HISTORY OF LEGAL INSTITUTIONS
If we lawyers tend to overlook the evolution of substantive law, then we can
be downright unconscious about legal institutions and legal practice. Practices
are all too often taken for granted, and we too often repeat rituals and sustain
enterprises long after their reason for being has evaporated.
When our court recently considered whether to change Indiana’s manner of
citing cases, I decided it might be interesting to see when this method got its start.
It certainly commenced before the infamous Bluebook issued by the Harvard,
Yale, Columbia and Pennsylvania law reviews. A quick investigation revealed
that the year of a decision, placed right after the name of parties, began appearing
when the court acquired a new reporter of decisions in 1904. His name was
George W. Self. It was probably a campaign promise, and it was a good one.
We have been doing it that way ever since, even though the publishing world has
turned upside down several times in the intervening generations.
10
The same lesson may be learned on more important matters. The present