Joe Jamail

When Frank Broyles coached at Arkansas, he used to have a golf tournament each year for all the Southwest Conference coaches.

The Depression did more to me than being a little Lebanese kid did.

Do you know what the root of mediation is? Mediocrity!

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.

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.

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.

I think Wallace Hall is an imbecile.

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.

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.

There are more pompous, arrogant, self-centered, mediocre-type people running corporate America who should be sent out on some postal route delivering mail.

Ever since I was a kid, I've known I could talk to people.

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.

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.

For every dollar we have given to athletics, we have given about 27 to higher education or medical research.

I was taught that a lawyer was supposed to be a custodian of the community's legal and ethical sense.

Your attitude will go a long way in determining your success, your recognition, your reputation and your enjoyment in being a lawyer.