Showing papers in "Yale Law Journal in 1957"

Symbolic logic: a razor-edged tool for drafting and interpreting legal documents

Abstract: A large amount of the litigation based on written instruments?whether statute, contract, will, conveyance or regulation?can be traced to the draftsman's failure to convey his meaning clearly. Frequently, of course, certain items may purposely be left ambiguous, but often the question in issue is due to an inadvertent ambiguity that could have been avoided had the draftsman clearly expressed what he intended to say. In this Article it is suggested that a new approach to drafting, using certain elementary notions of symbolic logic, can go a long way towards eliminating such inadvertent ambiguity. This new approach makes available to draftsmen a technique that achieves some of the clarity, precision and efficiency of analysis that symbolic logic provides. In addition, it can be a valuable aid in moving towards a more comprehensive and systematic method of interpretation,1 as well as drafting. This approach is a compromise between expression in ordinary prose and expression in the mathematical notation of symbolic logic?enough like ordi? nary prose to be understood easily by any careful reader, enough like sym? bolic logic to achieve some of its important advantages. It represents an effort to adapt some of the techniques of symbolic logic to make more systematic what is now best described as the "art" of drafting. The first section will explain six elementary logical connectives: implication, conjunction, coimplication, exclusive disjunction, inclusive disjunction and negation. In order to simplify this exposition, trivial examples will be used for purposes of illustration. In the second section the proposed system will be applied to actual legal problems of drafting, interpretation, simplification and comparison. Six Elementary Logical Connectives 2 1.0 Implication The development of a more systematic method of drafting will enable the lawyer to communicate his intended meaning more effectively. That is the basic proposition to which this Article is addressed. This same proposition can be stated in a different form:

The Executive's Right of Privacy: An Unresolved Constitutional Question

Abstract: A constitutional question of the first importance, raised in more or less acute form in practically every administration from Washington's to Eisenhower's, is, singularly enough, still wide open. That question is the constitu? tional power of the executive to withhold information from the legislature. It seems to be no nearer settlement today than it was in 1792, when President Washington announced the right of the executive to exercise its discretion in communicating executive documents requested by a committee appointed by the House of Representatives 4tto inquire into the causes of the failure of the late expedition under Major General St. Clair."1 A regular reader of the newspapers need reflect but briefly to realize the tremendous political importance of the problem. The files of the executive bulge with documents which Congressmen, from the best and worst motives, are eager to examine and which bureaucrats, also from the best and worst motives, are determined to keep to themselves. Many of these documents, if published, would certainly cause headlines and headaches all across the nation, and some might create a stir in foreign chancelleries?a prospect from which the average legislator, especially if he be up for re-election, shrinks about as much as Brer Rabbit shrank from the briar patch, but which may cause exquisite pain to the executive branch. An example: among the large number of dossiers maintained by the FBI and the various intelligence and security services in the Pentagon there are inevitably some whose subjects are persons of local or national prominence. Many such dossiers contain "derogatory" in? formation 2 which, if portentously attributed by an unfriendly politician to "the

The Great Tradition -- Jerome Frank

Abstract: How and when and where I first met Jerome Frank I can not now recall. The place was New Haven or New York or Washington; the time, the begin? ning of the thirties; the occasion, gone beyond my recollection. But such vagaries are of no importance; for his was the kind of personality which asserts itself before his presence is noted. In speech or in print his words have a per? vasive quality; his stream of ideas mingled with that of the hearer or reader and something emerged which initially neither had in mind. I can think of no one whose literate output has been more fungible. Jerome Frank was a person one seemed always to have known and one who, for me, could never disappear from the scene.

Charles Evans Hughes and American Democratic Statesmanship

Abstract: The author presents Hughes not only as a remarkable jurist but also as one of the most remarkable statesmen in American history. A well-rounded picture of the man and his career is presented.

Jerome N. Frank

Abstract: Tl/Гу first memory of Judge Frank goes back to the fall of 1934, when -I-»-*1 went to Washington, D. С., to head up a new bureau or division in the recently created Securities and Exchange Commission. I was anxious to assemble a good staff, and the man I wanted to head it was Abe Fortas, who worked for Jerome Frank, then general counsel to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. I asked for an appointment with Mr. Frank, and when I saw him in his office, he was most antogonistic. He figuratively tore me limb from limb. I realized as he talked that he had no animus toward me, but only a zealous protective attitude toward his staff. They were friends in whom he had a great emotional investment. So, I exploited that weakness by asking him, \"Why do you stand in the way of your junior's professional advancement?\" His attitude completely changed. He melted and at once became gentle and soft-spoken. And before I left, he was eager to help me find the best staff possible.