In the fall of 2011, the Boston College Law School Legal History Roundtable started its tenth successful year. The Roundtable draws on Boston College Law School’s and Boston College’s strength and interest in legal history. The Roundtable offers an opportunity for Boston College faculty and faculty from other area institutions, students, and members of the Boston College community to meet and discuss a pre-circulated paper in legal history. Meeting several times each semester, the Roundtable seeks to promote an informal, collegial atmosphere of informed discussion.

For the 2011-2012 academic year, Professor Mary Sarah Bilder, Professor Daniel R. Coquillette, Professor Frank Herrmann and Professor James S. Rogers are conveners.

The Roundtable meets on Wednesday or Thursday afternoons at 4:30 in the Rare Book Room of the Boston College Law School Library. Refreshments are available at beginning at 4:15 pm.

Please contact Erin Murphy if you plan to attend the roundtables. Copies of the papers are available for download and instructions will be sent to you. Parking on the Boston College Law School campus requires a visitor's permit. Please let Erin Murphy know in advance by calling the administrative assistants' office at (617) 552-4125 or emailing erin.murphy.13@bc.edu. 

Fall 2011

Thursday, September 15, 4:30p.m., Gasson 100

Jack Rakove, William Robertson Co Professor of History and American Studies, Stanford Law School

Constitution Day Lecture: Beyond Belief: The Radical Significance of the Free Existence of Religion.
Co-sponsored by the Clough Center and the Departments of History and Political Science

Thursday, October 27, 4:30 p.m., Gasson 100

Book Panel on Gerard Magliocca's book "The Tragedy of William Jennings Bryan: Constitutional Law and the Politics of Backlash" (Yale 2011)

Featuring Gerard N. Magliocca, Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law—Indianapolis; Michael Kazin, Professor of History, Georgetown University; Kenneth Kersch,Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Clough Center for Constitutional Democracy, Boston College; M. Elizabeth Sanders, Professor of Government, Cornell University. Co-sponsored by the Clough Center.

Tuesday, November 15, 4:30 p.m., Gasson 100

Hon. Margaret H. Marshall

"To no one deny or delay right or justice"- Magna Carta 1215, Imperfect constitutions, imperfect courts and the ideal of justice
Co-sponsored with the McMullen Museum, the Department of History, and the Clough Center

Wednesday, November 16, 4:30, Law School Library Rare Book Room

Aniceto Masferrer, Professor of Legal History, University of Valencia and President, the Society for Comparative Legal History' (ESCLH) (website)
Download: "The Principle of Legality and codification in the 19th-century Western Criminal Law Reform"

Spring 2012

Thursday, January 26, 2012
Kristen Stilt, Northwestern University Law School:
"Islam as Citizenship and Loyalty: The Making of the Malaysian Constitution"

Wednesday February 15, 2012
Abigail Chandler, University of Massachusetts-Lowell
"I Charged Her to Speak the Truth": The Legal Role of the Colonial Midwife"

**Please note:
The Wednesday, April 11, 2012 discussion with Michael Hoeflich, University of Kansas Law School, "Lawyers and the Visual Arts, 1780-1870," has been canceled. We are hoping to reschedule this talk for next year's Roundtable.

Previous presenters include:

Hendrick Hartog, Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor of the History of American Law and Liberty of Princeton University
Jedidiah Kroncke, Raoul Berger-Mark DeWolfe Howe Fellow, Harvard Law School
Intisar Rabb, Professor, Boston College Law School
Professor Kif Augustine-Adams, J. Reuben Clark Law School, BYU
Professor Bernard Bailyn, Harvard University
Karen Beck, Curator of Rare Books, Boston College Law School
Professor Warren Billings, Distinguished Professor of History, Emeritus, University of New Orleans History Department
Professor Barbara Black, Columbia Law School
Professor Susanna Blumenthal, University of Michigan Law School
Professor Emeritus Morris Cohen, Yale University Law School
Professor Kristin Collins, Boston University Law School
Professor Cornelia Dayton, University of Connecticut History Department
Professor Christine Desan, Harvard Law School
Professor Charles Donahue, Harvard Law School
Professor Mary Dudziak, Judge Edward J. and Ruey L. Guirado Professor of Law, History and Political Science, University of Southern California
Professor William B. Gould IV, Stanford University Law School
Professor Ariela Gross, University of Southern California Law School
Professor Paul Halliday, University of Virginia History Department
Professor Richard Helmholz, University of Chicago Law School
Professor Francis R. Herrmann, S.J., Boston College Law School
Professor Marilynn Johnson, Boston College History Department
Professor Bernie D. Jones, Suffolk University Law School
Professor Carolyn Jones, University of Iowa Law School
Professor Laura Kalman, University of California, Santa Barbara
Professor Linda Kerber, University of Iowa History Department
Professor Ken Kersch, Director of the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy, Boston College
Professor Marjorie Kornhauser, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University
Professor Pnina Lahav, Boston University School of Law
Professor Kenneth Mack, Harvard Law School
Professor Joyce Malcolm, Bentley College History Department
Professor Ray Madoff, Professor of Law, Boston College Law School
Dr. Maeva Marcus, Editor of the Documentary History of the Supreme Court
Professor Jennifer Mnookin, University of Virginia Law School
Professor William Nancarrow, Curry College History Department (former Ph.D. candidate at Boston College)
Professor James Oldham, Georgetown University Law Center
Professor Ileana Porras, Visiting Professor at Boston College Law School
Professor James Rogers, Boston College Law School
Professor David Seipp, Boston University Law School
Professor Jed Shugerman, Harvard Law School
Mr. Anthony Taussig, London
Dean William Treanor, Fordham University Law School
Professor Russell Versteeg, New England School of Law
Dr. Michael von der Linn, Antiquarian Book Department, Law Book Exchange
Professor Robert Williams, University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law
Professor Michael Wilrich, Brandeis University History Department