“Did you ever know a poor man made better by law or a lawyer!' said Bunce bitterly.”

“Then a lawyer said, But what of our laws, master? And he answered: 'You delight in laying down laws. Yet you delight more in breaking them.”

“A good lawyer knows the law; a clever one takes the judge to lunch.”

“The prisons in the United States had long been an extreme reflection of the American system itself: the stark life differences between rich and poor, the racism, the use of victims against one another, the lack of resources of the underclass to speak out, the endless "reforms" that changed little. Dostoevski once said: "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."It had long been true, and prisoners knew this better than anyone, that the poorer you were the more likely you were to end up in jail. This was not just because the poor committed more crimes. In fact, they did. The rich did not have to commit crimes to get what they wanted; the laws were on their side. But when the rich did commit crimes, they often were not prosecuted, and if they were they could get out on bail, hire clever lawyers, get better treatment from judges. Somehow, the jails ended up full of poor black people.”

“They should get another lawyer,” he said. “Surely there are better people around. That man with the big nose—you know the one—they say that he’s very good. The judges can’t take their eyes off his nose, and so they always decide in his favour.”

“No one described him better than he did when someone accused him of being rich. “No, not rich,” he said. “I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing.”