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An Historical Overview of American Law Publishing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2019

Morris L. Cohen
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Extract

Law publishing — that is, the reproduction and dissemination of statutes, judicial decisions, commentaries, legal forms and texts — is as old as writing and can be found in all literate societies. In the ancient world, written law was essential to political and social relations. That can be seen from the importance given to law codes in the Semitic, Greek and Roman societies. Over the centuries and in every medium from stone and clay, papyrus and parchment, to paper and the electronic media of our day — law has been a major component of literature. The very fact of publication is an essential requirement for the enactment and efficacy of laws in many societies. Publication of law was widespread before the invention of printing and was achieved by reproducing important texts in multiple manuscript copies which could then be disseminated to libraries, officials and others who needed them and could afford them. The printing of law depended not only on the invention of the press itself, but also on the acceptance of what more accessible law might mean to society. In England, for example this was a matter of considerable controversy for over a hundred years.

Type
Order from Chaos: Contexts for Global Legal Information IALL 21st Course on International Law Librarianship
Information
International Journal of Legal Information , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , Summer 2003 , pp. 168 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 the International Association of Law Libraries 

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References

Notes

1 This is neatly summarized in Katsh, M. E., The Electronic Media and the Transformation of Law (1989) Ch. 1.Google Scholar

2 See Ross, Richard J., “The Commoning of the Common Law: the Renaissance Debate over Printing English Law, 1520-1640,” 146 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 323-461 (1998).Google Scholar

3 For a classic bibliographic survey of early English legal literature, see Winfield, P. H., The Chief Sources of English legal History (1925).Google Scholar

4 Bolland, W. C., The Year Books (1921).Google Scholar

5 The early period of English nominative reporting is described in Abbott, L. W., Law Reporting in England: 1485-1585 (1973).Google Scholar

6 A short, popular history of English law reporting is C. G. Moran, The Heralds of the Law (1948).Google Scholar

7 For the contents of the libraries of some leading colonial American lawyers, see H. A. Johnson, Imported Eighteenth Century Law Treatises in American Libraries: 7700-7799 (1978).Google Scholar

8 The Book of the General Lowes and Libertyes Concerning the Inhabitants of the Massachusets [sic] … 1647 (Cambridge, 1648). Only one copy of the code has survived, that at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. However, modern facsimile reprint editions have been published with scholarly introductions, as follows: Barnes, T. G., ed. (Huntington Library, 1975) and Farrand, Max, ed. (1929).Google Scholar

9 Some years ago, I surveyed the legal literature of one American colony: Cohen, M. L., “Legal literature in Colonial Massachusetts,” in Law in Colonial Massachusetts: 1630-1800 (1984).Google Scholar

10 For a popularized account of Hofmann's criminal career, see S. Worrall, The Poet and the Murderer, a True Story of Literary Crime and the Art of Forgery (2002). A legitimate, speculative reconstruction of the printing of the Oath was published by the Press of the Wooly Whale, a private press, in The Oath of a Free-Man. With a Historical Study by Lawrence C. Wroth and a Note on the Stephen Days Press by Melbert B. Cary, Jr. (1939).Google Scholar

11 Haskins, G. L., Law and Authority in Colonial Massachusetts (1960).Google Scholar

12 Although the title page of this small volume does not indicate the place or date of its publication, or the name of its printer, it is generally assumed to have been printed in Philadelphia in 1687 by William Bradford, under the direction of William Penn. Although, like the Massachusetts code of 1647, only one copy of this book is known to exist today, a facsimile reprint was published in Philadelphia in 1907.Google Scholar

13 Boston: Printed by Benjamin Harris, 1691; reprinted, Boston, 1772, and Philadelphia, 1798 and 1806.Google Scholar

14 London: Benjamin Harris, 1680; reprinted, Boston, 1721 and Providence, Rhode Island, 1774.Google Scholar

15 Conley, J. A., “Doing it by the Book: Justice of the Peace Manuals and English Law in Eighteenth Century America,” 6 Journal of Legal History 257-298 (1985).Google Scholar

16 This literature is described in Adams, T. R., American Independence: The Growth of an Idea. A Bibliographical Study of the American Political Pamphlets Printed Between 1764 and 1776 … (1965). A related work by the same bibliographer covers the British pamphlets: The American Controversy. A Bibliographical Study of the British Pamphlets about the American Disputes, 1764-1783 (1980).Google Scholar

17 The pamphlets published during the struggle over ratification are reflected in Ford, P. L., Bibliography and Reference List of the History and Literature Relating to the Adoption of the Constitution of the United States 1787-8 (1896).Google Scholar

18 The early government publications are analyzed in Powell, J. H., The Books of a New Nation: United States Publications, 1774-1814 (1957).Google Scholar

19 These developments as well as the earlier history are described in Surrency, E. C., A History of American Law Publishing (1990).Google Scholar

20 Simpson, A. W. B., “The Rise and Fall of the Legal Treatise,” 48 Univ. Of Chicago L. Rev. 632-679 (1981).Google Scholar

21 Sheppard, S., “Casebooks, Commentaries, and Curmudgeons: an Introductory History of Law in the Lecture Hall,” 82 Iowa Law Review 547-644 (1997).Google Scholar

22 Woxland, T. A., “Forever Associated with the Practice of Law,” 5 Legal Ref. Serv. Quarterly 115 (1985); “Symposium of Law Publishers,” 11 Legal Ref. Serv. Quarterly 1-166 (1991).Google Scholar

23 A long and unusual social history of looseleaf services, going back to ancient times, can be found in Senzel, H. T., “Looseleafing the Flow: An Anecdotal History of One Technology for Updating,” 44 American Journal of Legal History 115-197 (2000).Google Scholar

24 That monopoly remained until the development of the large computer systems and Westlaw's introduction of an electronic competitor, Key Cite.Google Scholar

25 For a summary of these early efforts, see West, N., “Law Book Publishing,” 7 Library Trends 181 (1958).Google Scholar

26 In the Matter of American Association of Law Book Publishers, 38 Federal Trade Commission Decisions 319 (1944).Google Scholar

27 40 Federal Register 33436, corrected 40 Federal Register 36116 (1975). Efforts to police malpractices in the law publishing industry were aided by the American Association of Law Libraries’ Committee on Relations with Publishers and Dealers, created in 1963-64. That Committee merged with the A.A.L.L. on Relations with Database Vendors to form the current Committee on Relations with Information Vendors.Google Scholar

28 Harrington, W. G., “A Brief History of Computer-Assisted Legal Research,” 77 Law Library J. 543 (1985).Google Scholar