Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Oral History at Law Alumni Weekends

In their brilliant skewering of law school histories, Alfred S. Konsefsky and John Henry Schlegel lamented the tendency of authors to ignore the student experience of legal education, when the few glimpses provided in the works they reviewed were so revealing of a significant phase in the making of the American legal profession.  I note with interest the following item in the schedule for the upcoming alumni weekend at the University of Chicago:
12:15–3:00 p.m.     Oral and Photographic History Project
Lend your voice and wisdom to the Law School’s growing archives! The Communications Office will be on-hand to videotape alumni remembrances about life at the Law School and beyond. Photographs from our archives will also be available for your perusal, and we welcome your help with identifying those pictured.
As a sometime historian of legal education and full-time beneficiary of an active alumni relations office, I think this is a terrific idea and wonder if other law schools have tried something similar.