In early 1870, President Charles Eliot of Harvard College invited New York lawyer Christopher Columbus Langdell (HLS 1853) to teach at the Law School; in September of that year he became its first Dean. Over the next decade, Langdell instituted sweeping changes: students would be admitted only if they already possessed an A.B. or had passed a rigorous …
The Origins of Law School Examinations-No Joking Matter Read More »
Former Harvard Law School Librarian Morris L. Cohen, who directed four academic law libraries over a career that spanned more than fifty years, passed away on Saturday, December 18, 2010, at his home in New Haven. Yale Law School Professor Emeritus and Librarian Emeritus at the time of his death, he was eighty-three. Following directorships of the law …
LIFE MAGAZINE LOOKS AT THE HARVARD LAW SCHOOL NOVEMBER 1937LIFE was the leading twentieth-century magazine of photo-journalism, appearing weekly from 1936 until 1972. With its familiar logo displaying the title in white sans-serif type against a red rectangular background, the magazine dominated its market with a circulation that eventually reached 13.5 million copies a week. In 2008 Google …
As a newly minted lawyer in the late nineteenth century, what did you need–and how much did it cost–to set yourself up as a solo practitioner in Boston? The Library has recently acquired a lawyer’s manuscript expense book that provides an answer. W. Frederick Kimball (1851 – 1915) practiced law in Boston from 1878 until the beginning of …
“Do I go to law school at Harvard or at Yale?” If you have this happy dilemma, seek the advice of knowledgeable friends. This was the action taken in 1935 when a young man from Schenectady, New York consulted a hometown friend who had recently graduated from the Harvard Law School. Bill Waldron grew up across the street …
852: RARE – Telford Taylor on Harvard Law School v. Yale Law School Read More »
The Harvard Law School Library is very pleased to announce that the winner of the inaugural Morris L. Cohen Fellowship in American Legal Bibliography and History is Sara Mayeux, a JD—History Ph.D. student at Stanford University. Ms. Mayeux will be conducting research in the Library’s manuscript collections for her project, “A Cultural History of the Criminal Defense Attorney, …
It is not often that the Library has an opportunity to acquire a book or pamphlet about the Harvard Law School that it doesn’t already own. Such an occasion occurred this week when we purchased a pamphlet that not only did we not own but apparently exists only in this copy. The Harvard Manual. Contents: Historical Sketch; Law …
852: RARE – A Students’ Guide to the Harvard Law School, 1877 Read More »