"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

It's a fun line, but where does it come from?

The line is from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part II and comes in Act 4, Scene II from the mouth of Dick the butcher, a follower of the rebel Jack Cade:

CADE: Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows
reformation. There shall be in England seven
halfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hooped
pot; shall have ten hoops and I will make it felony
to drink small beer: all the realm shall be in
common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to
grass: and when I am king, as king I will be,--

ALL: God save your majesty!

CADE: I thank you, good people: there shall be no money;
all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will
apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree
like brothers and worship me their lord.

DICK: The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

CADE: Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable
thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should
be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled
o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings:
but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal
once to a thing, and I was never mine own man
since. [...]

Many lawyers are the first to note that these words are taken from the mouth of a villain in the service of a rebel and stand for the proposition that lawyers must be eliminated if this foul revolution is to take place. Others, to say the least, disagree. Seth Finkelstein, in his post "`The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers' - it's a lawyer joke" notes the following:

"The audience must have doubled over in laughter at this. Far from "eliminating those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution" or portraying lawyers as "guardians of independent thinking" [as some lawyers have posited], it's offered as the best feature imagined of yet for utopia. It's hilarious. A very rough and simplistic modern translation would be "When I'm the King, there'll be two cars in every garage, and a chicken in every pot" "AND NO LAWYERS". It's a clearly lawyer-bashing joke. This is further supported by the dialogue just afterwards [i.e. the bit about lambskin and wax].
[...]
He might just as well have been describing "shrink-wrap" software licensing agreements today in the last sentence. To understand what Cade is saying here, you have to know that documents of the time were likely parchment, and sealed with wax. So when he says "Some say the bees stings; but I say, 'tis the bee's wax". he's making an ironic comment somewhat akin to "Some men rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen". And the fact that he himself is an evil man only serves to heighten the irony, not discredit the sentiment - the more evil he is, the more the contrast is apparent."

I'm only in part agreement with Finkelstein here. This exchange is promptly followed by the brief but nightmare farce of the Clerk of Chatham being brought in, accused of being able to read and write and suffering murder as a result as a result of a pseudo-trial. A villain is a villain, and whether the rebels want to kill noble lawyers or nasty ones is rather beside the point so far as the quote is concerned. The "jus' folks" of the rebellion want the lawyers bumped off and the crowd must have loved that bit, if we accept Finkelstein's guess. Shakespeare was a playwright, after all, so playing to the crowd was what he did for his humble living and I doubt that the folks in the crowd liked lawyers any more than the average man today. But one can't avoid the fact that there is definitely an element of "yeah, and look at who wants the lawyers gone: these ignorant, murderous fools" in this scene of the play: Shakespeare wants the laugh from the audience and he also wants to show what a bunch of psychotic cretins this bunch are. Trying to slot the quote into just one category diminishes, I think, our realization that, Great Writer! aside Shakespeare was really good at keeping an audience happy.

I refuse to take sides on this famous quote: being a lawyer is no guarantee of saintliness: some are monsters, and their deaths are not to be mourned. Others are struck down trying to make the world better. Most of us are neither, naturally. Enlisting Shakespeare into a debate is probably not only a fool's errand but also missing the more wonderful point. Shakespeare should be enjoyed as magic, as music, as fun. If I started being overworried about precise facts in Shakespeare then I'd be obliged to dislike Richard III's magnificent rendering of that king as one of the best villains ever in literature, even though Richard was unfairly maligned , certainly was innocent of the crimes of which he is accused .... and I'm pretty darned sure that he didn't murder his nephews.

My recommendation? Sit down and enjoy the play. And if you don't I'll send some witches after you.