The Law: Chief Justice in Mufti

(2 of 2)

To help current overworked judges, Burger has mounted his most successful leadership effort. Four different organizations inspired or revivified by the Chief Justice* have helped bring such reforms as the installation of professional administrators in the larger federal courts and the practice of having each judge take a case from start to finish instead of having one judge handle, say, all arraignments or all pretrial hearings. Burger also lets it be known that he personally looks at each judge's newly-required monthly report on the number of cases disposed of. Partly as a result of such changes, there has been a 34% increase since 1968 in the number of dispositions per judge.

The child of sturdy Minnesotans who both lived into their nineties, Burger, 68, is remarkably healthy despite his pace. His secretary reports that he averages 77 hours a week on the job, nearly a fourth of that in nonjudicial duties. He oversees the minutest details of high bench housekeeping, right down to final approval of every flower planted on court grounds. Academic observers continue to fault the quality of Burger's opinions, and though he carries his share of the writing, he once admitted to a Court aide, "I have to take some of the easier ones because I'm so busy."

Edward Devitt, chief judge of the Minnesota federal district court, points out that Burger's activity "provides enormous support to us on the bench. He's constantly working to get us the tools we need to get the job done." Burger explains that he has thrown himself into his wide range of projects because "if I don't do them, they won't get done. It's not that I have special qualifications or skills, but that I'm in a position to do something. For 15 years the activism around here was judicial. Now it's time for activism in looking over the entire system, for thinking through the whole administration of justice."