PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

JUDICIAL SECTION

The Judicial Section of the American Bar Association held its sixteenth annual meeting in the Olympic Hotel, Seattle, Washington, July 24, 1928.

The attendance at the opening and succeeding sessions of the Section was very gratifying and indicated a growing interest in its work on the part of the Judiciary.

For the first time in its somewhat short history the Section had appointed committees and these committees reported the results of their work. These reports were interesting, instructive and fully justified the experiment of having committees to perform a liason between the Section and the various sections and committees of the Association, so that there might be a more intelligent co-operation between it and them.

The Section was welcomed by Judge Calvin S. Hall, of Washington, who very gracefully expressed the pleasure which the Bench and the Bar of that State had in receiving the members of the Section. (See infra, p. 584.)

The morning address was made by Professor William Minor Lile, of the University of Virginia, and inasmuch, as it will appear in another part of the report, further reference to it will be perhaps superfluous. (See infra, p. 587.)

At the afternoon session Judge Austin E. Griffiths, Judge of the Superior Court of Seattle, Washington, read an extremely interesting and provocative paper on "The Lawyer's Responsibility for Business Ability in Public Office." (See infra, p. 600.) Following Judge Griffiths' paper the several committees of the Section filed their reports.

The Committee on Jurisprudence and Law Reform reported by its Chairman, Judge Edward R. Finch of the Appellate Division of New York, who in a very interesting analysis of current discontent with the functioning of Courts urged the establishment of Judicial Councils wherever that has not been done

and he stressed the importance and utility of such agencies for the purpose of bringing into closer contact the Courts, the Bar and the people.

Judge William W. Westerfield, of Louisiana, filed a report on Uniform Judicial Procedure, in the course of which he commented on the failure of the Congress of the United States to authorize the Supreme Court to make rules regulating the practice on the law side of Federal Courts. He referred to the fact that four presidents of the United States, forty-six out of forty-eight of the State Bar Associations, the United States Chamber of Commerce and other kindred and allied bodies had endorsed it, but so far without convincing the Federal Congress of its wisdom.

The business session of the Association was concluded by the nomination and election of officers.

The annual dinner was held in the Olympic Hotel. T. Scott Offutt, chairman of the Section, presided and acted as Toastmaster. Addresses were made by Honorable Harlan Fiske Stone, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Honorable Hugh Kennedy, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Irish Free State and Mr. Justice Morrison, of the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

T. SCOTT OFFUTT, Chairman.

NOTE.-Names and addresses of officers and members of the Executive Committee of the Section appear at p. 17, supra.

ADDRESS OF WELCOME.

BY

CALVIN S. HALL,

OF SEATTLE, WASHINGTON.

I was honored by being asked to make the address of welcome, and after I had accepted it, I was in a quandary as to what I could say after telling you how glad we are that you are here and how happy we are to have you come to our city.

When a lawyer is in doubt about anything he goes to the books, and sometimes the judges themselves do that. And I went to the books.

The books in this case were the bound volumes of the proceedings of the American Bar Association, and I looked through them to see the addresses of welcome given by the different judges at the different meetings. I was somewhat surprised, for I found it was the custom, in fact, it seems to have almost risen to the dignity of the common law, for it comes from a time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, that the speakers in their addresses of welcome take up all their time in extolling the advantages of their particular section of the country, and their addresses look more like the real estate section of the Sunday newspaper than anything else. But I am not going to follow their custom. I am going to tell you a fable. I have not a name for it. I will let you name it, and you may draw your own moral from it.

There was a certain old judge in a state back East-out here whenever we want to locate a place indefinitely we say "back East." It is a very comprehensive term. I was talking to a man the other day and he kept continually saying that this was so and so back East where he came from, and I said to him, "What part of the East do you come from?" And he said, "Boise,

Idaho."

With us "back East" are facing south.

means everything to our left as we

But this old judge had made a reputation for quickness and correctness of decisions over a many years' term of office, and he arrived at the time when they did away with juries and there was no appeal from his decisions. Every one was satisfied.

It was his custom when trying a case, after hearing the evidence and listening to the arguments of counsel, to go into his chambers for five minutes' recess and then come out and decide the case right then and there.

One time a lawyer happened to go into his chambers while he had a matter under advisement and he found that the judge was deciding his case either wet or dry. That is, he had a board that he wet one side of, and he threw it in the air, and if it came up on the dry side he would decide the case one way and if it came up on the wet side he would decide it the other way. And this lawyer went out and told everybody about it, as to how the judge arrived at his decisions. And do you think that the people demanded his resignation? They did not. They elected him to the Supreme Court. I doubt whether the legislatures of the states from which the judges here present come would vote the necessary appropriation to buy boards for all of their judges.

We are happy indeed to have you with us. We are well aware of the honor that comes to a community when the American Bar Association decides to meet there. For it is an honor. It speaks well for this country when men prominent in legal affairs and prominent in the administration of the law at their own expense of money as well as of time will travel across this continent so that they may meet together and do something whereby injustice will be lessened. While we have entertained many conventions this summer, and during other summers, we have never entertained any convention with more sincere pleasure than that of the American Bar Association; and speaking for the judges of this city we are very glad to have judges from other places with us.

I believe that if the true importance of this section were realized by every member of the Bar and the Judiciary who are here, it would take a room several times this large to accommodate us. And the judicial position, I might say, is the most important position, I believe, in the country. While the Appellate Court, in deciding the law and deciding it correctly, decides it

so that men may guide their business affairs by the law, the trial court, as Judge Griffiths of this city has often remarked, is a people's court. There is where they get their first idea of the courts and of how justice is administered. There is a close, intimate contact of the people with the trial judge, and it is important that that judge recognize the responsibility of his position and have it ever before him in his work. He meets with the faults in the law, and with the laws that we have outgrown in our progress. He is the one who should call attention to those defects and offer remedies for them, and I am glad to say that our state has followed the older Eastern states in adopting the Judicial Council plan so that we may have a clearing house for suggestions for changes in the law. We have had that now for two years.

As the same session of the legislature that passed the act adopting the Judicial Council, the legislature passed an act giving our Supreme Court the rule-making power in all procedure matters, so that now we have the Judicial Council to receive suggestions and to carry those suggestions to the Supreme Court, and we have our Supreme Court making rules of procedure to correct any faults in the law. And I say that this Section is to my mind the most important Section connected with the American Bar Association.

But I am taking up too much time. We are happy that you are with us. We hope that you will enjoy what we have to the fullest extent because everything that we have is for your enjoyment; and we may tell you of our advantages but we do not do it in a boastful manner but we are glad that we have them so that you may enjoy them.

We hope that you may grow in wisdom because of your meeting here and that you may accomplish those things that are next to your hearts that you desire to accomplish but, above all, we hope that your stay here will be so pleasant that when you return to your work and are grinding away, a vagrant thought will come across your mind, as it often does, and you will think of Seattle, and that the thought will be a pleasant one, and that it will be so insistent that it will finally cause you to make a return trip to our city.