Your attitude will go a long way in determining your success, your recognition, your reputation and your enjoyment in being a lawyer.
Joe Jamail
There are more pompous, arrogant, self-centered, mediocre-type people running corporate America who should be sent out on some postal route delivering mail.
You had to have a unanimous jury verdict, and one percent of contributory negligence barred all recovery. It was so satisfying to realize I could do it. And I'll tell you what motivated me: competitiveness. I was betting on me. That's what a contingent-fee lawyer does.
It's a great feeling knowing you've helped someone. That's what I've spent my life doing and my practice.
We've got some real greedy hogs who own no interest in the company they're running, whose sole interest is in whatever it takes to be able to get to the point to fly out on their golden parachute and milk the shareholder and take risks that they shouldn't take.
The feeling of being accepted and acknowledgement and recognition and fame - I'm vain like everybody else. The feeling of achievement that I've helped the poor or somebody in need far outweighs the money.
The trick is to learn to contain one's ego, not conceal it.
I don't think the trial practice is dead. But it is very ill. There are some days you could throw a hand grenade down the hall of the Harris County Courthouse and not hit anybody.
I happen to have a giant ego, an admission that will not shock my close friends or critics. I am not uncomfortable in saying that because the ego of a man often gets great things done.
When Frank Broyles coached at Arkansas, he used to have a golf tournament each year for all the Southwest Conference coaches.
I don't think I'm a good ol' boy. Honestly, the last thing I am is a redneck. I like silk sheets, fancy cars, beautiful women, good whiskey.
If you are not emotionally involved, your client is not getting your best effort.
Do you know what the root of mediation is? Mediocrity!
It's not a bad thing fighting for equality and helping the poor. It's not a bad thing to have on your professional tombstone: 'He believed in equality and he helped the poor.'
I love the system. Let me tell you why. People love it... The people, by and large, have great respect for our law and our system... Why do you think they go to that courthouse instead of killing each other in the streets, taking the law into their own hands?
I didn't do too well until my second year, when I realized that there were no right or wrong answers and that my professors were interested only in how well I could develop an argument.
I think Wallace Hall is an imbecile.
If you start comparing my practice of law to what I could have been - selling bananas - you'll know why I gave money to the University of Texas.
When I walk into a courtroom, I feel like I'm home.
I think the average American has forgotten the great feel for liberty and accountability that the framers of the Constitution believed.
I don't want corporate America to think they can continue their duplicitous double-dealing.
By not trying the small cases, the lawyers don't get the courtroom experience. So when the huge, bet-the-company cases come along, there are only a handful of trial lawyers who can handle it. That's why these big corporations still call us old-timers every day.
I didn't know who she was, but I knew she was hungry, so I started handing out $100 bills and called the office and told them to bring me a bunch more. Then I had my cousin's store deliver a bunch of smoked ham and turkeys. I mean, these people are hungry and living under a bridge.
I think I'm doing some good. Obviously, I don't need any more money.
What did I know about lawyering? I just thought it was another way to stay in Austin for another three years.
We've got some well-run corporations by some well-intended people who do it right.
Any good trial lawyer knows that if you've got one credible expert or scientific study, then you can let the jury decide.
I love my wife. She had money when I didn't.
Medical research is needed, and I just saw there was a need for help that the government - state or federal - was not spending the taxpayers' money on helping people get through college.
We can still do good for others and do good for ourselves. I would wither and die, truthfully. I need to be somewhere where the light's on me.
The money doesn't really matter. I've been a multi-millionaire for a long time. My sons are rich.
The Depression did more to me than being a little Lebanese kid did.
I sent people to the penitentiary as fast as I could, never thinking about whether they deserved it.
I can't describe the feeling I got the first time I won a jury award for an injured person.
Ever since I was a kid, I've known I could talk to people.
For every dollar we have given to athletics, we have given about 27 to higher education or medical research.
I spent a year at Southwestern Louisiana Institute, then transferred back to the University of Texas, where I majored in English and history.
That's a good feeling, to save your clients two billion dollars.
It has been pointed out to me, more than once, that for someone who chose a profession steeped in procedure and protocol, I had little use for either.
For me, being a lawyer means to help those in need.
I was taught that a lawyer was supposed to be a custodian of the community's legal and ethical sense.
I'm a very egotistical person.
