A Civil Action (film)

"It's like this. A dead plaintiff is rarely worth more than a living severely-maimed plaintiff. However, if it's a long, slow, agonizing death as opposed to a quick drowning or car wreck, the value can rize considerably. A dead adult in his 20s is generally worth less than one who is middle aged. A dead woman less than a dead man. A single adult less than one who's married. Black less than white. Poor less than rich. The perfect victim is a white male professional, 40 years old, at the height of his earning power, struck down at his prime. And the most imperfect: well, in the calculus of personal injury law, a dead child is worth the least of all."

"The odd's of a plaintiff's lawyer winning in civil court are two to one against. Think about that for a second. Your odds of surviving a game of Russian roulette are better than winning a case at trial. 12 times better. So, why does anyone do that? They don't. They settle. Out of the 780,000, only 12,000 or 11/2% ever reach a verdict. The whole idea of lawsuits is to settle, to compel the other side to settle. And you do that by spending more money than you should, which forces them to spend more money than they should, and whoever comes to their senses first loses. Trials are a corruption of the entire process and only fools who have something to prove end up ensnared in them. Now when I say prove, I don't mean about the case, I mean about themselves."

"I can appreciate the theatrical value of several dead kids. I mean, like that. Obviously, that's good. That is all this case has going for it. That's not enough. Get rid of it."

"[to law students] Now, the single greatest liability a lawyer can have is pride. Pride... Pride has lost more cases than lousy evidence, idiot witnesses and a hanging judge all put together. There is absolutely no place in a courtroom for pride."

"[to secretary] Every credit card application we send in, we get two more in the mail. Here's one from some bank I've never heard of, in North Dakota. Fill it out. Fill them all in. It's the last great pyramid scheme in America."

"John Travolta - Jan Schlichtmann"

"Robert Duvall - Jerome Facher"

"Tony Shalhoub - Kevin Conway"

"William H. Macy - James Gordon"

"Zeljko Ivanek - Bill Crowley"

"Bruce Norris - William Cheeseman"

"John Lithgow - Judge Walter J. Skinner"

"Kathleen Quinlan - Anne Anderson"

"Peter Jacobson - Neil Jacobs"

"Mary Mara - Kathy Boyer"

"James Gandolfini - Al Love"

"Stephen Fry -Pinder"

"Howie Carr - Radio Talk Show Host"

"Kathy Bates - Bankruptcy Judge (uncredited)"