January 31: How to use historical materials in contemporary legal practice, advocacy and scholarship; historical sources of American law; research approaches to the English law background of American law
February 7: Overview of bibliographic sources (general and legal), including RLIN, OCLC, ESTC, EAI, periodical indices, historical abstracts, etc.
February 14: Finding and using early case law (from Colonial period to 1880); examining some historic cases
February 21: Finding and using early statutory law and legislative history; changing modes of statutory interpretation
February 28: Historical sources for constitutional interpretation; changing modes of interpretation
March 7: The role of the individual actor in legal history - biographical materials; manuscript collections and personal papers
March 14:Utility of federal government documents in legal scholarship and argument
[Spring recess begins March 16]
March 28: Researching crimes, punishments, and the literature of criminal law ; the many uses of trial accounts
April 4: Historical research in the meaning of legal language; using dictionaries in legal argument (which, why and how); research uses of legal ephemera
April 11: How to find relevant court records (federal and state) and why are they useful
April 18: Practice materials (court rules, legal forms, legal manuals); secondary sources and reconstructing the legal and public context (treatises, periodicals, newspapers, law lectures and student texts)
April 25: Early American sources of international law and relations
May 2: Civil law; Coordinating historical research; Student presentations
February 7: Overview of bibliographic sources (general and legal), including RLIN, OCLC, ESTC, EAI, periodical indices, historical abstracts, etc.
February 14: Finding and using early case law (from Colonial period to 1880); examining some historic cases
February 21: Finding and using early statutory law and legislative history; changing modes of statutory interpretation
February 28: Historical sources for constitutional interpretation; changing modes of interpretation
March 7: The role of the individual actor in legal history - biographical materials; manuscript collections and personal papers
March 14:Utility of federal government documents in legal scholarship and argument
[Spring recess begins March 16]
March 28: Researching crimes, punishments, and the literature of criminal law ; the many uses of trial accounts
April 4: Historical research in the meaning of legal language; using dictionaries in legal argument (which, why and how); research uses of legal ephemera
April 11: How to find relevant court records (federal and state) and why are they useful
April 18: Practice materials (court rules, legal forms, legal manuals); secondary sources and reconstructing the legal and public context (treatises, periodicals, newspapers, law lectures and student texts)
April 25: Early American sources of international law and relations
May 2: Civil law; Coordinating historical research; Student presentations
