Legal archaeology

Analysis of historical legal cases

Legal archaeology is an area of legal scholarship "involving detailed historical reconstruction and analysis of important cases."^[1]

While most legal scholars confine their research to published opinions of court cases, legal archaeologists examine the historical and social context in which a court case was decided.^[2] These facts may show what social and cultural forces were at work in a particular case. Professors can use legal archaeology to "sensitize students as to how inequality, specifically with regard to race, gender and class affects what occurs throughout the cases they study."^[3] A legal archaeologist may also research biographical material on the judges, attorneys, and parties to a court case. Such information may show whether a judge held particular biases in a case, or whether one party had superior legal representation that caused the party to prevail in a case.^[4]

Notable practitioners of legal archaeology

Richard Danzig
Judith Maute
Debora Threedy
Joan Vogel

Notes and references

^ Charles L. Knapp, Nathan M. Crystal, and Harry G. Prince, Problems in Contract Law: Cases and Materials: Fifth Edition, pp. 749-50, Aspen Publishers, 2005
^ Nottingham, Emma (September 2022). "Digging into legal archaeology: a methodology for case study research". Journal of Law and Society. 49 (S1). doi:10.1111/jols.12377. ISSN 0263-323X.
^ Joan Vogel, Cases in Context: Lake Champlain Wars, Gentrification, and Ploof v. Putnam, 45 St. Louis U. L. J. 791, 792.
^ Judith Maute, Response: The Values of Legal Archaeology, 2000 Utah L. Rev. 223.