His case went to an independent arbitrator, who conducted an exhaustive hearing Wednesday and Thursday with nearly 23 hours of testimony.

But a hallmark of the Wilentz court is its willingness to give each case a full, even exhaustive hearing.

Last week, Mr. Lott ordered his aides to conduct yet another review, even though the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved Mr. Holbrooke last month without dissent after four exhaustive hearings.

Kenneth Feinberg, the fund's special master, has used his time wisely in recent weeks to conduct exhaustive hearings with victims' families, many of which had complained about the preliminary regulations issued last December.

Convinced something illegal must have occurred, the New York State Legislature held exhaustive hearings into the land purchase.

But above all rose the merits of the Bork nomination, as ventilated in fair, exhaustive, sometimes brilliant hearings.

It tested Judge Bork's nomination with meticulous fairness and exhaustive hearings that intelligently probed his record and philosophy.

The commission holds exhaustive hearings and accepts any information submitted.

Oregon's plan of "prioritization," as officials there prefer to call it, which has involved exhaustive public hearings and creation of a formal ranking of diseases and treatments, is the epitome of approach No. 1.

Norton Rose, for its part, cranked up a formal disciplinary procedure, grilling Brad and his colleagues in an exhaustive hearing.