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Law Libraries And Laboratories: The Legacies Of Langdell And His Metaphor, Richard A. Danner
Law Libraries And Laboratories: The Legacies Of Langdell And His Metaphor, Richard A. Danner
Faculty Scholarship
Law Librarians and others have often referred to Harvard Law School Dean C.C. Langdell’s statements that the law library is the lawyer’s laboratory. Professor Danner examines the context of what Langdell through his other writings, the educational environment at Harvard in the late nineteenth century, and the changing perceptions of university libraries generally. He then considers how the “laboratory metaphor” has been applied by librarians and legal scholars during the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. The article closes with thoughts on Langdell’s legacy for law librarians and the usefulness of the laboratory metaphor.
More Than Decisions: Reviews Of American Law Reports In The Pre-West Era, Richard A. Danner
More Than Decisions: Reviews Of American Law Reports In The Pre-West Era, Richard A. Danner
Faculty Scholarship
In the early nineteenth century, both general literary periodicals and the first American legal journals often featured reviews of new volumes of U.S. Supreme Court and state court opinions, suggesting their importance not only to lawyers seeking the latest cases, but to members of the public. The reviews contributed to public discourse through comments on issues raised in the cases and the quality of the reporting, and were valued as forums for commentary on the law and its role in American society, particularly during debates on codification and the future of the common law in the 1820s. James Kent saw …