In the Peck proposal there is a provision that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State may assign any Judge of the Court of Appeals to any County to hold Court, and in the Halfhill proposal there is a provision giving similar authority with reference to the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas. When these proposals shall be adopted there will be, for the first time, a single authority having power to assign Judges to any jurisdiction in the State. There should be such a number of Judges of the Courts of Common Pleas that a cause could be tried within six months after it was at issue, if it was desired; and the work of the Court of Appeals should be so arranged that cases could be tried within three months from the time filed in that Court. By reason of the centralizing of the authority in the Chief Justice, the work of the Courts can be supervised, and when any Court shall be unable to take care of the cases and keep up the docket it will be possible to assign Judges from jurisdictions in the State where there is not sufficient work, and in this way to afford temporary relief to the various jurisdictions; and the recommendation of the Chief Justice would have a large influence in securing the enactment of legislation to provide for additional Judges whenever needed.

In view of the requirement that cases can not be reversed because a verdict is against the weight of the evidence, except by the concurrence of all of the Judges of the Courts of Appeals, final judgment should generally be rendered and the cases disposed of.

The Courts should be liberal in the trial of cases and should endeavor to ascertain the facts, as a law suit is a judicial investigation and not a contest between the attorneys. When the evidence has been given in open Court and the record made and the facts found, the Court should determine the law applicable thereto. If a suitor is not satisfied with the judgment of the Court of Common Pleas, it should be easy and inexpensive to secure a review and final determination of the cause. ComFlete transcript of the testimony should not be required unless it is essential to present the issue to the Court of Appeals.

There is much to commend in the present practice of bankruptcy Courts reviewing cases from Referees where the question to be reviewed is certified to the District Court.

If the provision permitting less than twelve jurors to render a judgment shall be adopted, there would be another reason why the scintilla rule should be abolished. Courts should not be required to submit cases to jurors where a judgment would not be allowed to stand if rendered.

The members of the Ohio State Bar Association should urge the adoption of the proposal by Judge Peck and the Halfhill proposal, to the end that the present just criticism against delay in cur Courts may be removed. (Applause.)

PRESIDENT TAFT: The next order of business is the reports of the standing committees. The Executive Committee is the first committee. Have you any report?

CHAIRMAN BURKET, of the Executive Committee: The Executive Committee has no further report to make than the printed program, which is before the members of the Association.

PRESIDENT TAFT: The next report is the report of the Committee on Judicial Administration and Legal Reform. That report has been printed and is in the hands of each of the members of the Association. I understand that the Committee is to suggest certain persons who will open the discussions on the various proposals contained in that report, and it will be taken up tomorrow morning. The next is the report of the Committee on Admissions, which, on the request of the Chairman, will be passed until tomorrow. Then comes the report from the Committee on Legal Education. The Chairman of this Committee has gone to Europe, and I do not know whether any of the other members are here or not. The Committee on Grievances is the next Committee.

ances:

CHAIRMAN JOSEPH L. STERN, of the Committee on GrievThis Committee has never found it necessary to even have a meeting. If any of the members of the Ohio State Bar Association have any grievances against each other, they have not made it known to this Committee.

PRESIDENT TAFT: Some man from Cincinnati has a grievance against a lawyer who has been dead for several years. I do not know what the grievance is, but it is here, and we will turn it over to the Committee. It may make interesting reading. The next is the report of the Committee on Legal Biography, which will be passed until tomorrow, because of the absence of the Chairman.

During the past year your president has appointed, at the request of the Illinois Bar Association, a delegate to their convention, and Honorable Allen Andrews, former President of the Association, was appointed and attended the meeting at Chicago, who will present a report tomorrow. At the same time or shortly prior to that, Judge Louis H. Winch, of Cleveland, was appointed a delegate to the meeting of the New York State Bar Association. It was not so much as delegate as to prepare and furnish to the New York Bar Association certain information desired by that Association. I will call on Judge Winch for a report.

Judge Louis H. Winch, of Cleveland, read the following report:

The New York State Bar Association met last January, and by direction of your President, I forwarded to that meeting a short paper setting forth my views as to the merits and demerits of the Ohio Code of Civil Procedure. This was done pursuant to a request from the New York Association made to the bar associations of every state in the Union. The principal subject discussed at that meeting was reform in court procedure.

That is true of the meeting of the Illinois State Bar Association, held at Chicago in April of this year.

Reports from the bar associations of Oregon and of North Carolina show that their lawyers are impressed with the necessity of reforming their methods of trying cases. Indeed there is a general movement in that direction all over the country, and the demand for reform is not confined to this country, but is insistent in Germany, Italy and other countries on the continent. England alone seems to have a system of

administering justice which satisfies its own people and is praised and held up as a model all over the world.

What is the trouble with our courts in American, and why are they losing the confidence of the people?

What is the reason for the wide-spread criticism of the courts of which we cannot longer refuse to take notice?

Who is to blame for the trouble, how can the evils complained of be remedied, and whose duty is it to lead the reform? Are not these proper questions for the Ohio State Bar Association to consider?

Some of these questions are easy to answer. We all know that the law's delays and its technicalities are the roots of the evil. The technicalities surrounding the beginning and trial of a lawsuit are worse in many other states than they are in Ohio. We adopted our code of civil procedure from that of New York which, as originally drafted by David Dudley Field and adopted in 1848, contained only 300 sections. Since that time the New York code has been amended and supplemented so many times that it has grown into an extensive system of set rules regulating all the minutiae of court procedure.

The Ohio code has remained more nearly in its original form, and so the cry for reform has not been so insistent in Ohio as elsewhere.

But the technicalities of the law are not the only occasion for its delays.

Denial of justice through delay arises from three sourcesthe courts, the lawyers and the rules of pleading and practice. As to the courts, I quote from Mr. Dooley:

"If I had me job to pick out," says he, "I'd be a judge. I've looked over a' the others an' that's th' only wan that suits. I have the judicyal timperament. I hate wurruk.”

"You take a lively lawyer that's wurrked twenty hours a day suin' sthreet-railroad companies an' boost him onto a high coort an' he can't think out iv a hammock. Th' more exalted what Hogan calls 'th' joodicial station', the' dormitory.'

more it's like a

As to the lawyers, I quote an eminent practicing attorney of North Carolina, Charles W. Tillett, who pleads guilty himself, but asks no immunity bath. What I here state is not an indictment of the bar drawn up by a judge who is trying to shift responsibility to other shoulders, but merely an abstract of Mr. Tillett's address to the North Carolina State Bar Association printed in the May, 1912, number of the American Law Review. He introduces his remarks with the statement:

"A Bar Association constitutes a forum whereunto we should appeal from ourselves as practicing lawyers to ourselves as citizens and officers of the court and we owe it to ourselves and to the public to seek to remove all laws, customs and rules of practice and procedure which tend to prevent the speedy and just administration of the law."

He blames lawyers for delay in filing pleadings, whereby delay ensues in bringing the case to issue and trial.

He says the evils of continuance of causes by consent of counsel cannot be exaggerated. "Continued by consent exhausts the judiciary."

Mr. W. L. Marbury, president of the Maryland State Bar Association, attributes more than one-half of the delays in the administration of justice to postponements granted for the convenience of counsel.

"Professional courtesy" Mr. Tillet likens to "senatorial courtesy," and admits many delays of the law are brought about by it.

He says two considerations move the lawyer to grant a request for continuance: "one is our natural desire to be accommodating to a brother lawyer, and the other is the feeling that some time in the near future we are going to make the same appeal for ourselves; hence we consent, and our client's case is not tried.'

Mr. Tillet says: "This is an evil, but I am at a loss to say how it is to be removed. * All I can say is, let us endeavor to recede somewhat from this custom of asking and granting courtesies. In view of the reluctance with which we refuse