true conditions, rather than in bringing in academic reports. I think it is desirable for the dignity of the Association that we shall have a report that may not possibly commend itself to the newspapers, but will commend itself to the learned bodies in law and in medicine.

The President:

I understand Mr. Boston to have accepted the proposed amendment under which his resolution will be that this question is specifically referred to the existing committee.

Charles A. Boston, of New York:

Mr. President, perhaps you will let me say that there was not any reflection intended upon the existing committee, my only thought was that the existing committee already had committed itself on the subject and I wanted to get a fresh mind.

The President:

Are you ready for the question on this?

John Brooks Leavitt, of New York:

Mr. President, in view of Mr. Boston's last remark I think I should say that my own mind has become made up to the conclusion that this is no longer a half-baked measure. I am always ready to admit my shortcomings.

The motion was then put to vote and adopted.

The President:

The next order of business is the report of the Committee on the Judicial Candidates Bill; inasmuch as Mr.

Wilcox has not returned, we will turn to the topics suggested by the Executive and Law Reform Committees.

The first is a paper by Mr. Andrade.

C. Andrade, Jr., of New York:

Mr. President, the report which I have prepared has been printed and circulated. It covers twenty-four pages of print, and I shall not therefore consume the time of the meeting in reading it. There are, however, two preliminary matters in that paper, which to my mind I should speak of. In the first place, the division of business among the Judges as we have it here in New York county and in Kings county, and I assume in some of the other counties of the State, is entirely and fundamentally wrong. As the matter stands here in New York county to-day you may go into Part II of the Special Term and get an ex parte order for some sort of relief, security for costs or something of that sort. The Judge that makes that order presumably has to be informed to some extent of the action, and what it relates to, what it is all about. Thereafter you may have a litigated motion and you take that motion into Special Term, Part I. That motion may involve a detailed, careful exposition of the essential facts of your case, and you have to tell the Judge there verbally, or in writing in the form of a memorandum, just what the action involves. Later on you may have a demurrer, and you will argue that in Special Term, Part III, before another. Judge, and you have to tell him all about it again, and that thing goes on until, by the time you are through, you have told your story twelve or fifteen times. It is inconceivable how such a system as that, so wasteful of tine, should have been permitted to grow up in this,

probably the busiest jurisdiction in civilized Christendom. It is amazing. The first thing we have got to do here in New York county anyway, and in Kings county, is to make a rule, or enact a statute, or in some way effect the result, by which one Judge shall have one case, and not to have one case brought before a dozen different men for adjudication. Take any large law firm, you would not go into a firm of a dozen members and explain your case to Mr. A, the first day, then come in the next day and explain it to Mr. B and tell him the same thing over again. Any law firm that attempted to conduct its business the way that the Supreme Court of New York county conducts its business would go to the wall, it could not survive. Now, that is the first thing.

This is not at all theoretical, it is part of the English system which has been well tried out. There one Judge, and only one, has charge of a case, every motion, every argument, and finally the trial comes under the hand of one Judge, and by the time you come to trial, he knows the case fairly well. That is the first proposition.

The second proposition is, that if we are ever going to come down to a rational system of procedure in this jurisdiction we have to have, as a foundation for it, a compulsory filing system with a docket book kept in an orderly way and with proper indexes. About three years ago, at one of the meetings of the City Bar Association, I sat in this room, and a special committee, who had been appointed by that Association, brought in its report on the condition of the records in the County Clerk's Office of New York county, and that report justly and properly at that time condemned the conditions in that office in the most unmeasured terms.

Then that Association,

not content with the destructive work of criticism, undertook constructively to remedy that condition; and they appointed a committee, and that committee with the aid, and we are very glad to say it, with the aid of this State Association, enacted a statute governing New York county and providing for the orderly and compulsory filing of all papers and the keeping of all papers together, and for their indexing and docketing. That may seem a very simple thing, but it has worked a revolution in the practical operation of the legal machinery of this county. Those of you who practice here, I am sure, will not need to be told about it. You know the difference between that office as it was three years ago and as it is now. That system of having a compulsory filing of all papers and indexing them and docketing them must be extended throughout this State before we can take one step further toward the clearing of our procedure here. There is no question about that. Looking at it superficially, you might say that it is a mere matter of mechanical disposition of papers. But it embraces a great many things which off hand would not appear to be affected by it. For example, the Supreme Court of the United States in the middle of the last century, by its equity rule No. 86, took a great step in the shortening of the procedure on the equity side of the Federal Court by the provision that thereafter equity decrees would not have to recite all the prior proceedings, the appearances, the pleadings and all that, but that the form of an equity decree should simply be that "This cause came on to be heard and was argued by counsel, and thereupon it is decreed, etc." Now, that step of abridgment in the Federal equity practice was necessarily based on an antecedent filing system. The only reason we in New York State

to-day have to recite prior proceedings in our judgment is because up to the present time that was the only way you could get a good deal of it on the record it was not filed, it was in counsel's office, and nobody knew anything about it. Similarly in regard to the recitals of the moving or opposing papers in orders; if you have all your papers filed before hand, there is no necessity of reciting them over again in the order.

And the fact that we practice here in the City of New York, a great commercial metropolis, there is no magic in that. Things that have worked well in Connecticut, things that have worked well in London, things that have worked well in Philadelphia, will work here just as well. We eat the same food here that they do in Connecticut, Philadelphia, Chicago or where you will. Men do not do a simple problem in arithmetic in New York county by the aid of the differential calculus simply because ours is a large city. Rules which apply anywhere outside of New York State, will apply equally well here, and when we have the collective wisdom of a generation in England telling us one thing and the collective wisdom of a generation in Connecticut and other States telling us the same thing, it seems to me we are quite mistaken in not accepting it. Therefore, the second proposition that I wish to emphasize here is, that this filing system should be made uniform throughout the State, because it involves a host of other things of secondary consequence.

Finally of course this is a tremendously broad subject but I quite agree with what Governor Baldwin said on the subject of a practice act for this State. I cannot follow Mr. Hayes in his objection to that. I have the personal assurance of the Presiding Justice of one of