You guys. The Legal History Blog @legalhistoryblog.bsky.social has hit 15,000(!) posts! 👏 It's been an honor to help run the blog & to work beside true LHB stalwart Dan Ernst @dbqur.bsky.social. All hail LHB founder & visionary @marydudziak.bsky.social 🙌 #LegalHistory

For anyone with a digital legal history project: please consider nominating it for the ASLH's 2026 Mary L. Dudziak Digital Legal History Prize. Submissions are due June 1, 2026. Full details here: aslh.net/award/mary-l... #legalhistory

Blueskys: the American Society for Legal History has a Digital Legal History Prize! Deadline June 1. I am a little embarrassed to have such a prize named for me since my current work isn't digital. 🙄 But years ago, when blogs were new, I created the Legal History Blog. aslh.net/award/mary-l...

Today the California Supreme Court held that the right to bail is a right to release on “reasonably attainable” conditions—i.e., courts cannot use arbitrary amounts of money to effectuate pretrial detention. www4.courts.ca.gov/opinions/doc...

The first review of my book is out, and at 65 pages it’s trying to out-prolix me! Sincerely grateful to José for the extended, deep engagement with my work. Excited to see the directions he’s taking it. yalelawjournal.org/review/the-c...

Schmidt & Funk on the Supreme Court’s Equity Docket Thomas P. Schmidt (Columbia University - Law School) & Kellen Funk (Columbia University - Law School) have posted The Equity Docket (101 N.Y.U. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2026)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Supreme Court has two sides. On its…

A few months ago I realized my rare and valuable skill—writing code as a historian—was still valuable but no longer rare. Now I'm thinking about what it means when the technical barriers to digital history drop away.

Tom Schmidt isn’t on socials, and I rarely post—not great for coining a term, but we hope you’ll give the Equity Docket a try anyway! A historical way of evaluating what the Supreme Court does with most of its time now: More equity, less shadow, not so interim. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Further support for my reading of “Junkers” is that the public, recorded debates had several references to “Gypsies” accompanying references to the “Chinese,” “Mongolians,” and “Chinamen.” Trumbull is keeping the sequence of disfavored groups but using the more polite terms.

Arrived in sunny New Mexico just in time to catch the #sunspots more or less centered on their way around.

“Even Princeton,” as they say. #NoKings

On a quick glance it would seem to me the only funds that could be readily sequestered to punish bail reform jurisdictions would be the funds that go to militarize the local police. Donald Trump: big fan of defunding the police. Put it in the papers. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Absolutely incredible graphic from 1880 tracing the history of political parties in the United States.

Thank you to @lukenorris.bsky.social @profk.bsky.social and others at U. Richmond Law for hosting the 10th Civ Pro workshop. Lots of great papers there, as usual, but the one thing I will highlight here, because it’s a book, is …

Exciting to see so many colleagues whose work I admire on this list. Congratulations to @marthasjones.bsky.social @kbgraubart.bsky.social @annetteyreed.bsky.social @kellenfunk.bsky.social @jimdowns.bsky.social @francinejharris.bsky.social and many not on here.

Congrats to the new class of Guggenheim Fellows! Thrilled to see @jimdowns.bsky.social, @marthasjones.bsky.social, @kellenfunk.bsky.social and so many more. Apologies in advance for the hazing rituals. www.gf.org/stories/anno...

Blown away by amazing presentations, mostly from early career historians and archivists, at the Archives as Data conference this morning! (before heading over to #aha25 later this afternoon...) iserp.columbia.edu/events/archi...

I mourn the loss of my colleague Henry Paul Monaghan, a giant in federal courts and constitutional law, a phenomenal mentor to more junior scholars, and an institution at Columbia Law School. He will be greatly missed.

There is so much to say about my dear mentor, Henry Monaghan. His work was foundational. His critiques, devastating. His praise, life changing. More to say in an appropriate medium, but for now: I will miss him.

Call for Papers - 14th Annual Junior Federal Courts Workshop - Cornell Law School, 4/25/2025. Junior scholars in fields of federal courts, civil procedure, civil rights litigation, constitutional law are encouraged to apply. Abstracts due 1/15/25. community.lawschool.cornell.edu/junior-facul...

A bit more fun with mapping 18th century London crime, via www.locatinglondon.org

Two new district judge retirement announcements: Judges Lance Africk (EDLA) and Lee Rosenthal (SDTX) will assume senior status later this year.

In the 1890s a discerning buyer could purchase a poster-size facsimile of the bail bond of Jefferson Davis from 1867. Keep in mind when you see “I’m voting for the felon” merchandise thirty years hence.

On Friday a federal district court preliminarily enjoined Georgia's unconstitutional restrictions on charitable bail funds, relying in part on "Bail at the Founding." Cool cool cool. harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13...

Today @rrchnm.bsky.social released Antisemitism, U.S.A., our newest history podcast. www.r2studios.org/show/Antisem... The narrative podcast tells the history of U.S. antisemitism in ten episodes, featuring interviews with dozens of experts on the subject.

Millions of people are incarcerated pre-trial because they can't make cash bail. But where did the system of cash bail come from? @kellenfunk.bsky.social and Sandra Mayson offer a history of "Bail at the Founding" in the Harvard Law Review. harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13...

Now out from me and Sandy Mayson in the Harvard Law Review: Bail at the Founding, our best efforts to reconstruct the theory and practice of pretrial criminal bail in the 1790s U.S. harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13... (cont’d)

Got asked today to peer review a Very Short Introduction. Will have to keep it in the smuggler’s compartment I guess.

Cool new thing! 🗃 The American Society for Legal History is seeking proposals for a session on Digital Legal History for the 2024 Annual Meeting. Details are here: aslh.confex.com/aslh/2024/cf...

Just like Commissioner Shea had a much less critical take on bail reform when testifying under oath in Albany than he did talking—not under oath—to the press. One need not be directly elected to be a politician, thus earning the wariness and skepticism that comes w that.

What a relief to open an old draft and find the darlings already slain.

Earlier this year I published an interactive scholarly work titled "America's Public Bible: A Commentary." It's a data-driven history about how people read the Bible in the 19th- and 20th-century United States. americaspublicbible.org (Sharing it now since I haven't shared it here before.)

The American Society for Legal History has posted a preliminary draft of the program for the 2023 meeting. Hope to see you in Philadelphia in October! #LegalHistory

A modest giant of Reconstruction history. I’m glad I got to meet him in his daughter’s chambers at the Southern District of Texas. May his memory be a blessing. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/houstonchronicle/name/harold-hyman-obituary?id=52643506

Final order out in Hachette v. Internet Archive. Judge ruled that IA only has to stop sharing the publishers' books that do exist as ebooks. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17211300/hachette-book-group-inc-v-internet-archive/?page=2

Welcome, @kellenfunk.bsky.social, legal historian, digital historian, bail reform activist, etc.