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Category: Federal Judiciary

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Watch a Recording of Our 2022 Constitution Day Event

Posted by: Kelly Goles

On September 14, we held our annual Constitution Day event. This year’s event featured Harvard Law School William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law emeritus Mark Tushnet in an interview with University of Virginia School of Law Dean Risa Goluboff. Professor Tushnet and Dean Goluboff discussed Professor Tushnet’s book on the Hughes-era United States Supreme Court, The Hughes Court: …

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The Federal Paper Chase: A New Library Guide for the Federal Courts

Posted by: Kelly Goles

The following is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian of the modern United States focusing on domestic policy and law in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress. Ryan previously contributed three other posts to In Custodia Legis - Federal Courts, Judge Gerhard Gesell, and the Security State, Simon Sobeloff and Jewish Baltimore, …

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The Size of the United States Supreme Court

Posted by: Jim Martin

On this day in 1837, President Andrew Jackson, in one of his last official acts, signed legislation to expand the size of the Supreme Court of the United States by adding two associate justice positions, increasing its size to a Chief Justice and eight associate justices. The same legislation also increased the number of federal judicial …

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2020 Supreme Court Fellows Program Annual Lecture to Feature U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch

Posted by: Donna Sokol

We hope you can join us for the 2020 Supreme Court Fellows Program Annual Lecture! The Law Library of Congress and the Supreme Court Fellows Program will present a conversation with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch on Thursday, Feb. 20 at 3:30 p.m. in the Library of Congress Coolidge Auditorium in the Thomas …

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Federal Courts, Judge Gerhard Gesell, and the Security State

Posted by: Robert Brammer

This following is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian of the modern United States focusing on domestic policy and law in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress. Ryan previously contributed two other posts to In Custodia Legis - Simon Sobeloff and Jewish Baltimore and Rights and Resistance: Civil Liberties during World War …

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Justice Kennedy Retires from Supreme Court

Posted by: Jim Martin

The following is a guest post by Elizabeth Osborne, legal reference librarian. On July 31, 2018, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is retiring from the United States Supreme Court at age 82, after over 30 years on the bench. Kennedy was born in Sacramento, California, in 1936, to parents Anthony J., an attorney and lobbyist, and …