Opening Statements

There’s More Than Killing All the Lawyers

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Photo by iStockPhoto.com

If the only Shakespeare line about lawyers you can quote is the one about killing all of them, then you might want to consider reading Shakespeare for Lawyers: A Practical Guide to Quoting the Bard.


Written by lawyer Margaret Graham Tebo (full disclosure: She is a former senior writer for the ABA Journal), the guide contains more than 100 quotes from the Bard’s plays and sonnets. Tebo interprets the meaning of each quote in light of the law—even if it did not originally have a legal context in the play or sonnet—and also gives examples of how lawyers can use the quotes in their practice or their daily lives.

“Take it with you as you wait at a long court call,” says Tebo. “It’s light reading, but it’s amusing.”

Shakespeare for Lawyers is available through the ABA Web Store for $34.95.

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