A Quarter of a Century of Rulemaking with Particular Attention to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure

It is a happy coincidence that Edward Thaxter Gignoux completes twenty-five years on the bench at about the same time that the present rulemaking procedures in the federal system reach their twenty-fifth anniversary. In the quarter of a century of the present system for rulemaking there have been three distinguished chairmen of the Standing Committee—the committee to which there is delegated overall responsibility for rulemaking by the Judicial Conference of the United States. The three chairmen are Senior Circuit Judge Albert Maris, generally thought of as the modern "Father" of federal rulemaking, Senior District Judge Rozell Thomson and the present Chairman who has very recently taken senior status, Ed Gignoux. I have had the pleasure of serving under all three. The chairmen of the Standing Committee are deserving of much of the credit for the fact that the Federal Rules of Procedure have served as a model for the rest of the country over the period of this last quarter century. The task for Chairman Gignoux is to continue the high quality of the federal rules at a time when there is greater interest than ever in the rulemaking process and increasing pressure to change the procedures which have worked so well in the past.