Course Details

Legal History Workshop

The Legal History Workshop is a hands-on course offering the opportunity for students to work with both historical court records in the archives and a modern artificial intelligence model that helps transcribe these documents. We will focus on the early modern English equity courts. These were royal courts of discretionary justice that offered an alternative to the common law courts. Because equity courts used a fully written procedure, their records are rich sources of information about many aspects of life and legal practice of the time. We will study the equity courts and their procedure from the period between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, read case files, and learn to transcribe the script in which the court documents were written. To take the course, students *must* be able to spend 4 days of Spring Break in London working at the National Archives. Airfare and hotel expenses will be paid for by a Law School travel grant. The grade will be based on class participation and a transcription of and paper about a case the student selects in the archives. You can read more about the course and see images of the documents here: bit.ly/3OQ02cc.

Catalog Number: LAWSTUDY 707W

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Course History

Spring 2024
Title: Legal History Workshop
Faculty: Kadens, Emily (courses | profile)
Section: 1     Credits: 3.0
Capacity: 8     Actual: 8