The Socio-Legal Studies Association has awarded David Sugarman its 2025 prize for “Outstanding Contribution to the Socio-Legal Community." Professor Sugarman's contribution to “modern socio-legal historical studies” was specially noted. SLSA's informative notice is here. See also the notices of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford and of Lancaster University.
David Sugarman (credit)
- News from the National Constitution Center: President and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Rosen is transitioning to the role of CEO Emeritus.
- YLS’s notice of New Perspectives on the Legal Treatise (Hein), edited by Femi Cadmus and Nicholas Mignanelli, a collection of essays resulting from the Second Yale Legal Information Symposium, entitled “The Legal Treatise: Past, Present, and Future” and held in March 2023. New Perspectives opens with an essay by John Langbein that traces “the decline of legal treatise writing in the American legal academy to the rise of legal realism.”
- UVA Law's notice of Saikrishna Prakash's The Presidential Pardon: The Short Clause with a Long, Troubled History (Harvard University Press) (pub. date 1-20) with a discussion of the book by Professor Prakash.
- On February 23, Michael Klarman, the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School, will deliver the Robert L. Levine Distinguished Lecture at Fordham Law, entitled, “How did we get here?” (Fordham Law).
- Daniel E. Thompson has posted Litigating Originalism in Bruen: A Brief-Level Coding Study of History, Evidence, and Argument Form. "This ["descriptive and provisional"] article offers a pilot, brief-level coding analysis of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Corlett (No. 20-843) at the certiorari stage and the same docket at the merits stage (NYSRPA v. Bruen). Using a transparent scoring rubric, it codes ten briefs on four dimensions: Originalist Evidentiary Strength (0–4), Historical-to-Doctrinal Rigor (0–4), Rhetorical Force (0–3), and Consequentialist Overlay (0–3)."
- From Bunk: "Best History Writing of 2025."
- Recently published: The Old Alcalde: Life and Times of a Texas Fire-Eater, Oran Milo Roberts, by John A. Adams, Jr. Roberts was, in addition to much else, Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court and the president of Texas's Secession Convention in 1861 (Ricochet).
- Jack Goldsmith on Edward Levi's Department of Justice (Executive Functions).
- ICYMI: Ilan Wurman on birthright citizenship (Compact). Stephen Halbrook on "history and tradition" and the Second Amendment in Joel Alicea's amicus brief in the Hawaii "no carry case" (Volokh Conspiracy). A terrifically interesting HLR case comment, bridging Roman Law, Norman Rockwell and FDR's White House, on Elam v. Early (4th Cir. 2025).
Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers.
