Trial by Ambush or Avalanche - The Discovery Debacle

I fell in love with the law in 1946, during my first week in law school. It has been a torrid affair ever since. "Ever since" has entailed seven years of law practice followed by thirty-two years of law professing, eight of these as a dean. Against this backdrop of fealty, I had occasion recently to encounter the legal process as it presently, honest-to-God, exists.

This encounter was not as a lawyer, not as a law professor, not as a consultant, not, that is, as a professional impersonally involved, but as the father of the mother in a child-custody case. It was a client exposure. I came away from the experience not merely angry and disillusioned, but outraged. Why?