The role of the army and administrative officials in establishing Soviet authority in the areas occupied by the USSR during the past war is dramatic, and therefore carefully studied by those who analyze Soviet techniques. Much less notoriety attaches to the work of the courts, yet Soviet leaders appear to place considerable reliance upon these agencies in remolding a society in their own image. It was the writer's fate as a member of the Law Faculty of Lvov University to supervise the students' practice in the civil courts of the city of Czernowitz during the first Soviet occupation in 1940-1941. The city, as the capital of the former Rumanian Province of Bukovina, was the heart of the economic and political life of a territory whose northern part was brought under Soviet domination during the period of Soviet-Nazi collaboration in the early stages of the war. As such it was destined to play a key part in the Sovietization of an important segment of Eastern Europe.