Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 21.pdf/542

 Meeting of the American Bar Association interest from the District of Columbia may be reviewed in the Supreme Court as a matter of course. The Committee asks that the same requirements be imposed on District of Colum bia courts as on courts of other judicial cir cuits. NEW YORK'S LOW STANDARD OF ADMISSION TO THE BAR The report of the Committee on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar was presented by Dean Henry Wade Rogers of Yale Law School. Dean Rogers said:— "The anomalous conditions which still con tinue in the state of New York excite surprise and provoke criticism. Four out of nine schools have courses of two years for the LL.D. degree, and a fifth school, while having a three years' course, allows students under exceptional circumstances to graduate in two years. That this should be the case in the Empire State occasions comment at home and abroad. More than two-thirds of all the law schools of the United States are now on the three years basis. "The State Bar Association at its meet ing in 1901, as is well known, took action looking toward the improvement of conditions in New York. It declared its opinion that candidates for admission to the bar should be required either to have had a course of three years in a law school or of four years in a law office. It appointed a committee to lay the matter before the Court of Appeals. The Court has thus far failed to take the action recommended." BANKRUPTCY AND ADMIRALTY The Committee on Commercial Law made a report covering the subjects of bankruptcy legislation, uniform state legislation, and Con gressional legislation concerning admiralty courts, and recommended opposition to any effort to repeal the present bankruptcy statute, and the passage of three important bills affecting the courts of admiralty. These are: An act to authorize the maintenance of actions for negligence causing death in mari time cases; an act relating to liens on vessels for repairs, supplies or other necessities, and an act to permit owners of certain vessels and the owners or underwriters of cargoes laden thereon, to sue the United States. RIGHTS OF PATENTEES The Committee on Patent, Trademark, and Copyright Law offered a report recommend

511

ing the passage of a law allowing owners of patents to recover by suit in the Court of Claims reasonable compensation for the use of their patents by the government without permission. Russia and the United States are the only civilized countries denying the patentee this right to receive damages from the government. The Committee also re ported strongly in favor of the establishment of a United States Court of Patent Appeals. A MODEL INSURANCE CODE The Committee on Insurance Law recom mended that Congress be asked to pass a bill (H. R. 28407) for the creation of a commission to prepare a code of insurance laws for the District of Columbia. The object is the per fecting of a model code, which will then be urged upon the legislatures of the various states. Such a code "would eliminate the scandalous retaliatory laws which many of the states have adopted." A MODEL INHERITANCE TAX LAW The Committee on Taxation urged the im portance of the American Bar Association trying, with the International Tax Association and the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, to evolve a sane inheritance tax law, designed to afford revenue, not to level for tunes, and to get this before the attention of the various states before the field is pre empted by conflicting and unsatisfactory legislation. In the discussion on this report, an inheritance tax met with decided opposi tion from many delegates. JUSTICE CARPENTER ON THE BENCH AND THE BAR Wednesday afternoon was given over to pleasure, the delegates enjoying an excursion on Lake St. Clair. In the evening they heard an address on "Courts of Last Appeal," by former Justice William L. Carpenter, of the Michigan Supreme Court. Judge Carpenter said in part:— "Faith that our courts of last resort will determine controversies according to law is the rock upon which our governments are built. That is the most elementary of legal principles. Lawyers do not always appre ciate it. If they did, they would not, as they often do, urge considerations calculated to incite feelings of sympathy and prejudice. "I think it may be said as a general propo sition that failure of courts of last resort to understand a case is chargeable to the imper