The Lives of the Law: The Parties Behind the Landmark Supreme Court Cases of the 20th Century

“The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

One of P*LAW’s newest endeavors is our Supreme Court oral history project, documenting the stories of the men and women at the heart of the landmark 20th century Supreme Court precedents that bear their names. With the support of the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society, the Princeton University Humanities Council, and a national advisory panel of leading legal historians and journalists, P*LAW will host former Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Joshua Prager to lead a series of original investigations and interviews with parties and lawyers from historic cases from before the time of the current sitting justices. Engaging current law-interested Princeton students in the practical work of legal, historical, and journalistic research, the project aims to capture the lived experience of these cases in all their human complexity.

In addition to developing a website capable of capturing these archival interviews and the original documents they are already beginning to unearth, P*LAW will host periodic events to launch each new interview. Held in person and virtually, each event will be hosted by distinguished journalists in the field, and will be open to the thousands of Princeton alums involved in law and business. Online, the content we produce will reach the Supreme Court Historical Society’s audience of more than 5,000, and will be featured on one of the most comprehensive current online resources for Supreme Court information, Oyez, a website that in the past year alone received more than 16 million visitors and 46 million page views.

P*LAW welcomes law firm sponsors of this innovative project. Supporter sponsors join at the $10,000 level, with larger sponsorship levels available. Sponsors at all levels will be honored with their name published in our promotional materials and will receive an invitation to post-event dinners with distinguished legal journalist hosts.

To learn more about the project and how you might get involved, email P*LAW Program Manager Minda Alena, [email protected].