The earliest reference I could find in a case is State of Illinois v. Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. (1972), but I found a 1944 newspaper reference as well, so it was known even then. My colleague Paola Sapienza confirms that it is indeed an Italian proverb, "Una causa è un albero da frutto piantato nel giardino di un avvocato."
Paola also pointed to another proverb, "Causa che pende, causa che rende." That translates to "A pending case makes money [for the lawyer]," but somewhat less precisely (and changing the focus from the lawyer to the client), as
A pending case is a spending case.
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