| "Detail Work of the New
York Court of Appeals" |
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Perhaps, however, before answering such questions as you desire to ask, it may be well to say one or two things regarding the court itself and our method of work. Once in a while I experience a shock when some leading member of the New York City Bar asks me if I do not get a chance to play golf in Albany. How little such an one knows the traditions of the Court of Appeals. The work today is done in the same way it was seventeen years ago, when I first went there and as it had been done many years before that. We sit from two to six in the afternoon to hear oral argument, having on the average five to seven cases on the calendar a day. Within a day or two after argument the case is taken up in consultation. Every morning from half-past nine until one we sit in consultation taking up every case in its numerical order, that is, the order of argument in open court. These consultations are as formal as the court hearings, no one of us being permitted to interrupt a judge while he is making his report upon the case. Cases are not assigned by the Chief Judge, as in the Supreme Court of the United States. The first case at the opening of the Fall session goes to the Chief Judge and then they fall to each judge in the order of seniority, so that every man is thus obliged to do his full share of the work. When a judge is reporting on the case which has fallen to him. two stenographers take down everything that is said, which is supposed to be a complete presentation of every point. Many times the report covers points not thought of by the lawyers in the case. After the judge has made his formal report it then passes on to the next judge on the left and so around through all of seven. Every judge is expected to have studied the questions and to be ready to express his reasons for affirmance, reversal or modification. There is naturally a pride among all the judges to hold up their end of the work and to be of aid and assistance to their associates in solving knotty problems. A shirker has no place in such a court. Be would be very uncomfortable, because there is no opportunity to bluff. We have all studied the same thing and can readily tell whether a judge knows what he is talking about. Now, what does this daily consultation mean? How is it possible to take up in consultation the cases which have just been argued, at the latest, within a day of two? The oral argument in court helps some, but I have never known a case to be decided upon the merits of the oral argument. Neither have I known of any case being reported by a judge in consultation in a loose or informal method, such, for instance, as saying, "You have just heard this case argued and are quite familiar with it." No indeed, the traditions of the court permit no such off-hand disposition. A judge reporting on the case begins as if no one of us had ever heard of it before. More thorough indeed is he than have been the lawyers in their oral argument. The time in which to get ready for these consultations. which constitute the very heart of the work of the Court of Appeals, is that time which we have between six o'clock at night, when the court adjourns, and until half-past nine the next morning. This means, of course, that all the judges work at night as late as possible and are in the courthouse every morning, as a rule, by eight o'clock. For the first ten years that I was in the court it was the implied understanding that no judge should have any social engagements in the evening, with the exception possibly of Thursday night, as the court met on Friday morning, sitting from ten to two, making the consultation session in the afternoon much shorter than other days. |
 The Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York |
