Courses 2026 - 2027

LAW A 564 American Legal History Seminar

This seminar provides an overview of American legal history and law practice from colonial times to the modern era. Readings cover the courts and legal practice in the colonial period and the early republic, the reception of Common Law and the rise of judicial review, statutory and judicial treatment of slavery, changing perceptions of property, the codification movement, the late-19th century change in legal thought and education, legal realism and the regulatory state, the mid-20th century rights revolution, and the more recent conservative reaction. The premise of this seminar is that students will learn legal history by doing American legal history. Each student will write a paper based on original historical source materials, choosing the historical question to be addressed, identifying and exploring archival or other accessible source material that will shed light on the question, and composing a contribution to legal and historical scholarship. The seminar will be limited to 12 upper-level J.D. students and graduate students, and may satisfy the advanced writing requirement.