The Verdict (1982)

James Mason: Ed Concannon

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Quotes 

• Ed Concannon : I know how you feel. You don't believe me, but I do know. I'm going to tell you something that I learned when I was your age. I'd prepared a case and old man White said to me, "How did you do?" And, uh, I said, "Did my best." And he said, "You're not paid to do your best. You're paid to win." And that's what pays for this office... pays for the pro bono work that we do for the poor... pays for the type of law that you want to practice... pays for my whiskey... pays for your clothes... pays for the leisure we have to sit back and discuss philosophy as we're doing tonight. We're paid to win the case. You finished your marriage. You wanted to come back and practice the law. You wanted to come back to the world. Welcome back.

• Ed Concannon : Why wasn't she getting oxygen?

  Dr. Towler : Well, many reasons, really...

  Ed Concannon : Tell me one.

  Dr. Towler : She'd aspirated vomitus into her mask.

  Ed Concannon : She threw up in her mask. Now cut the bullshit, please. Just say it: She threw up in her mask.

• Ed Concannon : Our clients are: the Archdiocese of Boston; St. Catherine Laboure Hospital, and Drs. Marx and Towler, two of the most respected men in their profession. The thrust of this defense will be to answer in the court, in the press and in the public mind - to answer the accusation of negligence this completely: that not only do we win the case, but we win the case so that it is seen that the attack on these men and this institution was a - rank obscenity.

• Billy : His name is Dr. Lionel Thompson. City College of New York, Class of '28. Bachelor of Science; New York College of Medicine; sixteenth in a class of twenty-two. Nineteen seventy-six got a courtesy appointment, staff of anesthesiology, Easthampton Hospital for Women. Never married. Has no honors or degrees of any weight. Since nineteen seventy-five he's testified in twenty-eight court cases, twelve malpractice.

  [smugly] 

  Billy : And - he's black.

  Ed Concannon : I'll tell you how you handle the fact that he's black. You don't touch it. You don't mention it. You treat him like anybody else. Neither better nor worse. And let's have a black lawyer sit at our table. Okay?