Professor Fights Legal Follies

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30395, 20 March 1964, Page 1

Professor Fights Legal Follies

Professor W. Barton Leach, Story professor of law at Harvard University, has made “a life-long fight against silly stupid technicalities in law.” Wearing a tomato-red jacket and speaking very firmly, he attracted many interested listeners when he gave an interview at his dinner table in a Christchurch hotel last evening. “I am a specialist in rich nan’s law,” boomed Professor Leach. “Shush,” said his wife. "Blanche is always trying to shush me, but she has been my bride only since January. Sometimes she succeeds and sometimes she doesn't This time she doesn’t,** <aid Pro-

fessor Leach, beaming at his wife. By rich man’s law he meant trusts, wills and the Rule of Perpetuities. “Capitals, please,” said Professor Leach. "Most papers louse that up. Back home I would never be forgiven if you don't use capitals." Professor Leach said these matters were becoming more important, not because more men were becoming richer but because more lawyers were becoming smarter. “And you have some very smart law professors in New Zealand and they are doing a great job in this "eld. “Of course," said Professor Leach, “only a very sophisticated lawyer can really understand all this.” “Shush,” said Mrs Leach. The very narrow field of the Rule of Perpetuities had been his special interest for

35 years, said Professor Leach. “In lectures, law books, and articles I have tried to make the law-makers see sense. “It is quite proper that there should be some limitations on family trusts to prevent huge accumulations of wealth. It is quite wrong that family settlements by wills or trusts should be knocked down by silly, technical, foolish rules. “Several people in New Zealand are with me on this,” said Professor Leach. “Professor Northey in Auckland, Professor Allan in Wellington, and Professor Hamish Gray in Christchurch, plus some in my own country, have got together in a confraternity of anti-foolish-ness." Mrs Leach moved as to intervene. “What the hell. I mean

foolishness anywhere, not just here,” said her husband. “Anglo - American • Dominion-you-name-it foolishness. I started my fight in my home state of Massachusetts and its spread right out here.” The real concern was that the law should carry out its real objectives without destroying whole estates, said Professor Leach. “The rights of widows, children, and grandchildren, which threaten nobody and nothing and which permit people of modest means to provide for their families, could be in peril.” Taxation was only one aspect of the problem. Professor Leach said too much of this kind of law was drawn from the wills of wealthy Englishmen assiduously copied down the ages. The earlier influence of the marriage settlement was often forgotten.