pettifogger

pilkunviilaaja, hiustenhalkoja

huonomaineinen asianajaja Someone who quibbles over trivia, and raises petty, annoying objections and sophistry.
1809, w:Washington Irving|Washington Irving, Knickerbockers History of New York'', ch. 39:

Hence the cunning measure of appointing as ambassador some political pettifogger skilled in delays, sophisms, and misapprehensions, and dexterous in the art of baffling argument.

"An inn, or a tavern . . . these are places where greasy citizens take pipe and pot, where the knavish pettifoggers of the law spunge on their most unhappy victims.

. . .yet he has never sought by browbeating and other arts of the pettifogger, to confuse, baffle, and bewilder a witness. . . .

"Donald Hughes, well known in Minneapolis as a conscienceless shyster, was placed in charge of the case. . . . Mr. Edgerton, a high class, reputable lawyer, was called in of counsel from another city to lend respectability to the crooked, unprincipled, blackmailing pettifogger, Hughes."