On April 4, 1962, Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller approved the Civil Practice Law and Rules, forever to be known as the CPLR. He applauded what became Chapter Eight of the Consolidated Laws of New York as "the first major revision of civil procedure in the New York Courts in over a century." Public Papers of Nelson A. Rockefeller, Fifty-third Governor of the State of New York 387 (1962). There was much fanfare surrounding the CPLR's enactment, and judges and lawyers throughout The Empire State scrambled for 17 months to become familiar with the laws that would govern litigation in our state courts effective Sept. 1, 1963.
On Sept. 1, 2013, the CPLR celebrated its 50th year regulating procedure in New York State's civil courts. That's quite a milestone in our state's law. The Civil Practice Act, which it replaced in 1963, reigned for just 42 years. It must be noted, however, that the Advisory Committee on Practice and Procedure, which drafted most of the provisions in the CPLR, was appointed in 1955. Based on this prior experience, and given the fact that there is no current movement afoot to comprehensively reform procedure in New York, it is reasonable to assume that we will be living with this document for at least another decade.
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