When Retired Chief Justice Warren E. Burger passed away late last month he left behind a lasting imprint on the administration of the nation's courts. During his 17-year tenure as Chief Justice of the United States, federal and state courts and their related administrative agencies felt and benefited from his influence.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said that Burger "will long be remembered as a major contributor to the decisional law of this court [and as] an innovative reformer of the administration of justice." President Clinton praised Burger as a "strong, powerful, and visionary chief justice."
As the leader of the judicial branch, Burger was concerned with court management and efficiency. He was a strong advocate of court administrators and supported the creation of the office of circuit executive. Burger helped bring technology into the courts and pushed for streamlined court docketing.
"By making the judicial system more productive, we are making the federal courts accessible to all Americans at less personal financial expense and less emotional expense-all in addition to saving citizens' taxes," Burger said in 1973.
During his tenure, numerous entities dedicated to the improvement of justice were created, including the National Center for State Courts, the Institute for Court Management, the American Inns of Courts, and the Supreme Court Historical Society.
Burger worked closely with the American Bar Association and its committees and regularly addressed the association at its midyear meeting. Burger also recognized the value of establishing a continuing dialogue between federal and state judges, and as a result, helped create the Federal-State Judicial Councils. When discussing the relationship between state and federal judges, Burger often said, "We are not in separate institutions; we are all in the same church, just occupying different pews."
In a September 1988 interview with The Third Branch, Burger reflected on his successes and failures. He was a strong and frequent advocate of the establish- ment of an intermediate appellate court to ease the workload of the Supreme Court. But the proposal never advanced. "Apathy and inertia seem to surround proposals for approving the administration of justice unless there's a driving force behind them," Burger said in the interview.
Burger's interests and influence went well beyond the courtroom. He pushed for prison reform and the prison industries program. "It makes no sense to put people in prison and not train them to do something constructive," Burger said. In the area of judicial compensation, he said, "My regret is that we weren't able to break this linkage between congressional salaries and judges' compensation."
Burger's impact was felt by courts at all levels. Recognizing the workload demands placed on the Chief Justice, in 1972 Burger secured congressional approval to create the office of the administrative assistant to the chief justice. The following year his assistant, Mark Cannon, recommended and Burger supported the creation of the Judicial Fellows program. Burger is responsible for cutting the time for Supreme Court oral arguments from two hours to one hour per case and for changing the court's straight bench to its current curved wings.
As part of his constant effort to improve court operations, Burger advocated various studies of the courts. Perhaps the best known was the Commission on Revision of the Federal Court Appellate System, known as the Hruska Commission. Burger was a force behind the Pound Conference, a two-day meeting in 1976 named after former Harvard Law School Dean Roscoe Pound and cosponsored by the Judicial Conference, the Conference of Chief Justices, and the ABA.
Burger was a frequent critic of the legal profession and its declining public image. He found lawyer advertising distasteful, lamented the rise in discovery abuse, and found many lawyer discipline systems to be inadequate. Burger once estimated that up to one-half of all lawyers entering court were not adequately trained to fully represent their clients.
He was a great supporter of the Administrative Office and looked to the AO to play the principal role to support the Judiciary at the national level. AO Director L. Ralph Mecham said, "The Judicial Conference, the federal judicial system, and the nation all benefited from the exceptional knowledge, guidance, and foresight of Warren Burger, a great leader whom I was privileged to serve and came to know as a valued friend."
When Burger left the court in 1986 to head the Commission on the Bicentennial of the Constitution, he threw all of his energy behind the project and helped organize one of the largest celebrations in the nation's history.
Upon his retirement, the Judicial Conference adopted a resolution honoring Burger. In part, the resolution recognized the Chief Justice for his "unprecedented and unflagging efforts to improve the legal system [that] have left an unmatched legacy of efficient administration in the federal Judiciary despite the constant growth in demand placed on the judicial system." He presided over 34 meetings of the Judicial Conference.