Telephone = (202) 274-4320

FAX = (202) 274-4365 

 e-mail = nejl@wcl.american.edu 

Main NEJL website=              http:// nejl.wcl.american.edu

National Equal Justice Library

(1) The Historical Archives

The history reflected in these collections goes back to 1876 and some German-American businessmen who created the first legal aid society on these shores, Der Deutsche Rechtsshutz Verein (the German Legal Aid Society), in New York City. From the beginning this history has been full of drama and interesting characters among them Clara Shortridge Foltz (first woman lawyer in California, early feminist and the “Mother of the public defender movement”), Charles Evans Hughes (first chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants on his way to becoming Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) and Sargent Shriver (who as head of the “War on Poverty” prodded the ABA into endorsing federal funding of civil legal services by threatening to put lawyers into "super markets of social services"). 

This history has had its victories and achievements, but almost from the beginning also has been dogged by controversies and occasional defeats. Reginald Heber Smith later became a revered hero of the American bar, but in 1920 many bar leaders attacked him for publishing a book suggesting most poor people did not have access to the legal system. The OEO Legal Services Program faced brutal political attacks for most of the decade it existed (1965—75). Its successor, the Legal Services Corporation, has been threatened with extinction for most of the last two decades and has endured several waves of funding cutbacks and restrictions at the hands of hostile political forces. Because of this opposition and these challenges as much as for the heroes and the achievements, it indeed is a dramatic history the NEJL seeks to capture and preserve in its Historical Archives.

The NEJL has employed two basic strategies to collect materials for its archives – first, casting a wide net to reach every institution and every person who might hold historically relevant materials and second, targeting selected individuals and institutions. We implemented the first strategy through articles and announcements appearing in most of the major publications read by legal aid and defender programs and their staffs, mailings to such programs, and distribution of the NEJL newsletter, = JUSTICE UPDATE, to a wide audience. We have built the second strategy around personal contacts by NEJL Board members with institutions and individuals whom we knew to possess important papers.

In addition to documents, the NEJL Historical Archives include photographs, posters, and memorabilia. The Library also has begun collecting video copies of documentaries and news broadcasts about legal services and public defender programs. Visitors to the NEJL are able to view the documentaries and newscasts on the TV-VCR in the Library’s media center and eventually we plan to place selected clips on the NEJL Website. (Some of the older documentaries and newscasts were taped on outmoded formats and have to be converted to VHS before they will be available in the Media Room.)

The NEJL already has acquired over three hundred boxes of materials. These documents come from institutions like the Legal Services Corporation, the National Legal and Defender Association, the New York Legal Aid Society (which grew out of the German Legal Aid Society), the National Defender Project, and many state and local legal services agencies, public defender offices, and pro bono programs. We also have collected and processed materials from individuals like William McCalpin [prominent corporate lawyer who has been a legal aid leader for 40 years including two terms on the Legal Services Corporation board, the NLADA presidency, chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants (SCLAID), etc.], Clinton Bamberger [first director of OEO Legal Services Program, executive VP of LSC, NLADA president and 30 years in clinical education], John Bradway [from the 1920’s to 1950’s pioneered clinical legal education and was staff head and president of NLADA’s predecessor organization], and dozens of others who were influential at various stages in the history of legal aid and public defense in the U.S.

The materials the NEJL has acquired range from the original minute books of the German Legal Aid Society written in German and dated 1876 to videotapes of congressional debates during the 1990’s that decided the fate of the Legal Services Corporation. A small sampling of the NEJL’s other holdings includes:

• Correspondence from John Bradway’s tenure as executive secretary of the National Association of Legal Aid Organizations during the 1920’s and 30’s.

• Typed notes from interviews conducted in 1968 and 1969 with key figures like Lewis Powell, Edgar Cahn and others about their roles during the mid-1960’s in the creation of the OEO Legal Services Program.

• Clint Bamberger’s correspondence, speeches, etc. from 1965-66 during his tenure as first director of the OEO Legal Services Program.

• Transcripts of most meetings of the National Advisory Committee to the OEO Legal Services Program from 1965 to 1970.

• The lawyers’ full case files, hearing transcripts, and the panel’s decision from the special investigation of California Rural Legal Assistance required by charges then Governor Ronald Reagan lodged against CRLA in 1970.

• The memos and correspondence from 1969 which first suggested the idea of an independent legal services corporation to take over the duties of the OEO Legal Services Program.

• Minutes of most meetings of the Board of the Legal Services Corporation from 1975 to the present, along with photos of early meetings.

• The personal and office files of James J. Doherty, the long-time Chief Public Defender of Cook County, Illinois whose 40 year career as a defender included several appearances in the U.S. Supreme Court, the authorship of two books, and a leadership role in state and national defender activities.

• Speeches, correspondence, and memoranda from former ABA President William Reece Smith, Jr. who was the chief proponent behind the development of organized pro bono programs during the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Additional materials arrive regularly in response to the announcements the NEJL has distributed throughout the legal profession and the personal contacts the NEJL has made with selected individuals and institutions.

 Nonetheless, much work remains to be done. We know we have yet to receive some of the most historically significant materials. Furthermore, while our staff has organized and preserved most of the materials on hand, we are busy creating “finding aids” for these materials and to place those aids on the NEJL Website (see (8) below) and thus make them accessible to users unable to visit the Library. The website already includes several of these finding aids so it is possible to view them and gain some idea of how useful they will be to scholars and other interested library users in the future.