FACES ON THE COURT HOUSE STEPS

Authors

A. F. Neumann, University of Michigan Law School

Abstract

Judge Frank may one day write a book which it will be possible to take or leave, but I doubt it. Few writers, with his ability and insight in the field of administration of justice, I suppose, succeed in evoking in their readers the spirited reactions that his writings produce. This is the highest praise that any reader can bestow-even though his reaction be a spirited disagreement.

In his most recent book, Courts on Trial, he has attempted to· destroy what he calls "myths" in legal thinking describing the fact-finding process just as he did for the rule determination and application process in Law and the Modern Mind. His thesis, which he says he is presenting for "intelligent non-lawyers as well as lawyers," is that the fact-finding procedure which lawyers describe as a reasonably certain means for the discovery of facts in contested cases, differs widely from "court house government" --the actuality. He feels that the real danger lies in lawyers half-believing "a lot of stork stories concerning the birth process of judicial decisions." The important job to be done, the first, is to let the people know; reforms will not be forthcoming, nor will suspicion of the legal profession be removed so long as the explanation of our trial court processes is cast in terms of the certainty of judge and jury fact-finding.

Recommended Citation

A. F. Neumann, FACES ON THE COURT HOUSE STEPS, 48 Mich. L. Rev. 1121 (1950).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol48/iss8/4