James Q. Whitman is Professor of Comparative Law and Foreign to the Ford Foundation at Yale Law School. His subjects are comparative law, criminal law and the history of law. Full Profile The study of law and history at NYU Law has deep roots. The Legal History Colloquium is the longest-running legal history workshop in the country, and the Samuel I. Golieb Fellowship Program, which produces prominent newcomers, is the oldest legal history fellowship program in the United States. The Faculty of Law`s legal history program is also growing and evolving. NYU is now one of the few law schools that offers the history of law outside the United States. Legal history is not limited to piling up old laws.

Legal historians study not only the evolution of law over time, but also the evolution of the relationship between law and society. Studying the past helps us understand the present and the most pressing legal issues we face today. Study the history of law and legal institutions through a wide range of courses on topics such as American legal history, English legal history, legal history of American slavery, history of the American bail system, constitutional history of the American empire, history of criminal law and justice, legal history of civil liberties, etc. See related courses. The Faculty of Law`s faculty includes an unparalleled selection of legal historians from a variety of perspectives, methods, and areas of expertise. View recent faculty activities and scholarships. Duke`s Department of History has an exceptionally strong cohort of scholars with expertise in the history of legal institutions, legal culture, and the relationship between law and society. Take advantage of the law school`s expert faculty, which has in-depth knowledge of legal history and related fields, and broaden your understanding by taking courses with outstanding history professors at Columbia University.

Professor Reva Siegel is Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Professor Siegel`s writings draw on legal history to examine issues of law and inequality, and to analyze how courts interact with representative governments and popular movements in interpreting the Constitution. Full Profile Legal history is important. Legal history is at the interface between disciplines. Its study enriches our understanding of the past and our own. We ask how the law is evolving. How did the rules that govern our lives develop? How did they resist? How were they changed? The study of legal history also opens our eyes to alternatives.

We see how societies that have operated in the past have adopted solutions that are completely alien to ours. On the one hand, it can lead us to question the logic of our methods – even if we don`t reject them. On the other hand, comparison helps us to understand the meaning of the characteristics of our society and the consequences of their change. The study of law in a historical context makes us aware of who the law serves. Which groups used the law? Which groups has the law failed? Who is right and what areas of society does it reflect? In short, we see how law and society interact. Not only do we offer a strong program of traditional legal history taught by outstanding scholars in the field. We lead our students to see how legal history can help us address and solve today`s most pressing problems. Explore Columbia`s historical collections, including rare legal documents and archival collections held in both the Arthur W.

Diamond Law School`s Arthur W. Diamond Law Library and the university`s libraries. The history of law enriches our understanding of the law, improves our understanding of current problems and allows us to imagine new alternatives. Researchers study how legal ideas, doctrines, and institutions change over time, and examine how they shape and are shaped by social, cultural, political, and economic contexts. Legal historians are guided by figures such as judges and legislators, as well as ordinary people, who express their own ideas about what law is and what it should be. Duke`s libraries, in collaboration with those of other universities in the region, hold impressive print and archival holdings in legal history, with particular strength in the legal history of the southern United States. Our legal history community is also enriched by a large number of scholars residing in other departments and schools at Duke (especially the departments of cultural anthropology and political science and law) or at other universities (NCCU, NCSU, and UNC-Chapel Hill). This expanded group of historians meets several times a semester at the Triangle Legal History Seminar (TLHS), an interdisciplinary faculty doctoral seminar that discusses work-in-progress pre-released by the field and visiting scholars. The themes of the seminar cover all historical eras and all regions of the world. Edward Balleisen also maintains a web portal, Legal History on the Web, which provides links to a variety of online resources on legal history. Whether you`re planning to focus on history, considering studying law, or just want to take a course, we look forward to hearing from you.

Courses on law and slavery, the history of property, the relationship between race and citizenship, and the growth of the state can help us understand how racial injustice developed. They also provide an opportunity to explore competing strategies to challenge injustices. John H. Langbein is Professor Emeritus of Law and Legal History and Professor of Law. He is a leading legal historian and a leading American authority on fiduciary law, probate, annuities and investment. He teaches and writes in the fields of Anglo-American and European legal history, modern comparative law, trust and inheritance law and pension law (ERISA). Duke offers a joint JD/MA degree for law students interested in pursuing a dissertation in history at the same time. We offer graduate seminars in legal history as part of our general doctoral program, and a number of our doctoral students also conduct research in this area. In the past and present, our graduate students have dealt with topics as diverse as the moral and legal significance of violence in the midst of the English Civil War, legal culture in early British India, divorce in Mexico in the eighteenth century, infanticide in the early American Republic, pre-war defamation claims by American slaves, the development of commercial law in the Indian Ocean basin of the nineteenth and early years. Twentieth century. the dynamics of legal activism within the American civil rights movement and agricultural regulation in twentieth-century America. Welcome to the Legal History Program! This page is designed to help you navigate the many ways to study Harvard legal history.

As you will see, our interests span a range of times, places, and problem areas. First, you will find a list of professors and graduate students who are interested in legal history. They should be a resource for mentoring, counseling and guidance. Contact them. Second, we have compiled a list of courses that touch on aspects of legal history. Whether you are interested in the civil rights movement, democracy, or feudalism, you should find something interesting. While many of our courses are taught by the Department of History, you will also be encouraged to consider offerings from HLS and other departments. Finally, take a look at our upcoming events.

We hope you will join us.