"Litchfield Unbound" at YLS

Opening today and running through March 17, 2017 is Litchfield Unbound: Unlocking Legal History through Digitization, an exhibit at the Yale Law School's Lillian Goldman Law Library curated by Jason Eiseman and Caitlyn Lam.

Litchfield Law School was the first law school in the United States. The notebooks of these early law students are among the best primary sources for understanding the influence of English law in this country and provide rich documentation on the study of law in the early American republic.

The Lillian Goldman Law Library, with the Litchfield Historical Society, digitized 142 student notebooks, including one from Seth Staples, who later started a law school in his New Haven law office and purchased and maintained a law library, eventually becoming the modern Yale Law School.  Digitization of the notebooks allows scholars across the globe to access these rare tomes and preserves them for future study.

Update: Check out recent posts on the Yale Law Library's Rare Books Blog, including one on the online version of the exhibit "Representing the Law in the Most Serene Republic: Images of Authority from Renaissance Venice."