TYPE AND EXTENT OF DUTIES OF MRS. RIVKIN Mr. O'NEAL. Mr. Chandler, as I understand, this woman was the secretary to the retired judge whose name was mentioned? Mr. CHANDLER. She was. Mr. O'NEAL. Now she is carried as one of the secretaries you are authorized to employ and you can use her wherever you want to use her, there or elsewhere? Mr. CHANDLER. That is right. Mr. O'NEAL. In other words, the retired judge does not have sole control over her services? Mr. CHANDLER. No, absolutely not. Judge BIGGS. That is correct. Judge MARIS. I think it is fair to say that she is not being paid the full salary at the present time. Judge BIGGS. She is getting $2,000, which is $600 less than the minimum. I should like to make this plain. Mrs. Rivkin does just as much work as any secretary could possibly do. She comes to the office at 9 o'clock in the morning and, in Philadelphia on the days that I am there, when I leave at night, which is about 5:30, that is the time that she leaves. She sits in my office most of the time. She very rarely goes down to Judge Thompson's office, only on the few days when he is there. He is there very little, because he is now quite an old man. But she works full time. She writes opinions; drafts them; that is, cleans up the drafts. She keeps the minutes of the judicial council. I simply could not get along with one secretary. HOURS OF WORK PERFORMED BY SECRETARIES My secretary in Wilmington, Mrs. Gallagher, works-I should say her average day was well over 10 hours. As a matter of fact, she is supposed to come on when I come on and quit when I quit, and. that may be quite late at night, on occasion; it very frequently is. Now, it would be very difficult for the average senior circuit judge, and it would be very difficult for the average senior district judge of a large court, such as Judge Knox's, to get along with one secretary; just as I imagine it would be very difficult for Members of Congress to get along with only one secretary. Of course, you have a great many more letters to write than we have. Mr. Justice MILLER. Especially a chairman of a committee. Judge BIGGS. Yes; but we have a lot of opinions to get out. It is really too much for one person; one person cannot handle it. Mr. Justice MILLER. It is comparable to the situation of a chairman of a committee who has only one secretary for the committee. Judge KNOX. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that in some instances some of these retired judges do almost as much work as a regular judge. One judge out in Washington held court in the circuit court of appeals, all up and down the coast, for years after he was retired. Mr. O'NEAL. Is there anything further, judge, you would like to say on this subject matter? Judge BIGGS. No. I think that completes the matter of the law clerks and secretaries. There is the subject of probation officers. Mr. O'NEAL. Before we take up the matter of probation officersand we shall ask Mr. Chandler some of the more intimate details of the item on clerks and secretaries later-is there anything further that any of you other gentlemen would like to say on the subject? NEED FOR SECRETARIAL ASSISTANCE Judge MARIS. I wonder if I might supplement what Judge Biggs has said? Not being a senior circuit court judge, I think I can perhaps say this with a little more grace than Judge Biggs could, speaking for himself, that the senior circuit judge has the responsibility for the direction and coordination of the work of the judges in the circuit court, and more and more he needs assistance. What he really needs, perhaps, is the possibility of having a highly qualified administrative secretary who can relieve him of some of those administrative details, and then a second stenographer or perhaps a typist, who can take a good deal of the stenographic load. Things are just getting to the point where, unless such assistance is given, the service will just break down. In other words, the load is just more than one man and one secretary can take care of. And certainly in the case of the senior circuit judge there is justified a greater appropriation than is made for the rest of us who do not have that responsibility. Judge BIGGS. Mr. Chairman, I think Judge Knox, who is chairman of the committee on law clerks, might well make a statement. Mr. O'NEAL. We shall be glad to hear from you, Judge Knox. NEED OF ADDITIONAL LAW CLERKS Judge KNOX. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, last year, you will recall, the Congress made an appropriation to provide for the compensation of 75 additional law clerks to be supplied to district judges. A number of them have been appointed and have qualified. I felt called upon some days ago to write the judges who had one of those clerks a letter inquiring whether they thought they were worth while having. Among these judges were Judge Chesnut, of Baltimore; Judge Wyzanski, of Boston; Judge Knight, of Buffalo; Judge Smith, of New Jersey; and a number of judges over the country. Every one of them was enthusiastic about the help that had been rendered him by a law clerk and said in substance that he was making progress that otherwise he would not have been able to make. I have brought with me a number of the letters. I have them here, if you want them for your files. Mr. GORE. Mr. Chairman, I think it might be well for the purpose of the committee to have those letters. Mr. O'NEAL. If you care to file those with the clerk, we shall be glad to take them into consideration. Judge KNOX. Very well. I also have a letter from the Bronx County Bar Association. They learned that all Federal judges were not being supplied with law clerks, and they were quite surprised and, in a way, indignant that they were not. They call attention to the fact that justices in the municipal court of the city of New York have a law clerk each, and that is a court with a jurisdictional limitation of a thousand dollars. Also, law clerks to Supreme Court judges get $7,500 or $8,000. I feel that an additional appropriation for law clerks is justified by the amount of work that they have to do in the districts where they are needed. I will concede that there are districts, in my judgment, where law clerks are not needed, and that was the reason I made the suggestion that the matter be determined by the Judicial Conference, so you could have a check upon them. Here you have the most responsible judges in the country passing upon this proposition, as to whether or not the money shall be well expended. And I want to assure you that I do not want to spend a nickel more of the Government's money than you do. I merely want equipment that is necessary for judges who need that equipment. I shall be very glad to leave with you the letters that I have here. There is nothing that I can add to the argument upon this subject matter that I made last year, but what I said then is just as valid now as it was at that time with respect to law clerks. Mr. JOHNSON. How many of the additional 25 that were authorized last year have been employed? Judge KNOX. I cannot say exactly. Mr. CHANDLER. I would say 14 or 15. Judge KNOX. That is what I thought, 14 or 15. As a matter of fact, it is very difficult to get them. I am without a law clerk now, and I do not know what I am going to do. It is certainly impossible to get them from any of the law schools. Mr. CHANDLER. That is the class of persons on whom the call for military service has fallen with an unusual weight. Judge KNOX. I have now an arrangement to get a woman lawyer on the 1st of April. I cannot get her until then. In the meanwhile, I am saving the Government that much money by doing the best I can myself. But I certainly need one, and I am sure many other judges throughout the country need one. When this matter came up about providing a lump sum to the judges for paying their staffs, I took it up with each member of the law clerk committee, of which I am chairman. I have heard from every member of the committee with the exception of Johnson J. Hayes, of North Carolina, from whom I have had no word; but every other member of the committee approves this measure proposed by Judge Biggs. ADVANTAGES OF CENTRALIZED ACTION ON MATTERS OF PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION Mr. O'NEAL. Judge Miller, would you care to say anything on this subject? Mr. Justice MILLER. Mr. Chairman, I should like to make two points. The suggestion was made that it would be well for the judges to get themselves organized and give your committee the assurance that there really was some unanimity of thinking, based upon real consideration of the subject. So the effort of our committee, all the way 96127-44- -3 through, was to accomplish that result and be able to tell you that there was such unanimity of thinking. We prepared a tentative report which went out not only to the judges whom Judge Knox mentioned but to all the judges, circuit and district, inviting their comment. We received a lot of comments, some of which were incorporated in the next draft of the report and this, again, was sent to each Federal judge. We feel, therefore, that we are in a position to tell you the job we have done and the plan we are suggesting is one which really does have the backing, practically the unanimous backing, of the judges of the country. The question with regard to which there was, perhaps, most difficulty was whether the judges should make the final decision concerning the qualifications and selection of their law clerks and secretaries, or whether the appointment in each case should be subject to review. Frankly, that is something to which you folks must give the final touch. But I am very happly to be able to tell you that we have gone as far as we have. The statement of policy which is now included in your act is a compromise, worked out after much discussion which really does represent the sentiment of the judges of the country. The second point is this: During our meetings with your committee last year you suggested, also, that we work with the Civil Service Commission. We did that. I may say that except for work which Mr. Chandler had done in cooperation with the Civil Service Commission, concerning clerks and probation officers, no previous attempt had been made to set up a classification system; to describe the jobs of our supporting personnel or to put them into definite scientific classifications. Those which now appear in our report were prepared, as nearly as possible, to fit the methods of the Civil Service and the needs of the courts, with actual job descriptions, and were then submitted to the Civil Service Commission. Representatives of that agency then gave them very careful study and made a number of suggestions, most of which we incorporated into our report. Incidentally, as to some classifications they told us our salary provisions were too low for the work which these people were doing, and, in the case of our law clerks, we added a classification in a higher bracket, because they said that the job description which we gave disclosed a type of work which, generally, throughout the executive branch, called for a higher professional classification. The same thing was true of the administrative assistant secretaries for the senior circuit and senior district judges. I have letters here from two members of the Civil Service Commission, in which they express their pleasure that effective cooperation has taken place between us, and one of which expresses the hope that our recommendations will be adopted. Mr. O'NEAL. Did you have a formal report from the Civil Service Commission that might be left for the use of the committee? Judge BIGGS. Yes; we have that. I would be glad to forward it to you. Mr. O'NEAL. I would suggest you put those two letters, that you have referred to, in the record. Mr. Justice MILLER. Very well. (The letters referred to are as follows:) UNITED STATES CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION, Hon. JUSTIN MILLER, United States Court of Appeals, Washington, D. C. DEAR JUDGE MILLER: I received copy of the report of your committee on supporting personnel of the Federal courts, as adopted and approved by the Conference of Senior Circuit Judges. We appreciate very much your sending this copy of the report and are glad to note from it that there seems to be indication of harmony prevailing between your committee and the representatives of the Civil Service Commission. Again thanking you on behalf of the Commission, and with kindest personal regards, Sincerely yours, HARRY B. MITCHELL, President. Hon. JUSTIN MILLER, UNITED STATES CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION, United States Court of Appeals, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. MILLER: I have received your letter of December 13, 1943, forwarding a copy of the report of your committee on supporting personnel in the Federal courts. We appreciate your comments and trust that favorable action on the recommendations of your committee may be forthcoming. Very sincerely yours, ARTHUR S. FLEMMING, Commissioner. Mr. Justice MILLER. Then we also had a hearing before the Budget Bureau, in which its representatives went into the matter very carefully. Then, apparently with considerable pleasure, they complimented us upon the job which we had done, and expressed the opinion that the personnel of the courts should have been established upon this basis long ago. I have two letters here from Assistant Directors of the Budget, which I shall be glad to insert in the record. Mr. O'NEAL. Without objection, they may be made a part of the record at this point. (The letters referred to are as follows:) Hon. JUSTIN MILLER, EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, BUREAU OF THE BUDGET, Washington, D. C., January 7, 1944. United States Court of Appeals, Washington, D. C. DEAR JUSTIN: Please accept my sincere thanks for the report on supporting personnel of the Federal courts transmitted with your letter of December 13, 1943. I can readily understand your pride in this forward step for sound administration in the Federal judiciary. I was particularly interested in the proposals by which you combine flexibility with consistency in the allocation and classification of law clerks and secretaries. The plan de DEAR JUSTIN: It was very good of you to send me a copy of the Revised Report of Committee on Supporting Personnel of the Federal Courts. veloped by the committee strikes me as admirable. This is particularly true |
