James D. St. Clair, assistant counsel for the Army Department during last spring's Army-McCarthy hearings, has been appointed special trial lawyer for Wendell H. Furry, associate professor of Physics, by Furry's attorney, Gerald A. Berlin.

St. Clair, a trial specialist, will probably handle most of the cross-examining and will make most of the decisions on how best to present evidence to convince a jury and to form a clear record in case of an appeal.

Berlin said yesterday that St. Clair's appointment ended a "long, highly selective" search begun as soon as "it became clear, partly because of the peculiar nature of the evidence, that the most important stage of our case would have to be the trial."

In the meantime, doubts about exact procedure at the trial have delayed a final decision on a trial date. Judge Bailey Aldrich '28 made a trial inevitable by denying defense objections to Furry's indictment for contempt of Congress in a decision April 25.

Berlin had said that he might appoint a special trial counsel when Furry was indicted in December. The possibility was also mentioned in a January fund-raising letter to the University faculties. Berlin postponed hiring an assistant, however, until the "all-out" fight over Furry's indictment ended.

St. Clair graduated from the Law School in 1947. He assisted Army Department counsel Joseph N. Welch throughout the three-month public airing of the Army's dispute with Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.