"When you are faced with prejudice, logic and justice are impotent. Still, we may have an obligation to argue directly into the face of the prejudice, even though there is no chance to win."
Gerald Leonard Spence was an American trial lawyer and author. He was a member of the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame and was the founder of the Trial Lawyers College. Spence never lost a criminal trial before a jury, either as a prosecutor or a defense attorney, and did not lose a civil trial after 1969, although several verdicts were overturned on appeal. He is considered one of the greatest lawyers o
"Those whose minds are jammed with prejudice have room for little else. Growth is dead. Learning is gridlocked. They may understand our logic, but logic makes no difference. The word root of prejudice, praejudicium, implies prejudgment. People are prejudiced both for and against a philosophy, a religion, a belief system. They are prejudiced for or against a political party, the make of an automobile, a race, a person — you name it."
"Words that do not create images should be discarded. Words that have no intrinsic emotional or visual content ought to be avoided. Words that are directed to the sterile intellectual head-place should be abandoned. Use simple words, words that create pictures and action and that generate feeling."
"If I am real, if I am speaking from the heart zone, the right words will come. They will come a spoonful at a time, in the proper mixture."
"The stain of prejudice is often indelible."
"There are no rules that say lawyers cannot write or speak from their heart. Passion has never been formally outlawed, although it is a little-known experience among most lawyers and nearly all academicians."
"Everyone wants to argue. Everyone does. Everyone needs to."