Monday, February 20, 2012

O'Connor and Bilder on a Digital Catalogue of Appeals to Privy Council from the American Colonies

Sharon Hamby O'Connor and Mary Sarah Bilder, Boston College Law School, have posted, Appeals to the Privy Council Before American Independence: An Annotated Digital Catalogue, which is forthcoming in Law Library Journal 104 (2012).  Here is the abstract:
Between the later seventeenth century and American independence, appeals from colonial high courts were taken to the Privy Council in England. These appeals are the precursors of today's appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. Their legal and policy issues can be reconstructed from the outcome of the appeals, the briefs of crown law officers, related Privy Council documents, and handwritten notations on these materials. This article describes Appeals to the Privy Council Before American Independence, an annotated digital catalogue of appeals from the thirteen colonies with links and digital images providing access to this material, now compiled from a variety of repositories.