position, that I was the first U.S attorney post 9/11 in New Jersey, I understand acutely the pain and sorrow and upset of the family members who lost loved ones that day at the hands of radical Muslim extremists. And their sensitivities and concerns have to be taken into account.

Industrial hemp is a very useful plant. I challenged the attorney general to get rid of the criminal stigma associated with hemp so we can look at it in terms of how it might be useful.

I am the attorney general of the United States, but I am also a black man.

Well, my dad was the district attorney of New Orleans for about 30 years.

Somebody said something really smart: It’s like you end up being the defense attorney for your role. Your job is to defend their point of view. You’re fighting for what they want. You learn that in acting school – it’s Acting 1A: ‘What do you want? What’s in the way?’

I actually was a defense attorney first.

My dad was the district attorney of New Orleans for about 30 years. And when he opened his campaign headquarters back in the early ’70s, when I was 5 years old, my mother wanted me to play the national anthem. And they got an upright piano on the back of a flatbed truck and I played it.

Liberal members of Congress and their media allies are furious with Attorney General William Barr because he blew up the Mueller report smear job before it was out of the box.

I’m an attorney when I’m not writing comics, and have been for years. That’s a side of my life I don’t always associate with pure creativity, but it’s all worked out nicely.

It took a bit of talking through administrative people, but only once did an attorney try and get in the way of the process and say their artist couldn’t do it.

In the 1950s, the black men and women and their white allies who fought for civil rights and basic human dignity could look to the federal government. If the racist sheriff and his troops beat them with batons or sprayed them and their children with water cannons, the attorney general would act.