Special Collections
The purpose of the Special Collections department is to provide access to rare materials in legal history. Items are assigned to this controlled area because of their age, special research value, rarity, and/or fragility. Included in the collections are books printed before 1850, manuscripts, archival records and publications, faculty writing, and photographs. Though the department's primary aim is to meet the research needs of the Law School faculty, administrators, and students, members of the university community and the scholarly community at large are also welcome. Scholars from outside the Charlottesville area are encouraged to call ahead to make arrangements for a research visit to Special Collections.
Location, Hours, Staff
Special Collections, located at the top of the library stairs on the third floor, is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. weekdays, or at other times by special arrangement with the staff. Please contact them for further information or requests for assistance.
Alison White
Special Collections Librarian
e-mail: maw9b@virginia.edu
Cecilia Brown, Archives Assistant
e-mail: cb6s@virginia.edu
Fax: 434.982.2232
- mailing address:
- University of Virginia Law Library
580 Massie Road
Charlottesville VA 22903-1738
Rare Books
The core of this collection is a large portion of the law titles Thomas Jefferson chose for the University's library when it opened in 1825. Those works were almost entirely British reports and treatises.
 The British collection has grown to include a small number of yearbooks; at least one edition of the most significant nominative reporters; a number of digests, dictionaries, and abridgments; a small number of statutes; and a substantial representation of the major legal treatises. There are first or early editions of the leading scholars of English common law including Glanville, Bracton, Coke, and Blackstone. The collection also includes pre-1865 treatises in early American law, ranging from the major works of such scholars as Kent and Story to regional form books and justice-of-the-peace manuals. There is a growing collection of colonial laws, as well as selected statutory material before 1850 for Northern states, before reconstruction for Southern states, and through the territorial period for Western states. Another important focus is admiralty law, law of the sea, and other maritime topics, primarily but not exclusively American and English. These works are rich in material for scholars of economic, naval, and political, as well as legal, history. | |
Rare Books Location
Since the rare book stacks are not open, researchers are strongly encouraged to browse the VIRGO online catalog where rare books are identified by LOCATION “LAW3-SPCOL.” Since these books do not circulate, they must be read in the rare book room. Upon request the staff will copy small numbers of pages of books that are not fragile.
Manuscripts
The department has served for the last twenty years as a repository primarily for the law-related professional papers of our own faculty and alumni, but occasionally accepts collections from other sources if their subjects tie in with existing holdings. There are over 80 collections and single items, such as attorneys’ record books.
In 2000 the department acquired the papers of the Dalkon Shield Claimants Trust. This large collection thoroughly documents the history of the production and marketing of the intrauterine contraceptive device since it includes all the document production for lawsuits against A.H. Robins Co., the manufacturer which sold the device. In addition the collection documents the work of the trust which, between 1989 and 2000, settled over 200,000 claims stemming from Shield injuries.
Special Collections also houses records of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, both an extensive collection of the official documents of the conference and personal files of some of the negotiators.
Manuscripts Finding Aids
Major collections are recorded in VIRGO, the library's online catalog, where they may be identified by a call number beginning with the letters MSS. All collections have finding aids available in the special collections department. See the list below for finding aids which are available via the web.
| Collection Name |
|
| |
| ACLU of Virginia | Administrative, project, and case files |
| Alford, Jr., Professor Neill A. | Professional papers |
| Bonnie, Professor Richard | Papers re insanity defense; capital punishment; Soviet psychiatric abuse; legality of marijuana |
| Buck, Gordon M. | Law practice files |
| Butzner, Judge John D. | Professional papers |
| Cohen, Professor Edwin S. | Papers re work at Department of Treasury |
| Collins, Lewis Preston | Law practice files |
| Crapo, William W. | Legal correspondence concerning Alabama Claims cases |
| Dalkon Shield Claimants Trust | History of Dalkon Shield, bankruptcy, and claims settlement |
| Dietz, Professor Park | Papers re pornography and the Meese Commission |
| Dillard, Professor Hardy Cross | Judicial, professional and personal papers |
| Mss 84-8 | Inventory of the Papers of Hardy Cross Dillard, 1925-1981 |
| Mss 84-8a | Addition to the Papers of Hardy Cross Dillard, 1970-1979 |
| Mss 84-8b | Inventory to the Addition to the Papers of Hardy Cross Dillard 1942, 1988 |
| Mss 84-8c | Inventory to the Addition to the Papers of Hardy Cross Dillard 1943-1944 |
| Mss 84-8d | Inventory of the Addition to the Papers of Hardy Cross Dillard 1970-1979 |
| Mss 84-8e | Inventory to the Addition to the Papers of Hardy Cross Dillard 1919-1980 |
| Mss 84-8f | Inventory to the Addition to the Papers of Hardy Cross Dillard 1962 and n.d. |
| Mss 84-8g | Inventory to the Addition to the Papers of Hardy Cross Dillard 1979 |
| Mss 84-8h | Inventory of the Addition to the Papers of Hardy Cross Dillard 1935-1969 |
| Mss 84-8i | Inventory to the Addition to the Papers of Hardy Cross Dillard 1931-1984 |
| Dobie, Professor Armistead | Judicial and professional papers |
| Duke and Duke | Law practice files |
| Mss 79-6 | Inventory of the Papers of Duke and Duke 1854-1956 |
| Mss 79-6a | Inventory of the Addition to the Papers of Duke and Duke 1904-[1942-1948]-1954 |
| Farmer, Professor Frances | Professional and personal papers |
| Fireside, Harvey | Papers re Soviet psychiatric abuse |
| Folk, Professor Ernest L. | Professional papers |
| Frankland, Charles and Thomas | Law practice files (England) |
| Glenn, Professor Garrard | Professional papers |
| Howard, Professor A.E. Dick | Papers re Virginia Constitutional Revision |
| Jones, Harry Leroy | Papers re work at State Department on alien property in WWII |
| Kneedler, Professor H. Lane | Papers re Virginia’s criminal sexual assault legislation |
| Lile, Professor William Minor | Diaries |
| Long, William F. | Law practice files |
| Lillich, Professor Richard | Professional papers re international human rights and the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal |
| Lively, Judge Pierce | Judicial papers |
| McClellan, James B. | Papers Panama Canal Treaty debates |
| McCoid II, Professor John C. | Law school notes |
| McCulloch, Professor Frank W. | Professional papers including work with UAW arbitration, and Virginia migrant workers |
| McFarland, Professor Carl | Professional papers including work on the Administrative Procedure Act |
| McReynolds, Justice James Clark | Personal papers |
| Meador, Professor Daniel Mss 82-3 Mss 82-3a Mss 82-3b Mss 82-3c | Professional papers including work on the establishment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit |
| Minor, Professor John B. | Professional papers |
| Moran, Charles E. | Papers re world peace organizations |
| Moore, Professor John Norton | Professional papers, including the Gulf of Maine case, and work re conflicts in Central America |
| Morgan, Roy L. | Papers re WWII internment of foreign diplomats, and work on the Tokyo war crimes trials |
| Morris, Arthur J. | Personal memorabilia |
| Newman, J. Wilson | Papers re the Bankruptcy Commission |
| O'Connell, Professor Jeffrey | Professional papers |
| Paul, Judge John | Judicial papers |
| Paulsen, Professor Monrad G. | Professional papers |
| Pearce, Clarence B. | Law school letters |
| Prettyman, Jr., E. Barrett | Supreme Court clerkship papers |
| Priest, Professor A.J.G. | Professional papers including work with world peace organizations |
| Revercomb, Judge George H. | Judicial papers |
| Ribble, Professor F. D. G. | Professional papers, including work with the Prince Edward Free School Association |
| Ricks, Judge James Hoge | Papers re the Richmond Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court |
| Ritchie III, Professor John | Professional papers |
| Saltzburg, Professor Stephen | Professional papers |
| Schulman, Arthur I. | Virginia ACLU papers |
| Shah, Saleem A. | Papers re work on mental health and law issues at the National Institute of Mental Health |
| Shugar and Vaisey | Law practice papers (England) |
| Skerritt, James L. | Law cases re alien property in WWII |
| Spies, Professor Emerson G. | Professional papers |
| Taney, Chief Justice Roger B. | Law practice papers |
| Tavenner, Franks S. | Papers re work on the Tokyo war crimes trials |
| Tompkins, Elizabeth | Law school letters and personal memorabilia |
| Warren, Chief Justice Earl | Personal letters |
| Williams, G. Carrington | Papers re work on the Tokyo war crimes trials |
The library serves as the repository for the law school's official administrative records and its publications. (Official student records are retained elsewhere in the University.) Of primary significance are the records of the Dean's Office dating from the 1930s. In addition there are records of associate deans, the admissions office, the library, the alumni association, and the graduate degree program for judges. A number of faculty committees are documented from the 1960s, as well as a number of student organizations' activities. There is a growing collection of nineteenth and early twentieth century student notebooks, exams, and other records of the educational experience. Publications include archival copies of the journals published by student organizations, a complete set of the Law Weekly, The Barrister, Virginia Law School Report, UVa Lawyer, and similar works.
Locating archival records
Contact a member of the special collections staff to learn specifically what archival records are available and open to research. Law school publications are identified by a call number beginning with the letters VL.
Photograph Collection
The Special Collections staff are curators of the law school's substantial collection of photographs. Now numbering over nine hundred images, they have been acquired and preserved for many years, the earliest dating from the 1880s. Particularly rare and valuable, for example, are class photos from the late nineteenth century, and group shots of attendees at the Virginia Bar Association meetings in the early 1900s. Also included are photos of faculty and students, speakers or other visitors of the law school, alumni, and law school rooms and buildings.
Locating photographs
A database has been created for retrieving information about the photographs. Contact a member of the special collections staff for further information.