Maurice and Muriel Fulton Lectureship

The Maurice and Muriel Fulton Lectureship in Legal History was created in 1985 through a gift made by Mr. Fulton, a member of the class of 1942, and his wife Muriel, an alumna of the college. The Fulton Lecture presents a prominent legal historian to speak at the Law School.

In the 1970s and 1980s, a series of legal history lectures were delivered at the Law School in memory of Professor William W. Crosskey. View the Crosskey archives.

The Fulton lectures

  • Charles Donahue, Jr., "The Monastic Judge: Social Practice and Formal Rule in Medieval Marriage" (November 19, 1987 inaugural lecture).
  • Harold Hyman, "States' Wrongs, Individuals' Rights and the Nation's Duty: Our First Civil Rights Act" (January 12, 1989).
  • G. Edward White, "Judge Holmes' Life Plan: Confronting Passion, Ambition and Powerlessness" (October 19, 1990).
  • William Twining, "Karl Llewellyn's Unfinished Agenda" (May 14, 1993).
  • Brian Tierney, "Natural Rights: Before and After Columbus" (November 17, 1994).
  • Herbert Hovenkamp, "Law and Morals in Classical Legal Thought" (May 15, 1996).
  • Harold J. Berman, "Interaction of Spiritual and Secular Law: The Sixteenth-Century and Today" (May 6, 1997).
  • Morton Horwitz (May 5, 1998).
  • John Langbein, "The Origins of Defensive Safeguard in Anglo-American Criminal Procedure" (May 5, 1999).
  • Jack Rakove, "A Tale of Two Confederations: the Iroquois, the Americans and the Origins of a Constitutional Dilemma" (May 17, 2000).
  • Richard Helmholz, "Fundamental Human Rights in Medieval Law" (May 2, 2001).
  • Michael Stolleis, "Hesitating to Look in the Mirror: German jurisprudence after 1933 and after 1945" (November 9, 2001).
  • Franklin Zimring, "The American Jury Project and the Chicago Law School" (May 1, 2003).
  • A.W.B. Simpson, "The European Convention on Human Rights: Taking Stock after Half a Century" (May 6, 2004).
  • Avner Greif, "Rules of Law and Economic Realities: an Historical Reconsideration" (May 12, 2005).  
  • Richard Painter, "Ethics and Corruption in Business and Government:  Interdependence and Adverse Consequences" (May 11, 2006).
  • Christine Desan, "From the Mercantilist World to Market-Based Liberalism: Money as a Constitutional Medium" (May 10, 2007).
  • Gerhard Casper, "Forswearing Allegiance" (May 1, 2008). 
  • James Q. Whitman, "The Verdict of Battle" (May 7, 2009)
  • Sarah Barringer Gordon, "The Spirit of the Law: Separation of Church and State from 1945-1990" (May 13, 2010)
  • Hendrik Hartog, "Quantum Meruit and Old Age Care in American Family Life" (May 5, 2011)
  • James Oldham, “The Popular Press and the Law in Pre-Industrial England” (May 2, 2012)
  • David Armitage, "Civil War: A Genealogy" (May 9, 2013)
  • Tomiko Brown-Nagin, “The Honor and Burden of Being First: Judge Constance Baker Motley at the Bar and on the Bench” (May 8, 2014)
  • David Lieberman, “Courts, Democracy and Jeremy Bentham” (May 7, 2015)
  • John Fabian Witt, “Weapons of Truth: Money, Propaganda, and Civil Liberties in World War I America” (April 19, 2016)