Legal History Blog

Kellogg on Holmes on Judicial Restraint

2009-11-09T01:42:00.001-05:00

Frederic R. Kellogg, University of Edinburgh Law School, has posted Holmes, Common Law Theory and Judicial Restraint, which originally appeared in John Marshall Law Review 36 (2003): 457. Here is the abstract:Judicial restraint is a subject properly bound with the interpretation, and hence the definition, of law. The nature and contours of what judges interpret dictate what is appropriate for

Weekend book notes

2009-11-08T16:06:00.002-05:00

Borrowing from Ralph Luker this weekend: Carlin Romano, "Perspectives on the fall of the Berlin Wall," LA Times, 8 November, reviews Stephen Kotkin's Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment, Michael Meyer's The Year That Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Constantine Pleshakov's There Is No Freedom Without Bread!: 1989 and the

Wefing on Richard J. Hughes

2009-11-08T02:15:00.000-05:00

Just published by the Rutgers University Press is The Life and Times of Richard J. Hughes, by John B. Wefing, Seton Hall University School of Law. According to the Press, the bookexplores the influential public service of this two-term New Jersey governor. He was the only person in New Jersey history to serve as both governor and chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court.This biography

Goodfriend on Baer, Trial of Frederick Eberle

2009-11-08T00:13:00.000-05:00

H-SHEAR has published Ethnicity and Language in the Early Republic, a review by Joyce Goodfriend, University of Denver, of Friederike Baer, The Trial of Frederick Eberle: Language, Patriotism and Citizenship in Philadelphia's German Community, 1790 to 1830 (New York University Press, 2008). The review commences:This small book tackles a very large subject, nothing less than what it meant to be

Brandeis at the National Archives

2009-11-07T01:27:00.000-05:00

The National Archives, in conjunction with the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center, will be hosting a panel, Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, the Law and the 21st Century, to be held at the Archives’s William G. McGowan Theater, 7th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C., on Thursday, November 19, at 7 p.m.According to the announcement:As a Supreme Court justice (1916–

Hirtle, et al., on Copyright and Cultural Institutions

2009-11-07T00:32:00.001-05:00

Peter B. Hirtle, Cornell University Library, Emily Hudson University of Melbourne Law School, and Andrew T. Kenyon, University of Melbourne Law School have posted Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums ( Cornell University Library Press) on SSRN and here. Here is the abstract:Digital communications technologies have led to

The Law Are an Ass

2009-11-06T01:14:00.006-05:00

Minor Myers, Brooklyn Law School, has posted Supreme Court Usage and the Making of an 'Is' It originally appeared in the Green Bag, 2d ser. 11 (Summer 2008): 457. Here's the abstract:This survey examines use of the phrases “United States is” and “United States are” in opinions of the United States Supreme Court from 1790 to 1919. The familiar claim, popularized by Shelby Foote in the Ken

Morag-Levine 's Long View on Agency Statutory Interpretation

2009-11-06T01:12:00.000-05:00

Noga Morag-Levine, Michigan State University College of Law, has posted Agency Statutory Interpretation and the Rule of Common Law, which is forthcoming in Michigan State Law Review (2009). Here is the abstract:American administrative theory and law have long treated as an axiom the notion that agencies are subordinate to the statutes that govern their mandates, and that statutory interpretation

SHFG Prizes

2009-11-06T01:05:00.001-05:00

[Here's an announcement from the Society for History in the Federal Government:]The Society for History in the Federal Government awards two prizes each year for outstanding scholarship in a published article or essay related to the history of the federal government. We are inviting submissions for the 2010 prizes, for articles or essays published during calendar year 2009. (The deadline for

Confronting/Imagining Legal Justice & Injustice: at Harvard tomorrow

2009-11-05T10:51:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow at Harvard:Confronting Legal Injustice/Imagining Legal Justice Friday, November 06, 2009 9:30 AMAmes Courtroom, Austin HallHarvard Law SchoolCambridge, MA 02138This day-long conference will bring together authors from two recent books co-edited by Professors Charles Ogletree and Austin Sarat. Please join us as we discuss the various ways we confront the law’s failures as well as imagine

November at the Miller Center

2009-11-05T03:37:00.002-05:00

The Governing American in a Global Era Colloquium of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia has a number of interesting sessions this month. Further about webcasts and attending in person is here.Friday, November 6Cell Blocks and Red Ink: Mass Incarceration, the Economic Crisis, and Penal ReformMarie Gottschalk, Political Science, University of PennsylvaniaFriday,

Johns on Julius Stone

2009-11-05T01:59:00.000-05:00

Fleur E. Johns, Sydney Law School, has posted The Gift of Realism: Julius Stone and the International Legal Academy in Australia, which is forthcoming in Julius Stone: A Study of Influence, eds. H. Irving, J. Mowbray & K. Walton (Sydney: Federation Press). Here is the abstract:This chapter contributes to a series of studies seeking to gauge what has been made of the work of international lawyer

Historians & others on Obama

2009-11-04T13:09:00.000-05:00

From Ralph Luker:A year after his election, historians assess President Obama: Walter Isaacson, Michael Kazin, Rick Perlstein, Ted Widmer, and Garry Wills, Daily Beast, 2 November; and Doris Kearns Goodwin, Huffington Post, 3 November.And in the New York Times, reporters assess the Obama presidency.

Fudge and Tucker on Picketing Before the British Columbia Court of Appeals

2009-11-04T10:57:00.003-05:00

'Everybody Knows What a Picket Line Means': Picketing Before the British Columbia Court of Appeal has just been posted by Judy Fudge, University of Victoria Faculty of Law and Eric Tucker, York University Osgoode Hall Law School. It appeared in BC Studies, No. 162, pp. 53-79, Summer 2009. Here's the abstract: The general hostility of courts towards workers’ collective action is well

Mashaw on Administrative Law in the Gilded Age

2009-11-04T06:53:00.001-05:00

Jerry Mashaw, Yale Law School, has posted the latest installment in his history of administrative law avant la lettre, Federal Administration and Administrative Law in the Gilded Age. Here is the abstract:This article has a simple message. The standard history of the development of American Administrative Law is at best partial and in many respects incorrect. The national government of the

Jackson and Resnik's Federal Courts Stories

2009-11-04T01:38:00.000-05:00

One doesn't generally expect to find first-rate scholarship in works intended as supplements to law school casebooks. This is true even for the intelligently conceived "Law Stories" series, published by Foundation Press, which "tell the stories behind the leading cases in important areas of law." Its thirty or so volumes have performed the pedagogically useful function of making accessible

Shawhan on Lyman Trumbell on Birthright Citizenship

2009-11-04T01:01:00.001-05:00

Mark Shawhan, Yale Law School, has posted Domicile and Birthright Citizenship, which is a student comment forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal. Here is the abstract:This Comment argues that the contemporary debate on the meaning of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has overlooked a significant piece of historical evidence. Scholars such as Peter Schuck, Rogers Smith, and John

Nackenoff and Sullivan on Women Lawyers and Progressive-Era Governance

2009-11-04T00:44:00.002-05:00

Carol Nackenoff, Swarthmore College, and Kathleen Sullivan, Ohio University, have posted Women Lawyers and Governance in the Progressive Era, which they presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in September. Here’s the abstract:Progressive Era court reform led to creation of new courts that had both formal and informal positions, some of which were filled by

Gudridge on Lash's Ninth Amendment in Jotwell

2009-11-03T01:12:00.001-05:00

Other Rights, is a summary and appreciation of Kurt Lash's recent Stanford Law Review article on the Ninth Amendment, contributed by Patrick Gudridge, University of Miami School of Law, to the new on-line journal Jotwell. Gudgridge concludes, "It is the great virtue of Lash’s analysis that it is provocative not only in its immediate conclusions, but in the glimpse it affords of its variants – it

Moore on the Osgoode Society at 30

2009-11-03T00:43:00.001-05:00

A report by Christopher Moore, "a Toronto-based writer, blogger and commentator," on Friday's conference of the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History is here.Image credit: William Osgoode

The Newberry Seminar on Early Modern Legal History

2009-11-02T10:16:00.002-05:00

This year's Symposium on Comparative Early Modern Legal History at the Newberry Library in Chicago (left), with funding by the University of Illinois College of Law, is "New Perspectives on Legal Pluralism." Organized by Lauren Benton, New York University, and Richard Ross, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, it will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Friday, April 23, 2010, at the

"You were always on my mind..."

2009-11-02T09:02:00.001-05:00

We are always thinking of you, dear reader, even when your faithful bloggers are spending too much time in various airports, attempting to meet too many deadlines, or are otherwise occupied.Apologies for sparse blogging over the next week. And if you're out of legal history links, perhaps you'll find some solace here.

Sunday Book Round-up

2009-11-01T13:08:00.004-05:00

Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne C. Heller is taken up today in the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. Also in the NY Times, James McPherson reviews THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR: A Military History by John Keegan.An interview with Mark Mazower, author of No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations, appears in the Boston Globe.Children of

H1N1 Halloween

2009-10-31T08:49:00.001-04:00

In case you are having an H1N1 Halloween, I thought this reprisal of Frank's Halloween 2007 might be, um, well not comforting, but somehow fitting....Happy Halloween from the Legal History Blog.

Henry Friendly Chooses Private Practice

2009-10-31T01:24:00.005-04:00

Like Jerold Auerbach and perhaps others, I have long quoted an off-the-cuff remark of Judge Henry Jacob Friendly (1903-1986) at the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Harvard Law School, as a window into the calculations of soon-to-be graduates at the nation’s elite law schools in the 1920s. “Practically everyone thought there was only one career that was worth pursuing, namely private