Dershowitz Claims Court's Workload Is Not Too Much

Alan M. Dershowitz, professor of Law, said yesterday that Chief Justice Warren E. Burger has overstated the problem of the Supreme Court's expanding workload and called Burger's assertions "fallacious."

Several of his colleagues at the Law School agreed with Burger that the Supreme Court is overworked, but said they oppose most suggested solutions.

Burger said in Washington Friday that Congress and the legal profession should find methods to alleviate the Court's overcrowded docket.

"This is Warren Burger talking, not the U.S. Supreme Court," Dershowitz said. "Burger is out of the mainstream of the Court on most issues."

Paul A. Freund, Loeb University Professor, who headed a study group appointed by Burger two years ago to recommend solutions, agreed with an apparent minority yesterday over Burger's statement. The solution he supports would set up a national court of appeals to screen cases headed for the Supreme Court.

Other Law professors interviewed yesterday disagreed with Freund's assessment of the problem.

Opposition to the Freund proposal centers around the fear that an appeals court would take too much power from the Supreme Court and would give authority to people who would be less sensitive to the Court's job, Stephen G. Breyer, professor of Law, said.

Albert Sacks, Dean of the Law School, stressed the Court's need to retain control over the issues it decides.

Laurence H. Tribe, professor of Law, called the Freund proposal "ill-conceived" and supported Dershowitz's view that Burger has overemphasized the present problem. "It's easy to get hysterical over a workload," Tribe said.

Breyer and Andrew L. Kaufman, professor of Law, expressed the fear than an intermediate court acting as a screening body would harm the symbolic role of the Supreme Court.