Do You Use Text-Books Encyclopedias or Annotated or Selected Cases HEN briefing a point how do you get WHEN at the cases decided since the "notes" in your set were published? Many of these "notes" are now one, three, five---even ten years old. WE CAN bring these old books down to about it. date and keep them there. Ask us West Publishing Co. New York St. Paul Chicago The Bar VOL. XVIII THE BAR Official Journal of the MAY, 1911 AN OPEN FORUM No. 5 This journal is intended to furnish an open forum to every lawyer for the discussion of any policy or proposition of interest to the Profession. It invites a free Interchange of views upon all such topics whether they agree with the views of THE BAR or not. THE BAR goes to every court house in the state, and is read by, probably, three-fourths of the lawyers of the state, and thus furnishes not only a ready medium of eommunication between members of the Profession, but of unification of the Profession on all matters of common concern, which is its prime mission. Every clerk of a circuit court is the authorized agent of THE BAR in his county, and has the subscription bills in his possession, and will receive and receipt for all money due on that account, or for new subscriptions, and his receipt will always be a good acquittance for money due THE BAR, THE BAR is furnished at the nominal rate of $1.00 a year, which is less than the cost of publication, and we would like to have the name of every lawyer in the state on our subscription list. To the Members of the State Bar Association THE BAR desires to ask special consideration by the members of the bar of the state of a subject that is of the first importance. Either the West Virginia bar desires to join in the general movement throughout the country to rescue our courts from adverse criticism growing out of the delays, uncertainty and excessive cost of litigation, or they do not. If they do not, they can remain passive and indifferent. That is easy. If they have an ambition to see the administration of our local courts advance and improve in efficiency along with the spirit and trend of the times-to use a common phrase we believe "this is the psychological moment." The annual meeting of the State Association is fixed for the 12th and 13th of July. Unless some definite and positive action-unless something practical is done, along this line, at that meeting, we believe this movement, so far as this state is concerned, will die right there, or be so long postponed that all interest in it will be indefinitely suspended. The State Bar Association is being looked to for some definite expression, some definite action as indicating the sentiment of the Profession, and the practical direction the movement will take. We think it must be conceded that the responsibility for any reform of this nature is on the Profession. The public so regard it. And the public is waiting for the Profession to move. So far as the general discussion of this subject has disclos ed any unity of judgment and action along practical lines, we think it must be conceded by all who have followed the discussions in national and state bar associations, and the addresses of eminent lawyers, that the legal profession has reached a tacit agreement on at least two points, viz: 1 That any reform in the procedure of our courts which is made to depend on legislation has been, and will continue to be a failure. 2. That from the very nature of the case, any permanent, comprehensive and efficient reform in procedure must begin, proceed, and be developed through a Code of Rules of Court, made uniform and binding upon all courts in the same jurisdiction. If this much is conceded it is a great advance, and the balance of the problem is easily worked out. It is only necessary that a foundation be laid by a competent commission. Now, the next question is, what action will the Bar Association take at its next meeting? At the last annual meeting the association referred a number of matters relating to reform in procedure to the committee on Judicial Administration and Legal Reform, for the usual piecemeal remedies and recommendations that are dependent upon legslation. What we hope from that committee now is that it will have the hardihood, the patriotism, the up-to-dateness to come to that meeting so imbued with the revolutionary spirit of the times, as to present a formal, complete, and well considered bill for reforming procedure through a Code of Rules of Court-and to be prepared to maintain it, secure the endorsement of the Association, and send it to the legislature to be enacted into law. Gentlemen of the Association: Let us quit this monkey business and play ball! We need a revolution in our court procedure. Let us quit this piecemeal legislation and get down to business! Let us wipe out that museum of hoary antiquities known as the CXXV. Chapter of the Code, and have a Code of Rules of Court, emanating from the best minds of the Profession, having the respect of the Profession, and redeeming the Profession and the courts from the just and general criticism from which they now suffer. We repeat that the responsibility for action or non-action on this matter at the next meeting of the association rests entirely with the Committee on Judicial Administration and Legal Reform. It depends on whether that committee matures a measure in advance of the meeting and is ready to present it when their report is called for. For there will be no time to mature and draft such a measure at the meeting. We believe that the committee ought to have a meeting, or else get in communication with each other at once; agree on the terms of the measure and have it understood that some member will put it in form. We make this suggestion because we happen to know that the chairman of the committee, Mr. B. M. Ambler, who can always be depended on; who is a willing horse in the team, and upon whom, therefore, the association always dumps a big job, is not in the best shape to give the work of that committee the usual attention this year. He has been overworked with his private business, and is just home from a supervision of the Panama Canal to which he resorted for a change of work, and he will doubtless need more than the usual (aid) which members of the standing committees give the chairmen. We write this alarm hoping that it may wake up that committee, and that this important matter may not go by default. Let the committee send their report to THE BAR in time for publication in the June number, so that all will have time to digest it before the meeting A word to--a work horse--will generally bring the answer! The dissenting opinion of Judge Stephen J. Field in Ex parte Newman (9 Cal., 502) has often been cited. The decision was rendered in 1858 while Judge Field was a member of the Supreme Court of California and passed upon the validity of Sunday laws. It was determined by a majority of the court that they necessarily partook of a religious character and were there. fore unconstitutional. Judge Field in his elaborate dissenting opinion contended that a statute establishing as a civil regulation a day of rest from secular pursuits could be upheld merely as a Health Law, irrespective of any religious element. This view was adopted in the subsequent case of Ex parte Andrews (18 Cal., 685), in which the former decision was overruled, and Mr. Justice Field's reasoning has been generally followed as a sufficient basis for Sunday laws all over the Union. |