From "Gulliver's Travels":
    I said there was a society of men among us, 
bred up from their youth in the art of proving 
by words multiplied for the purpose, that
white is black, and black is white, according 
as they are paid.  To this society all the rest
of the people are slaves.
    "For example.  If my neighbor hath a mind to my
cow, he hires a lawyer to prove that he ought to 
have my cow from me.  I must then hire another to
defend my right; it being against all rules of law
that any man should be allowed to speak for himself.
Now in this case, I who am the true owner lie under
two great disadvantages.  First, my lawyer being
practiced almost from his cradle in defending
falsehood is quite out of his element when he would
be an advocate for justice, which as an office
unnatural, he always attempts with great awkwardness,
if not ill-will.  The second disadvantage is that my
lawyer must proceed with great caution, or else he
will be reprimanded by the judges, and abhorred by
his brethren, as one who would lessen the practice
of the law.  And therefore I have but two methods
to preserve my cow.  The first is to gain over my
adversary's lawyer with a double fee; who will then
betray his client, by insinuating that he hath
justice on his side.  The second way is for my
lawyer to make my cause appear as unjust as he can;
by allowing the cow to belong to my adversary; and
this if it be skillfully done, will certainly
bespeak the favor of the bench.
    "Now, these judges are persons appointed to
decide all controversies of property, as well as 
for the trial of criminals; and picked out from the
most dexterous lawyers who are grown old or lazy;
and having been biased all their lives against truth
and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of
favoring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I
have known some of them to have refused a large
bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than
injure the faculty, by doing anything unbecoming
their nature or their office.
    "It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever
hath been done before may legally be done again; and
therefore they take special care to record all
decisions formerly made against common justice and the
general reason of mankind.  These, under the name of
'precedents', they produce as authorities to justify
the most iniquitous opinions; and the judges never
fail of directing accordingly.
    "In pleading, they studiously avoid entering
into the merits of the cause; but are loud, violent,
and tedious in dwelling upon all circumstances
which are not to the purpose.  For instance, in the
case already mentioned, they never desire to know
what claim or title my adversary hath to my cow;
but whether the said cow were red or black; her horns
long or short; whether the field I graze her in be
round or square; whether she were milked at home
or abroad; what diseases she is subject to, and the
like.  After which they consult precedents, adjourn
the cause, from time to time, and in ten, twenty,
or thirty years come to an issue.
    "It is likewise to be observed, that this society
hath a peculiar cant and jargon of their own, that
no other mortal can understand, and wherein all
their laws are written, which they take special
care to multiply; whereby they have wholly confounded
the very essence of truth and falsehood, of right and
wrong; so that it will take thirty years to decide
whether the field, left me by my ancestors for six
generations, belong to me, or to a stranger three
hundred miles off.
    "In the trial of persons accused of crimes against
the state, the method is much more short and
commendable:  the judge first sends to sound the
disposition of those in power; after which he can
easily hang or save the criminal, preserving all
the forms of law."
    Here my master interposing said it was a pity
that creatures endowed with such prodigious abilities
of mind as these lawyers, by the description I gave
of them must certainly be, were not rather encouraged
to be instructors of others in wisdom and knowledge.  
In answer to which, I assured his honor that in all
points out of their own trade, they were usually the
most ignorant and stupid generation among us, the
most despicable in common conversation, avowed
enemies to all knowledge and learning; and equally
disposed to pervert the general reason of mankind,
in every other subject of discourse as in that of
their own profession.