Legal History Commons^™

The Importance Of Comparative Law In Legal Education: United States Goals And Methods Of Legal Comparisons, Hugh J. Ault, Mary Ann Glendon

Hugh J. Ault

This Essay discusses the gradual changes occurring within legal education, which are finding wide acceptance in law schools throughout the United States. These changes include greater attention to other disciplines, primarily economics and behavioral sciences, and the contributions they make to a fuller understanding of the legal system. In addition, law schools are increasingly exploring the ways in which the law in textbooks may differ from the law in action. Nearly every law school, therefore, is seriously investigating the social and economic background of legal rules and their consequences through clinical legal education, which attempts to provide a real or …

The Twentieth Century, Daniel R. Coquillette

Daniel R. Coquillette

All self-respecting legal history is supposed to end by the twentieth century. As we approach our own lives, experience and training—and those events that we have actually witnessed—we allegedly lose that "objectivity" which makes the "science" of history itself possible. Certainly, there is no point in burdening the reader with the "original" materials, including cases and statutes, that make up the bulk of any legal education. But there are good reasons to reflect on our own legal century from an "historical perspective."

Environmental Law In The Political Ecosystem - Coping With The Reality Of Politics, Zygmunt J.B. Plater

Zygmunt J.B. Plater

In this Essay, the proposition the author draws from the narrative of the endangered species litigation is derivatively Aristotelian – that we must consciously, actively, and explicitly integrate an informed consideration of human politics into what we teach and do in environmental law. The proposition is not that we should steep ourselves in party politics, although there are interesting observations aplenty that could be made on the direct consequences that the two major parties (and occassionally their wistful smaller incarnations) have on the evolution of environmental law. The proposition offered here operates at two different levels: practical politics and political …

The Impeachment Of The Judges Of The Nova Scotia Supreme Court, 1787-1793: Colonial Judges, Loyalist Lawyers, And The Colonial Assembly, Jim Phillips

Dalhousie Law Journal

In 1790 the Nova Scotia House of Assembly passed seven "articles of impeachment" against two ofthe colony's Supreme Courtjudges, the firstattempt bya British North American assembly to remove superior courtjudges. Although the impeachment failed when the British government rejected the charges, it is noteworthy nonetheless. The product of a dispute between newly arrived loyalist lawyers and a local elite of "old inhabitants, " it was at one and the same time a political struggle between the Assembly and the executive branch, and one that involved concerns about judicial competence. The impeachment crisis also demonstrates the close links between the judiciary …

No Longer "Naked And Shivering Outside Her Gates": Establishing Law As A Full-Time On-Campus Academic Discipline At Mcgill University Inthe Nineteenth Century, A J. Hobbins

Dalhousie Law Journal

Although Canada was a single province (1763-1791), subsequently divided into Upper and Lower Canada, legal education developed very differently in the two components. The Law Society of Upper Canada controlled legal education in Ontario until the second half of the twentieth century, while in Quebec, where the legal system was based on both civil and common law, university-based legal education began in the first half of the nineteenth century. This study examines how legal education developed at McGill University, moving from part-time teaching by professionals off-campus to an on-campus faculty taught by full-time academics by the end of the century …

"No Sinecure": William Young As Attorney General Of Nova Scotia, 1854-1857, William H. Laurence

Dalhousie Law Journal

Focusing on the tenure (1854-1857) of William Young, this article examines the legal work of nineteenth-century Nova Scotian attorneys general. Although he served without the benefit of an established justice department, Young fulfilled a wide range of duties and completed an impressive volume of work, which required knowledge of both public and private law, and which demanded advocacy advisory, solicitorial, and legislative drafting skills. This article argues that though Young's performance as a Crown prosecutor received the most public attention, his accomplishments outside the criminal courtroom, especially those relating to the administration ofjustice and legislative development, had the most significant …

One Hundred Years Of Harmful Error: The Historical Jurisprudence Of Medical Malpractice, Theodore Silver

Theodore Silver

In this Article, Professor Silver examines the origins of present-day malpractice law. He begins by noting that negligence and medical malpractice as the common law now knows them made their debut in the nineteenth century although their roots lie deep in the turf of trespass and assumpsit. He argues, however, that toward the turn of the century several episodes of linguistic laziness purported to produce a separation between negligence and medical malpractice so that the two fields are conventionally thought to rest on separate doctrinal foundations. According to Professor Silver, historically based scrutiny of medical malpractice and its ties to …

Adoption Of English Law In Maryland, Garrett Power

Garrett Power

It served as an axiom of Maryland’s constitutional history that settlers carried with them the “rights of Englishmen” when they crossed the Atlantic. In 1642 the Assembly of Maryland Freemen declared Maryland’s provincial judges were to follows the law of England. Maryland’s 1776 Declaration of Independence left a legal lacuna--- what were to be the laws and public institutions of this newly created sovereign entity? This paper considers the manner in which the sovereign state of Maryland filled the void.

Review Of A Final Accounting, Holocaust Survivors And Swiss Banks, Adeen Postar

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Conference Program -- Association For The Study Of Law, Culture, & The Humanities 14th Annual Conference, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas -- William S. Boyd School Of Law

Association for the Study of Law, Culture, & the Humanities 14th Annual Conference

The UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law hosted the Association for the Study of Law, Culture & the Humanities 14th Annual Conference from March 11-12, 2011. The Association brings together more than 275 interdisciplinary scholars from around the world each year to discuss law and legal issues from a broad perspective. Scholars attended the meeting at UNLV from Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand and Sweden. The theme of the conference, drawing on the work of Nan Seuffert of the University of Waikato, was "Boundaries and Enemies."

The Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities …

Elizabeth Cady Stanton And The Notion Of A Legal Class Of Gender, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In the mid-nineteenth century, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used narratives of women and their involvement with the law of domestic relations to collectivize women. This recognition of a gender class was the first step towards women’s transformation of the law. Stanton’s stories of working-class women, immigrants, Mormon polygamist wives, and privileged white women revealed common realities among women in an effort to form a collective conscious. The parable-like stories were designed to inspire a collective consciousness among women, one capable of arousing them to social and political action. For to Stanton’s consternation, women showed a lack of appreciation of their own …

Law, History, And Feminism, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This is the introduction to the book, Feminist Legal History. This edited collection offers new visions of American legal history that reveal women’s engagement with the law over the past two centuries. It integrates the stories of women into the dominant history of the law in what has been called “engendering legal history,” (Batlan 2005) and then seeks to reconstruct the assumed contours of history. The introduction provides the context necessary to appreciate the diverse essays in the book. It starts with an overview of the existing state of women’s legal history, tracing the core events over the past two …

Law, History, And Feminism, Tracy A. Thomas

Tracy A. Thomas

This is the introduction to the book, Feminist Legal History. This edited collection offers new visions of American legal history that reveal women’s engagement with the law over the past two centuries. It integrates the stories of women into the dominant history of the law in what has been called “engendering legal history,” (Batlan 2005) and then seeks to reconstruct the assumed contours of history. The introduction provides the context necessary to appreciate the diverse essays in the book. It starts with an overview of the existing state of women’s legal history, tracing the core events over the past two …

Elizabeth Cady Stanton And The Notion Of A Legal Class Of Gender, Tracy A. Thomas

Tracy A. Thomas

In the mid-nineteenth century, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used narratives of women and their involvement with the law of domestic relations to collectivize women. This recognition of a gender class was the first step towards women’s transformation of the law. Stanton’s stories of working-class women, immigrants, Mormon polygamist wives, and privileged white women revealed common realities among women in an effort to form a collective conscious. The parable-like stories were designed to inspire a collective consciousness among women, one capable of arousing them to social and political action. For to Stanton’s consternation, women showed a lack of appreciation of their own …

The Oberlin Fugitive Slave Rescue: A Victory For The Higher Law, Steven Lubet

Faculty Working Papers

This article tells the story of the Oberlin fugitive slave rescue and the ensuing prosecutions in federal court. The trial of rescuer Charles Langston marked one of the first times that adherence to "higher law" was explicitly raised as a legal defense in an American courtroom. The article is adapted from my book -- Fugitive Justice: Runaways, Rescuers, and Slavery on Trial -- which tells this story (and several others) in much more detail.

In the fall of 1859, John Price was a fugitive slave living in the abolitionist community of Oberlin, Ohio. He was lured out of town and …

Thurgood Marshall: The Writer, Anna Hemingway, Starla J. Williams, Jennifer Lear, Ann Fruth

Starla J. Williams

This article profiles Thurgood Marshall as a writer in his roles as an advocate and social activist, a legal scholar and a Supreme Court Justice. It examines the techniques that he used as a writer to inform and persuade his audiences in his life-long endeavor to achieve equality for everyone. This examination of Marshall’s legal, scholarly, and judicial writings can help lawyers, academics, and students increase their knowledge of how the written word profoundly impacts society. The article first studies his arguments and legal strategy in two early civil rights cases, University of Maryland v. Murray and Smith v. Allwright. …

Thurgood Marshall: The Writer, Anna Hemingway, Starla J. Williams, Jennifer Lear, Ann Fruth

Jennifer M. Lear

This article profiles Thurgood Marshall as a writer in his roles as an advocate and social activist, a legal scholar and a Supreme Court Justice. It examines the techniques that he used as a writer to inform and persuade his audiences in his life-long endeavor to achieve equality for everyone. This examination of Marshall’s legal, scholarly, and judicial writings can help lawyers, academics, and students increase their knowledge of how the written word profoundly impacts society.

The article first studies his arguments and legal strategy in two early civil rights cases, University of Maryland v. Murray and Smith v. Allwright. …

Thurgood Marshall: The Writer, Anna Hemingway, Starla J. Williams, Jennifer Lear, Ann Fruth

Ann E. Fruth

This article profiles Thurgood Marshall as a writer in his roles as an advocate and social activist, a legal scholar and a Supreme Court Justice. It examines the techniques that he used as a writer to inform and persuade his audiences in his life-long endeavor to achieve equality for everyone. This examination of Marshall’s legal, scholarly, and judicial writings can help lawyers, academics, and students increase their knowledge of how the written word profoundly impacts society. The article first studies his arguments and legal strategy in two early civil rights cases, University of Maryland v. Murray and Smith v. Allwright. …

Adoption Of English Law In Maryland, Garrett Power

Legal History Publications

It served as an axiom of Maryland’s constitutional history that settlers carried with them the “rights of Englishmen” when they crossed the Atlantic. In 1642 the Assembly of Maryland Freemen declared Maryland’s provincial judges were to follows the law of England. Maryland’s 1776 Declaration of Independence left a legal lacuna--- what were to be the laws and public institutions of this newly created sovereign entity? This paper considers the manner in which the sovereign state of Maryland filled the void.

"Displaced By A Force To Which They Yielded And Could Not Resist": A Historical And Legal Analysis Of Mayor And City Counsel Of Baltimore V. Charles Howard Et. Al, Matthew Kent

Legal History Publications

The experience of the Baltimore Police Commissioners is instructive in understanding the state of affairs in Baltimore during the Civil War era. The removal of the commissioners by the Union Army and the subsequent civil trial, The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Charles Howard, provides a window through which one may examine the historical, legal and political circumstances of the time. The legal status of the commissioners also sheds light on modern legal doctrine related to the detention of American citizens as “enemy combatants” without the benefit of certain constitutional guarantees. By analyzing the Howard case with a …

Creating The Public Forum, Samantha Barbas

Journal Articles

The public forum doctrine protects a right of access - “First Amendment easements” - to streets and parks and other traditional places for public expression. It is well known that the doctrine was articulated by the Supreme Court in a series of cases in the 1930s and 1940s. Lesser known are the historical circumstances that surrounded its creation. Critics believed that in a modern world where the mass media dominated public discourse - where the soap box orator and pamphleteer had been replaced by the radio and mass circulation newspaper - mass communications had undermined the possibility of widespread participation …

Law "In" And "As" History: The Common Law In The American Polity, 1790-1900, Kunal Parker

Articles

No abstract provided.