“Chief Justice Hughes in 1935 appointed fourteen lawyers and law teachers as the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, with William D. Mitchell, former Attorney General, as chairman, and Charles E. Clark, then dean of the Yale Law School, as reporter, to recommend a draft of rules uniting law and equity. The committee proposed a system of rules that was approved by the Court with certain changes. In accordance with the Enabling Act, the rules were submitted to Congress for its acquiescence and, Congress having taken no exception to them, they became effective September 16, 1938.
“The rules thus produced bear the unmistakable imprint of the reporter, Charles E. Clark, and represent the largest single accomplishment in American civil procedure since the Field Code of 1848. Although they were not perfect and have been amended many times, experience with them has on the whole been satisfactory, and more than half of the states have adopted them in their entirety or in large part.” Fleming James, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr. & John Leubsdorf, Civil Procedure § 1.8, at 24–25 (5th ed. 2001).
