Justice & Law Quote by Al Stewart

“Looking so cool” is the opening feint: a surface read of charisma, polish, even youth. Then Stewart flips it into an indictment. Coolness here isn’t personality, it’s camouflage. The line works because it treats style as a weapon, not an accessory; the suit and smile become part of the con.

“His greed is hard to conceal” lands like a second thought, almost tossed off, which makes it sharper. Greed is supposed to be obvious, but in this world it’s been trained into good manners. The target isn’t just one slick operator, it’s a culture that rewards predatory ambition as “drive,” so long as it arrives packaged in confidence.

“Fresh out of law school” is the tell. Stewart isn’t criticizing education so much as the pipeline: credentialing as moral laundering. The new graduate hasn’t merely learned statutes; he’s learned the posture of legitimacy. Law school becomes the place where power learns to speak in complete sentences and cite precedent while doing damage.

The kicker is the accusation aimed outward: “you gave him a license to steal.” “You” could be voters, clients, institutions, or the public that confuses professionalism with virtue. It reframes corruption as a collaborative act: society outsourcing conscience to credentials, then acting shocked when the credentialed exploit the assignment. In a few tight beats, Stewart captures a late-20th-century anxiety that still reads current: the fear that the system doesn’t fail accidentally, it produces exactly the kind of thief it can later call “respectable.”