Happy Anniversary to the CPLR: A Joint Achievement of the Practicing Bar and the Academy

This September, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Civil Practice Law and Rules of New York State. The CPLR was the handiwork of the Advisory Committee on Practice and Procedure, appointed in 1955 by the New York State Temporary Commission on the Courts. Under the leadership of the Committee\u27s reporter, then Columbia Law School Professor Jack B. Weinstein, the Committee members, which included former New York State Bar Association presidents Jackson Dykman and S. Hazard Gillespie, spent five years overhauling, revising and reforming the Civil Practice Act of 1920. This remarkable joint venture between the practicing bar and the academy involved thousands of hours of detailed research, two full-day meetings a month, many public hearings, hundreds of draft reports, extensive debate, myriad hours of consultation with the bench and bar and, in 1961, submission of a final report to the Legislature. Although the Legislature did not adopt all of the Committee\u27s proposals, the CPLR was enacted and became effective on September 1, 1963. This impressive document is one of the nation\u27s oldest state procedural codes; it is appropriate to review its origins and to salute those involved in its creation