Legal History

The Lessons of History for the Legal Questions of Today

Legal history is about more than stacking up old statutes. Legal historians study not just how law changes over time, but also the changing relationship between law and society. Studying the past helps us understand the present, and the most pressing, hot-button legal issues we face today.

At the University of Michigan, legal history is taught broadly, not narrowly. We look closely at the history of the United States, but also outward to the rest of the Americas, and to Roman law, the laws of Medieval Europe, and the history of Chinese legal frameworks and institutions. At every step, we draw out what might otherwise be unheard voices, as we trace the actions of those excluded from formal citizenship, held as slaves, trapped within patriarchies, or locked into relations of dependence.

Students of legal history often go on into deeper academic pursuits. They also frequently earn judicial clerkships—the rigorous research, writing, and argumentation that are integral to these courses are skills judges often look for. And if your career path is into private practice, public interest, or government, a strong foundation in the study of legal history will serve you well.

Simpson Lecture and Dawson Pro-Seminar

The University of Michigan Law School and History Department have a biennial Lecture Series in Legal History in honor of the late Brian Simpson, the distinguished historian of English law and institutions and of human rights. The lecture is coordinated with a lunchtime round-table session for graduate students, titled the Dawson Pro-Seminar, after the late John P. Dawson, who taught at the University of Michigan Law School and then at Harvard Law and Boston University. Both events are made possible by the generous support of the Thomas and Ruth Green Legal History Endowment. The biennial series seeks to reinforce longstanding ties between the UM Law School and Department of History by bringing distinguished scholars to campus.

In 2015, Dirk Hartog inaugurated the series with a lecture on “Gibbons v. Ogden, without the Commerce Clause: Of Steamboats, a River, Slaves, a Quarrelsome Family, a Bank, and the Legal Lives of Two Old Men.” In 2017, Annette Gordon-Reed delivered the second lecture titled, “Policing Black Citizenship: From the Founding to Ferguson.” Our third Brian Simpson Lecture was delivered by Risa Goluboff on the subject of “Constitutional Change and Constitutional History” in 2019. Postponed due to the pandemic, Dylan Penningroth most recently contributed our fourth lecture in the series, “Race in Contract Law,” in 2022.

Brian Simpson Memorial Lecture: Race in Contract Law

Professor Dylan Penningroth from the University of California, Berkeley Law delivers the 2022 Simpson Lecture, “Race in Contract Law.”

Constitutional Change and Constitutional History

Professor Risa Golubuff from the University of Virginia School of Law delivers the 2019 Simpson Lecture, “Constitutional Change and Constitutional History.”

Career Paths in Legal History

Michigan Law Honors Dr. Mary Frances Berry, ’70, as 2016 Distinguished Alumna

Faculty

Pamela Brandwein

Professor of Law (courtesy)

Samuel Erman

Professor of Law
Co-director, Program in Race, Law, and History

Richard Friedman, Alene and Allan F. Smith Professor of Law

Richard D. Friedman

Alene and Allan F. Smith Professor of Law

Bruce Frier

John and Teresa D'Arms Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Classics and Roman Law
Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies
Professor Emeritus of Law