THE LAW SCHOOLS AND THE COURTS Next after a sound judgment the most valuable quality of a lawyer as an aid to the courts is the power of clear and accurate statement. The case system furnishes the means for an admirable exercise to develop this power, both orally, as above stated, and also in writing. The books of cases are always printed without head-notes. If a student should be required to write a head-note for each case as a part of the course, that work alone, if faithfully done, would give a training in the art of brief and accurate statement both of facts and of law which cannot be surpassed. Any student, without the aid of the instructor, can employ this method by himself. The headnote in the regular report will furnish a model by which he can test his work. Some of the reporter's head-notes, as is well known, are the work of men who afterwards attained eminence on the bench. The head-notes written by Judge Curtis in his edition of the Decisions of the Supreme Court often bring out the points of the case in the clearest light. The work of preparing them probably had some influence in bring ing to perfection that power of statement which is seen and admired in his opening statement for the defence in the impeach ment trial of President Johnson. Another subject upon which the law schools can render important aid to the courts is that of statute law. A law student spending his first vacation in a lawyer's office was directed to investigate a question in a case pending in the probate court. The student inquired whether the question depended upon statute law or common law. "I can always tell a law school man by that question," said the lawyer. "It makes no difference whether it is common law or statute law. They are both law, and I want to know the law applicable to that case." In the law school attention is given princi pally to the decisions of the courts, for the reason that until recent times almost the entire body of our private law was judgemade law. The first volume of Black-
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stone's Commentaries was published in 1765. Professor Dicey says that an intelli gent reader of Blackstone "is astonished at the slightness of the reference made by the commentator to statutes."1 Since that time legislation has modified the private law profoundly, both in England and in the United States. Now one can hardly be sure that he knows the law upon any subject until he has searched the statutes to see if any changes have been made by the legislature. The activity of legislatures in making laws has attracted much attention. This activity is due in part to the great industrial and social changes which have taken place. Powerful interests have been affected by those changes and are petitioning the legis latures for new laws. It is not unlikely that statutes affecting private law will be more numerous in the future than they have keen in the past. To refer to one title out of many, industrial reorganization has brought on a contest between the right of association or combination on the one hand and the right to freedom of action by each individual on the other. This contest is going on in the courts and in the legislatures. A ferment of thought is in progress which will result probably in a new statement of the law. Whether that statement shall be made finally by the courts or by the legis lature, or partly by the courts and partly by the legislature, is not now clear. That the courts may proceed safely and wisely in this matter, they need the aid of lawyers well informed not only in the principles of statutory construction and in the relation of the common law to statute law, t it also of lawyers well grounded as to the bounda ries between legislative and judicial power. That the law must change is a proposition which few will deny, and which the most eminent common law judges have asserted. Lord Bowen, describing law in the reign of Victoria, says : "There is and can be no such 1 Law and Opinion, 165, note i.
