Word: vanderbilt
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...Vanderbilt is in complete agreement with the late John Wigmore, dean of the Northwestern University Law School, who criticized and derided what he called "the sporting theory of law." Scoffed Wigmore: "To require the disclosure to an adversary of the evidence that is to be produced would be repugnant to all sportsmanlike instincts. Rather permit you to preserve the secret of your tactics, to lock up your documents in the vault, to send your witness to board in some obscure village, and then, reserving your evidential resources until the final moment, to marshal them at the trial before your surprised...
After a long and little reported fight, great strides were made in improving procedures in the U.S. federal courts. Judge Vanderbilt says that the 1938 Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are "models of simplicity and flexibility." So far, seven states have almost entirely adopted the federal rules, while twelve have followed to a lesser extent...
...defining the areas of disagreement. At the pretrial conference both plaintiff and defendant state what they expect to prove in the trial, thus eliminating tricky surprise. The judge dictates a pretrial order that supersedes the original pleadings and defines the questions at issue between the parties. Says Vanderbilt: "No longer does the trial judge have to fumble through the pleadings at the trial to find out what the case is all about ... He has before him in a pretrial-conference order a complete outline of the course that the trial will take; he is master of the situation from...
...used in Judge Vanderbilt's New Jersey, the pretrial conference has shortened trials by from a third to a half. Vanderbilt notes-and condemns-the tendency of judges in some jurisdictions to use the conference to force settlements, but he contends that even without such coercion three out of four cases are settled soon after the pretrial conferences. Reason: the conference gives each litigant knowledge of his own weakness and his adversary's strength...
...Vanderbilt says that with the various pretrial procedures at a judge's disposal there is no reason why, having also heard the evidence and the arguments at the trial, he cannot make his decision at once in cases without a jury. Says Vanderbilt: "He will never know more about it than he does at that time. The moment for decision has arrived, before other cases intervene to dull and blur his grasp of the pending case...