The Making of Modern Law:
Explore the full briefs of United States Courts of Appeals cases on topics that are front and center on the American political and social consciousness
United States Courts of Appeals are battlegrounds for some of the most hotly debated issues in American politics and culture. In this 13th installment to The Making of Modern Law, the collection reproduces records and briefs of selected cases filed with the United States Courts of Appeals throughout the twentieth century. Covering over 500 cases, this collection concentrates on key issues that continue to occupy the American social and political landscape, such as reproductive rights, immigration policy, election law, incarceration and the rights of prisoners, environmental policy, voting rights, and the civil rights of women and people of color. Court case briefs not only provide insight into the rules of American life but also aid in the search and analysis of modern social issues in America.
The United States federal court system involves 94 district courts organized into 12 circuits. The U.S. Courts of Appeals act as individual courts within each circuit, reviewing appealed cases therein. Your library can improve your collection with an expansive selection of Courts of Appeals records that dive into modern social issues in America and give students, scholars, and faculty alike a glimpse into the federal government on a national scale. Each U.S. Court of Appeals brief is filed and organized for easily searchable functionality and covers issues in American politics ranging from racial tension to climate change to poverty and everything in between.
Courts of Appeals records simplify and streamline the inner workings of the United States legal system, including the Appellate Court. Recognizing the benefits of a U.S. Court of Appeals brief, these cases are crucial to those attending law school and analyzing case records. Courts of Appeals records like these, and court case briefs in general, provide clarity and insight into the judicial system and allow those who study politics to further comprehend modern American social issues. From each filing, opinion, and argument, court case briefs also allow scholars to skip over assumptions and derive their opinion directly from fact.
This offering complements the 11th and 12th installments of The Making of Modern Law, whose documents were selected via a thorough review of cases cited most frequently in law journal articles. In The Making of Modern Law: Records and Briefs on Key Issues from the United States Court of Appeals, 1891–1980, cases are handpicked based on their critical importance to modern social, cultural, and economic issues that regularly occupy newspaper headlines in today’s heated political climate. Each U.S. Court of Appeals brief aids researchers in navigating issues in American politics. Any law library can be enhanced with this expansive collection of court case briefs.
Unique Content: The collection adds to the corpus of content previously gathered in the previous two installments on the U.S. Courts of Appeals, while filling critical gaps in those collections. The key difference: case selection focuses on how well they represent critical issues in social, cultural, and political history of the United States.
Supports Researchers: Beyond the realm of legal scholarship, appellate briefs easily serve researchers across the humanities and social sciences—from sociology, economics, and political science to literature, philosophy, and religion.
Scholarly Appeal: Legal briefs offer a gold mine of information not only on legal issues but also on social, cultural, and economic matters—catering to scholars in economics, history of public health, immigration studies, law, literature, political science, psychology, religion, and sociology as well as race, ethnic, Indigenous, and women’s studies.
Topical Coverage: This 13th installment offers the “forgotten history” of appellate cases on major issues, which often enforced policies that key rulings of the Supreme Court would eventually overturn—keeping the focus almost exclusively on cases that address high-interest topics.
Additional Details
subjects covered
- African-American Studies
- Environmental Studies
- Gender & Women's Studies
- Health Studies
- Law & Legal Studies
- Political Science
- Psychology
- Religion & Philosophy
- Civil Rights
Support Material