Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-09-12
A REnARKAsLE REPORT.

The committee appointed some time ago
by the American Bar Association has re-
ported to the legal world that the cause of
the laws delayis mainly chargeable to the
lawyers themselves. This is frank, and
must be accepted as true. The lawyers
are told by their own committee that they
bring the law into contempt by delaying
proceedings in Court by interposing
merely technical pleas, and by system of
practice that contributes to needlessly long
litigation, and to the uncertainty of the
law. 1t remains to be seen if the profess
sion Will profit by the finding of its own
jury, and the membership, by the way, was
made up of the eminent lawyers, David
Dudley Field, Minister Phelps and ex-
Judge Dillon. The committee in one
part of its report says:
We are host in numbers we have influence,
direct and indirect greater than that of any
other profession or class of men in the country ;
we are part and parcel of the judicial estab-
lishment; we know best the laws OF the land as
they are, and we should know best what they
ought to be; we can make ourselves heard and
needed in every legislative hail. in every
executive chamber, and on every bench of jus
tice, and we have given pledges, not less bind
ing because not expressed in words, that the
functions with which the State has endowed us
shall be used to promote justice not alone by
assisting suitors in their private controversies
as they arise, but by doing our best TO make the
occasions of such controversies as few as posi-
Bile, and the issue thereof as speedy and as near
right as we make them. That We
have failed so long to redeem these pledges is
no reason for failing longer. Let us redeem
them now.
This leads the San Francisco Bulletin to
express the hope that after this there will
be less cause for complaint. 1t is gener-
Gus expression, but until there is ac-
ton by State and City Bar Associations we
shall not expect reform. The difficulty is
that the lawyers are an unorganized body.
There is no power to enforce reforms
among them except by the unsatisfactory
method of legislation. If every Bar Asso-
citation will, however, take up the matter
and act upon it with vigor and diligence
great deal may be speedily accomplished,
for the legal fraternity is delicately suscep-
tible to the action of its associations. 1t
is as much as lawyers business is worth
to be tabooed by his local association. If
they could by law be rightly organ
lied, and power given to the asso-
Citations to enforce, under court APP
proval, their DEGREES, practice at the
bar could be speedily amended and bet
tered. The committee referred to recon-
mends fewer debates, stricter, simpler
methods of procedure the inhibition of
personal alterations" the refusal of
new trials except where it is perfectly clear
injustice has been done, and the abridg-
ment of the period within which appeals
NAV be taken. Some of these things must
be accomplished, if at all, by legislation.
But that can be had in any State if the
majority of lawyers agree that it shall be
had. In this connection there is recalled
an article in a California magazine few
months ago from the pen of one of the
most prominent of our Superior Judges
and which we referred to at some length,
and in which he bitterly assailed the pres
ent system of granting new trials, and
wherein were suggested director and simpler
methods of doing justice. His plan would,
if adopted, cut short the multitude of APP
peals taken, lessen the cost of litigatio
and enable litigants to know the fate of
their cases within the period of an average
lifetime, at least. In any light in which
viewed the report Of the Committee of the
American Bar Association ought to effect
much good, and bring about better or
ganization among lawyers through which
the reforms indicated may be worked.