ANTHONY AMSTERDAM-Professor Amsterdam was named “Lawyer of the Year” by the California Trial Lawyers Association. The award stemmed from his leadership in the battle to abolish discretionary use of the death penalty in California. Announcing Professor Amsterdam’s selection, Robert B. Barbagelata of San Francisco said the Association recognized his “enlightened approach and contribution to the trial bar through speeches, writings, and practices to improve the administration of justice.”

In May, Professor Amsterdam testified before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary regarding newsmen’s shield laws. In an 88-page statement to the Subcommittee he argued that whatever safeguards Congress provides to the press, they should cover both state and federal subpoenas. Procedural safeguards to “stem the tide of press subpoenas” are “far more important than the precise shape of a newsman’s testimonial privilege” he noted. Professor Amsterdam served as volunteer counsel in the Caldwell v. United States case. The outcome of the Supreme Court’s 4-4-1 decision in Branzburg v. Hayes, decided last year, which included the Caldwell litigation, “has been to leave newsmen almost totally unprotected by the First Amendment,” he said.

BARBARA A. BABCOCK-Professor Babcock was one of the main speakers at a four-day conference titled, “Might vs. Right in America.” In her presentation, Babcock said that access to legal counsel is the index to American class structure. “Although we have provided a lawyer on paper for poor people, we have never actually given them the real thing.”

The conference, sponsored by the Stanford Committee on Political Education and co-sponsored by the Associated Students and the Stanford chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, was attended by over 800 persons. Appearing with Professor Babcock was former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

JOHN H. BARTON-Professor Barton is affiliated with a program designed to examine the economic, social, and political impact of technological changes such as the introduction of cable television. Titled the Program in Information Technology and Telecommunications, it is located at the Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Research. Stanford faculty. members in the program already are involved in more than $1 million of federally funded research. Some of the current projects include “Communication Technology and Public Policy,” “Satellite Telecommunication,” “Financing of Public Television,” and “The Economics of Computer Communication Networks.”

RICHARD J. DANZIG-Assistant Professor Danzig is the recipient of a fellowship in legal history awarded by the American Bar Foundation, research affiliate of the American Bar Association. He is in England this summer, using the grant to write an article titled, “Hadley v. Baxendale: A case Study in Legal Change.” Professor Danzig hopes that the article will make a significant contribution to nineteenth-century common law legal history.

LAWRENCE M. FRIEDMAN-Professor Friedman has recently published a general treatment of American legal history, the first to consider the development both of the law itself and of legal institutions.

A History of American Law (Simon and Schuster, 1973) shows law “as a mirror of society” in which social forces, at any and every point in time, mold the legal system and its constituent institutions. This is illustrated in areas such as the rise and fall of the law of slavery, the law of industrial accidents, and the development of the modern regulatory state.

After a brief prologue on the English background and a chapter on the colonial period, the book concentrates on the dynamic relationship between law and economic and social development from independence to the close of the 19th century. A final chapter treats the 20th century “in broad brush strokes.”

Of interest to both the lawyer and the layman, the book shows how old rules of law and old legal institutions stay alive when they have a purpose. “The trust, the mortgage, the jury are of ancient stock; but they have the vigor of youth.”

WILLIAM B. GOULD-In an address prepared for the British Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Services in London, Professor Gould described current labor relations problems in America and how they are being resolved. A 36-year-old Black, Professor Gould heads the Committee on Law and Legislation of the National Academy of Arbitrators.

Approximately 94 percent of all labor-management agreements in America now provide for arbitration of grievances not resolved by the parties themselves, Professor Gould said. But many rank-and-file workers are becoming dissatisfied with the system, mainly because of delays in decisions. Moreover, many professionals in the field are finding employment discrimination cases difficult to handle.

Professor Gould noted that federal mediation and conciliation records show that in 1971 an average of 168 days elapsed from the time an arbitration panel was requested until a case was concluded-an increased delay of almost 50 percent since 1964. Stepped-up training of new arbitrators and expedited techniques for making awards are now being developed within the profession. The steel industry, the American Arbitration Association, General Electric Company, and the International Union of Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers are among those trying new procedures for “bench awards”-decisions commonly made with only one-or-two page opinions on what the parties regard as relatively minor issues.

JOHN KAPLAN-Professor Kaplan’s undergraduate course spring quarter on The Criminal Law and the Criminal System had an enrollment of over 600 students. His lectures from the course are being published as a companion volume to his textbook, Criminal Justice: Introductory Cases and Materials. The book has already been adopted as the basic text for undergraduate law courses at 19 other institutions.

CHARLES J. MEYERS-Professor Meyers participated in the 19th Annual Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute in July. He spoke to the Water Section of the Institute on the points of interest to practicing lawyers in the National Water Commission Report, emphasizing environmental protection, making better use of existing water supplies, economic evaluation of water resources development, and proposed changes in the law relating to federal-state relations.

ROBERT RABIN-A course titled The Administrative Process was offered to undergraduates for the first time by Professor Rabin.

DAVID ROSEHAN-Professor Rosenhan’s and seven other persons’ experiences in mental hospitals on the East and West Coasts were reported in an article by Rosenhan titled “On Being Sane in Insane Places” in the January 19, 1973 issue of Science magazine.

Professor Rosenhan and the seven others had themselves admitted as patients to a total of 12 mental hospitals during a three-year period. They described hallucinations and “empty” feelings and were diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenics. As soon as they were admitted they began acting normally and waited for the hospital staff to notice. The hospital staff never did notice, although many of the real patients caught on to the fakes. Most of the group were released as “schizophrenics in remission.”

Once the diagnosis was made, said Professor Rosenhan, all behavior was interpreted according to the diagnosis. “There was, in fact, very little we could do to convince the staff that we were sane.” In conclusion, Professor Rosenhan writes, “it is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals…. The consequences to patients hospitalized in such an environment-the powerlessness, depersonalization, segregation, mortification, and self-Iabelingseem undoubtedly counter-therapeutic.”

BYRON D. SHER-Professor Sher was elected to the Palo Alto City Council in the May 8th local elections. A former Palo Alto City Councilman, Professor Sher led all other candidates in the election, including the five other persons elected for four-year terms.

Mellon Foundation Grants Received

Two Stanford Law School junior faculty members have been named recipients of Mellon Foundation grants intended to aid them in carrying on research at a crucial time in their careers. Associate Professor Paul Brest will study “Processes of Constitutional Adjudication,” and Associate Professor Richard Markovits will do work in law and economics.

“The genesis of the program was the feeling that it is very desirable for the career development of junior faculty that they be given time off for research,” said Vice Provost Robert Rosenzweig, chairman of the committee that named the recipients.

Seventeen such grants were awarded throughout the University