REVIEWS

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1971.tb02332.x
Published date01 May 1971
Date01 May 1971
REVIEWS
JUDICIAL
ADMINISTRATION
:
THE
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.
By
DELMAR KARLEN. [London
:
Butterworths.
1970.
xvi
and
92
pp.
(with
index).
E1.80
(El
16s.)
net.]
Trrrs
valuable little book consists “in revised and updated form”
of
three
lectures given by
tile
Director
of
tlie American Institute of Judicial Admini-
stration “upon the occasion of the founding
of
the English Institute
of
Judicial Administration in Birmingham University in
1968
and
is
pub-
lished under the auspices of that Institute. We take this opportunity of
welcoming the advent of this new Institute
of
which
Sir
George Coldstream,
lately in charge
of
the Lord Chancellor‘s office, has become Honorary Reader.
The American Institute, which was the child of that remarkable academic
lawyer, turned Chief Justice of New Jersey-Arthur Vanderbilt, to whom
I
was glad
to
notice that
a
warm tribute is here paid-has already developed
into important organ
in
tlie administration of justice in the U.S.A. My one
real criticism of this volume is that, though there are
a
number of
references in it to its work, Professor Karlen does not give
us
an overall
conspectus of its activities-no doubt due to modesty on his part, but
a
pity,
especially in
a
lecture designed to give the similar Institute in England
a
send-off.
Of
course such an institution has
a
much wider and important
scope, in the complicated and diversified judicial situation
of
the U.S.A.,
than its counterpart can possibly have here. Nevertheless the personnel
of our judiciary has enormously increased in my legal lifetime and there
tias
been
a
proliferation
of
officials doing work which is essentially judicial
in character
so
that there is ample scope for the activities
of
the new
Reader and his colleagues. The volume is attractively introduced by Warren
Burger, the new Chief Justice of the United States, and there
is
a preface
by Sir George Coldstream himself.
Professor Karlen was given
tlie
unenviable task of presenting to an
English audience
a
conspectus of the American Court system and its meaning
in the short space of three lectures. In fact he did
so
in two, and did it in
a
remarkably clear and comprehensive way
:
rescrving his final lecture for
a
number of very pertinent criticisms of the institutions which he had
described in the first two.
It
may be said that
such
ctlltidsm
was
unnecessary,
being implicit in tlie lectures, but
I
think that most English readers will
welcome it, and it may well be helpful in the
U.S.
itself, since while most
if not all his
points
have frequently been made there, they have hardy been
made in such
a
concise and comprehensive way. Moreover his observations
may well have the effect of deflecting
us
from following some of the American
experimentation which at first sight may appear attractive, and may
also
Iilow away some of
our
own sentimental and rather misty nostalgia for
institutions such
as
the jury, of which we have largely managed
to
unburden
ourselves over pretty well the whole field of civil litigation, and over
a
niuch wider field of criminal administration than has
so
far proved possible
in the
U.S.A.
Indeed Sir George Coldstream in
liis
preface points out the
value which these criticisms should have for English readers.
Englisli lawyers, and laymen too, most
of
whom have no more than
a
nodding acquaintance with the
U.S.A.
court system which, owing to the
soverdgnty of the individual States
in
most matters both of aivil and
criminal law, is bewilderingly complicated, will certainly be well advised to
341
VOL.
34
1P
842
THE MODERN LAW REVIEW
VOL.
34
read what Professor Karlen has to say on the court systems of the different
States, and even those who pride themselves on their knowledge of the
American set-up may well find it clanified and supplemented by what they
read here.
I
myself who have sat in
at
quite
a
number of American courts,
as well as listened in
at
a
number of their law schools, felt that my griasp
of the whole comprehensive set of arrangements was both better balanced
and tighter than before
I
had perused his first chapter.
But lawyers, being human, are always more interested in the careers rind
prospects of their fellows than in the institutions which they man, and to
most of
us
therefore the second lecture on the Personnel of the Law
will
prove the pore interesting, and certainly quite
as
informative as the
first.
Perhaps the section on the Continuing Education of the Bench and the
Bar is the most valuable from the point of view of those concerned with
an Institute of Judicial Administration. Certainly we have had some
experience of refresher courses for lawyers, though
as
usual
it
was the mlore
enterprising branch of the legal profession, the solicitors, who provided
thiis;
and even with them it has tended to fade away as the war period which
called It forth recedes. But refresher courses for judges,
or
even analymes,
whether constructive
or
destructive, and
a
good deal of the latter could be
very useful for some judges here, are an unheard of thing with
us.
It
is
only very recently that we have decided that justices of the peace ought
no longer to administer the criminal law by the light of nature, and the
present Lord Chief Justice, whose initiative in this matter deserves hi,gh
praise, has of course conducted
a
series
of
what may be called seminars in
sentencing;
SO
that it may be that we too are on the move, and maybe
the work of the Birmingham Institute will speed
up
the pace
a
little.
Among the other topics of special interest to English lawyers felicitously
dealt with by Professor Karlen
in
this lecture are the selection of judges,
which makes one rub one’s eyes, specialisation-much greater in the
U.S.A.
with its unified profession working in large firms-legal training, a.nd
discipline in the profession.
I
do not propose to discuss the final lecture in detail.
It
certainly discloses
many flaws in the American system, though when we consider the explosive
character
of
the national development there, and particularly the polyglot
character of the population which flowed in, one may well feel surprised
that these are not more serious and evident than they have proved to be.
Some of the defects could obviously be put right;
or
at any rate be
much improved by forthright action of the kind that Arthur Vanderbilt
brought to bear in New Jersey. We have certainly heard
a
good deal
about delay
in
England recently, but the chapter and verse which
is
e;i~,m
heie about what happens in the United States should make us thankful that
we cope with
our
own
as well
as
we do,
Professor Karlen has
a
pretty good acquaintance with our system, thotlgh
he fends to
look
at it through rather rosy spectacles, and this enables hhm
to maintain
a
running commentary of comparative observation which is
valuable and interesting. While the number of English lawyers who hilve
even
a
superficial knowledge of the American system is small, many if 11ot
most of their American opposite numbers seem to have
a
pretty good
acquaintance
with
the
English Set-up
:
it
is
not
surprising therefore,
thou^&
gratifying, to hear Chief Justice Burger described
as
“long
a
student (both
appreciative and critical) of the working of the
Courts
in
England.”
CHOELEY.

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