"Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do."
— J.P. Morgan
Well I Dont Know As I
Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do.
About this quote
Quoted in Jean Strouse's Morgan: American Financier (1999), the authoritative biography of Morgan. The remark captures Morgan's relationship with legal counsel: he used lawyers as instruments of his will rather than as constraints on it. Strouse documents numerous instances where Morgan insisted on knowing how to accomplish what he intended, rather than whether it was legally permissible — a posture that put him repeatedly in conflict with regulators.
Source
Quoted in Morgan: American Financier by Jean Strouse