Judicial Draftmanship

Nine years ago, when I was president of the American Bar Association, I said out loud what members of the bar had long been whispering throughout the country—I said that the judges of our appellate courts were casting an all but unbearable financial burden upon the lawyers, by steadily and unnecessarily increasing the length of their opinions—printed copies of which opinions the lawyers must buy and store, if they are to continue to practice law I did not then refer to any specific opinion, but I did point out that, on the average, the opinions are about six times as long as they were a century ago, and that, year by year, they are getting longer and longer. An address delivered before the section on Judicial Administration, American Bar Association meeting, Seattle, September 6, 1948