Harvard Law Library

The Harvard Law School Library uniquely owns and manages approximately one million pages of documents relating to the Nuremberg Trials: thirteen trials conducted just after World War II to prosecute leaders of the Nazi regime. To preserve the contents of these documents—which include trial transcripts and full trial exhibits—the library has undertaken a multi-stage digitization project to make the collection freely accessible online.

A room that was meant to offer a respite from the rigors of the Harvard Law School curriculum became a portal to exploring some of the most important issues in American law.

More than 60 Harvard Law students and 27 HLS faculty members took over the typically quiet tables of the library reading room for the first “Notes and Comment” event.

During a Library Book Talk at Harvard Law School, writer Gish Jen discussed her latest book, “The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap,” making the case for the sociological and cultural patterns that influence many aspects of identity.

In a new book, “#Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media,” Harvard Law School’s Cass R. Sunstein argues that social media curation dramatically limits exposure to views and information that don’t align with already-established beliefs, which makes it harder and harder to find an essential component of democracy — common ground.

On Jan. 5 President Barack Obama ’91 announced several key administration posts, including Jonathan Zittrain ’95 as appointee for member of the National Museum and Library Services Board (NMLSB).

In 1949, four years after the Nuremberg war crime trials began, the Harvard Law Library received the most complete set of documents from the Nazi prosecutions outside that of the National Archives; now, a small team is working on analyzing and digitizing the documents--often, a difficult and haunting task--for the HLS Nuremberg Trials Project.

Historically, libraries have been collections — books, multimedia materials and artwork. But increasingly they're about connections, linking digital data in new and different ways, but Harvard Law's Caselaw Access Project is a state-of-the-art example of that shift.

The latest exhibit from the Harvard Law School Library, "What Not to Wear: Fashion and the Law," looks at some of the intersections of fashion and the law, from historic laws setting strict class distinctions for fashion, to modern intellectual property law’s approach to protecting those who design and create fashion.

HLS Professors Tomiko Brown-Nagin and Jonathan Zittrain ’95 have been elected members of the American Law Institute--the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and improve the law.

Dr. Paul Beran will join the Harvard Law School’s Islamic Legal Studies Program as executive director of SHARIAsource—the online platform designed to provide content and context on Islamic law.

In his role at the HLS Library, Matt Seccombe spends much of his day sorting through roughly a million pages of horror, analyzing documents in the HLS Library’s Nuremberg Trials Collection—one of the most extensive collections in the world of documents from the trials of military and political leaders of Nazi Germany and other accused war criminals.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded $425,000 over two years for the development of SHARIAsource—an online Islamic law resource founded and directed by Harvard Law School Professor Intisar Rabb.

Over 300,000 rare books, 3,500 linear feet of manuscripts, and 70,000 visual resources—photographs, prints, paintings, and objects—make up Harvard Law School’s Historical and Special Collections. Here's a look inside one of the world’s most comprehensive archives of research materials for study of the history of law.

According to Professor Charles Donahue, the best-known innovation in legal academia— the case method of legal teaching—may have had an early precursor dating all the way back to the 13th century.

The Henry Luce Foundation recently awarded $400,000 over two years for the development of SHARIAsource, a project designed to be an online portal of resources and analysis on Islamic law and directed by Harvard Law School Professor Intisar A. Rabb.

Many scholars argue that the Magna Carta’s importance through the centuries has been greatly exaggerated. Yet for others, its status as a symbol of freedom and a check on absolute power is undeniable. Elizabeth Papp Kamali ’07, sees merit in both arguments.

800 years later, the ‘great charter’ still fascinates