Civil Procedure of the Trial Court in Historical Perspective

Reprint of a title from the Judicial Administration Series published by the National Conference of Judicial Councils. Originally published: New York: Published by the Law Center of New York University for the National Conference of Judicial Councils, 1952. xvi, 534 pp. Written near the end of Millar's career, the present study is a brilliant summary of his life's work. It discusses antecedents of the Anglo-American system, the evolution of procedure and American and English civil procedure in the nineteenth century. Other chapters discuss the development of specific areas, such as introduction of the cause, mode of trial and voluntary dismissal. In a society which so often confuses quantity with quality - or at least tends to regard quantity as a necessary ingredient of quality - it is not surprising that American legal texts labeled great have generally been multi-volumed ones. While the number of volumes certainly does not detract from the worth of a Williston on Contracts or a Wigmore on Evidence, their sheer size has made them more easily recognizable, in our society, as classics. On the other hand, the single volume American law books receiving the label of greatness would make a sparse list indeed. To this elite list must now be added Professor Millar's Civil Procedure of the Trial Court in Historical Perspective. --Philip P. Kurland, Harvard Law Review 66 (1952-1953) 1542Robert Wyness Millar [1876-1959], a professor at Northwestern University Law School, was a leading authority on civil procedure and its history. Miller 1937 Millar was the author of The Old Regime and the New in Civil Procedure (1937) and, with co-author Arthur Engelmann, A History of Continental Civil Procedure (1927).