Put the strong, masculine figure in a school with tough kids and you have a certain control. It's very demeaning to the kids and very demeaning to the tough, black guy, but that's how they worked it.

My anti-authoritarian instincts let me directly to criminal defense work.

I would never take a case that had to do with abusing children. They're the true innocents.

I'm particularly committed to the political people who needed defense. I understand that they're fighting a bigger war than just, Let me go get some money for cocaine tonight.

How could I have been the valedictorian, the smartest, and never known Harlem existed? As a result, I began a lifelong learning experience, because I could not accept what the party line was with education - that these people want to live like this, these people don't have ambition, they don't want to work. You know, all the usual bullshit.

You're working not for the corporate interest, not for the government interest, not for your own self-interest. You have a higher calling.

If you make a mistake as a prosecutor, your mistakes go home, whereas if you make a mistake defending, they go to jail.

You know that question: What do you do when you think the client's guilty? The real question is: What you do when you think a client's innocent?

On a certain level, we don't try enough cases. We should try more cases before juries and let jurors decide. On grand juries, my position is the grand jury should be eliminated, but there are creative ways a lawyer can use a grand jury if they have a client with a sympathetic cause who has been wronged by the police.

The prosecution makes all the important decisions: what's charged, how much is charged, whether you can get a decent offer. Every defendant becomes an informant today.

I would never defend a cop - though I did on a few private cases, when cops were acting not as cops but as private citizens.

You've got to learn to handle the press because god knows the government does all the time.

Your goal is to make a better world through the work you do. It's not always possible, and you have to earn a living.

There's a lot of active radical thought today but not much action.