Gerry Spence
Overview
Gerry Spence is a trial lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. In 2008, he announced he would retire, at age 79, at the end of the Geoffrey Fieger
Geoffrey Fieger
Geoffrey Fieger is an American attorney based in Southfield, Michigan. Fieger is the senior partner at the law firm of Fieger, Fieger, Kenney, Johnson & Giroux and is an occasional legal commentator for NBC and MSNBC...

 trial in Detroit, MI
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. Spence states that he "has never lost a criminal case either as a prosecutor or a defense attorney. He has not lost a civil case since 1969." However, Spence lost a criminal case in a bench trial but prevailed on appeal (see below).
Spence graduated from the University of Wyoming Law School in 1952.
Quotations

What the insurance companies have done is to reverse the business so that the public at large insures the insurance companies.

As quoted in Humanscape : Environments for People (1987), by Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan, p. 97

Everyone wants to argue. Everyone does. Everyone needs to.

Getting Started, p. 5

Our prejudices — we all have them — are part of our personality structure. The problem is that our prejudices may lie lurking at the bottom of the subterranean mind where the slowly ooze up and color our thinking without our knowing it.

Ch. 6 : The Power of Prejudice : Examining the Garment, Bleaching the Stain, p. 74

When you are faced with prejudice, logic and justice are impotent. Still, we may have an obligation to argue directly into the face of the prejudice, even though there is no chance to win.

Ch. 6 : The Power of Prejudice : Examining the Garment, Bleaching the Stain, p. 92

The stain of prejudice is often indelible.

Ch. 6 : The Power of Prejudice : Examining the Garment, Bleaching the Stain, p. 92

I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.

Ch. 6 : The Power of Prejudice : Examining the Garment, Bleaching the Stain, p. 98

 
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