William H. Waste

William Harrison Waste was a native son of California, born in 1868 to pioneer immigrants in Butte County. In the early 1880s, as a student at Los Angeles High School, William Waste spent his spare time watching local courtroom proceedings, following the progress of his favorite trial lawyers. By the time he was admitted to the bar at 25, he had witnessed the courts’ evolution away from the extremes of pioneer justice that had existed when he was born, and he understood the need for change as the courts progressed into a new era.

When the Judicial Council was authorized in 1926, delay and congestion of litigation were a problem throughout the state, most notably in Los Angeles County, where a mere 28 judges presided over a superior court in which the average period between joining of issue and trial of a case was 16 to 18 months. Under the direction of Chief Justice Waste as the first Chair of the Judicial Council, and through a statewide mobilization of “judicial manpower,” that delay was soon reduced to three months.