This is the second in my series of occasional explorations of the concept of "legal history". . . .
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In my work as Chair of the Legal History Discussion Group of the Dallas Bar Association (the subject of a prior posting), I have consistently used the rubric "the history of law, lawyers, and courts" to describe the ambit of presentations by the Group to the lawyers of Dallas. One of the allures of these presentations for lawyers is the award of "continuing legal education" credit for attendance; and it helps me to obtain CLE accreditation to explain in the application how the presenter's topic embraces at least one of those elements, law, lawyers, or courts. "Law, lawyers, and courts" is a theme that practicing lawyers readily apprehend.
But I always add to the formula, "law, lawyers, and courts," an enlarging phrase, "broadly construed." And if one peruses the list of our Group's more than three score presentations over the past dozen years, a very broad ambit of topics can be seen, ranging from the most recent one, "Law and Literatures for Practicing Lawyers," to law in the music of Johnny Cash, to “Who Were the Traitors? The Legal Perspective of Operation Valkyrie,” to “Borders Wars: Texas’ Fight for Water,” to "Eight Lessons from Nino [Scalia]."
One of the prominent legal historians of our nation today is Ariela Gross, the John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History at the University of Southern California. In an article several years ago, she wrote that "law" in historical analysis is "no longer as clear-cut a category as it once was; in addition to the formal law of statute books and common law appellate opinions, we now understand 'law' to encompass a broad set of institutions, discourses, and processes produced by a larger cast of characters than solely jurists, legislators, and appellate judges."[1]
Accordingly, legal history is not at all limited to history as found in law books--it is not solely "law, lawyers, and courts"--but rather this field of study extends to all "institutions, discourses, and processes" and considers a much fuller set of actors than solely "jurists, legislators, and appellate judges," as Ariela Gross explained.
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[1] Ariela J. Gross, Race, Law, and Comparative History, 29 Law & Hist. Rev. 549-50 (2011).