Evening star., 1939-09-17
District Court Starts
Pre-TriaI Procedure
System Tomorrow
Justice Lows to Direct
StreomIinine Designed
To Simplify Cases

Pre-trial procedure in District
Court to narrow down the issues
in cases will be inaugurated to-
morrow when Justice Bolitha j.
Laws assumes his new post, in ac-
cordance with an order of the en-
tire court. The physical equipment
necessary to help streamline civil
procedure has been set up near the
chambers and courtroom of Justice
Laws in the new Police Court Build
ing.
Preparatory to the new program,
Justice Laws held a conference last
week with some 25 patent attorneys
and representatives of the American
Patent Law Association and spokes-
men of the Patent Office, including
examiners, to talk over the situa-
ton. The pre-trial procedure in
District Court will apply to patent
cases, as we'll as all other civil mat
ters One of the first cases under
the new procedure is a patent case.
Attaches Designated.
Mrs. Una Rita Morris has been
designated by Col. Charles E. Stew
art, clerk of District Court, as the
typist who will act in conjunction
with pre-trial procedure. She will
be present in the courtroom of JUS
tice Laws and write pre-trial re-
port, at the direction of the jurist,
after he has talked with the lawyers
on both sides, as well as the lti-
GantS. where desirable.
Mrs. Morris, a native of Australia,
lived in Boise, Idaho, before coming
to Washington recently to work for
the Reconstruction Finance Corp.
John H. Sullivan, in the assign
ment commissioner Office of Dis
trict Court will help Justice Laws
get the trial procedure under
way. Mr.. Sullivan went with JUS
tice Laws to Detroit and Boston
where pre-trial procedure is said
to be working very successfully-to
observe at first hand the program
there. Col Stewart is expected to
name new assistant assignment
commissioner, who soon will take
over active direction of the pre-
trial work, under the Jurisdiction of
Justice Laws.
Scope of New Facilities.
AS evidence of the earnestness
with which Justice Laws is tackling
his new job of effecting trial
work in civil cases in District Court,
observers saw the new facilities that
are now ready in the new Police
Court Building. The old cell block,
adjoining Justice Laws chambers
and courtroom, has been removed
and the bars taken down. In its
stead stands jury room, which
will be used by jurors from the court
OF Justice T. Alan Goldsborough,
who will sit in the criminal division
this fall.
Adjoining this is a lawyers con-
ference room, part of the old cell
block, in which attorneys and their
clients may confer, where there is a
chance of settling case out Of
court before trial, as result of the
pre- trial round table conference
with Justice Laws.
An auxiliary clerks office has
been set aside. not far from Justice
Laws courtroom. to become the
clerical headquarters of the pre-trial
work.
In the courtroom of Justice Laws
the long tables separating Judge and
lawyers have been moved aside, so
that in the pre-trial procedure
counsel and court may get closer
together in friendly fashion and
thresh out complicated problems,
eliminating non-essentials and-if
possible-settling the case at once.
Cases that have been pending in
District Court for several years are
expected to be adjudicated, due to
the pre-trial procedure, at an early
date and the congested civil docket,
now some "a months behind sched-
ule, will be brought more nearly cur