pettifogging

A pair of pettifogging lawyers had been kicking up a legal dust, and one of them, Bordens lawyer, was still at it.

None of your pettifogging tribe for me: I shall step to the front, and stay there.

Certainly, a mere machine to hold a pen, and bully in pettifogging suits, cannot be this.

Next in repute to the physicians stand the pettifogging lawyers, who are, according to the philosophers, a set of asses.