You Could Be Handling the Next Great Case

I like this quote, and even though it’s directed at plaintiffs’ attorneys, it clearly works just as well from the defense side. You just never have any way of knowing the ripple effect of whatever you’re doing at the moment. You know the whole, “a butterfly flaps its wings and a tsunami occurs” or whatever? I hadn’t thought about it relative to law practice in a long time, but this quote reminded me of that. Neat. The quote comes from Melvin Belli:

You’ve read of the great cases in our jurisprudence, the landmarks in our law. These cases didn’t come into the lawyers’ offices with signs on the clients’ backs saying ‘I am the Dartmouth College case, I am Pennoyer v. Neff, I am Marbury v. Madison.’ These cases will come into your office only as humble human beings, perhaps some of them even incapable of adequate expression. These men will be great cases only as you’re able to interpret their human rights to legal remedies before a jury and as a plaintiff’s lawyer makes them great.

(source: Legal Underground)

Labels: anecdotes and opinions, lawyer stuff, quotations