Objects of the Month
 February 2008 - Law School in a Box - With the motto, "All the prestige for a fraction of the price" a company named Mental Floss in 2006 produced small tin boxes which they jokingly promised were the equivalent of attending law school...
January 2008 - John Boalt Calling Card - This calling card of attorney John H. Boalt is annotated, "Rec'd on a/c one article. M.W. Sheim."...
December 2007 - Dickens Reading Card - In 1886 Berkeley's Longfellow Memorial Association invited its members to gather to hear Capt. Walter Lord read selections from Dickens. The meeting was to be held in North Hall in the office of William Carey Jones, who since 1882 had been teaching law classes at the University...
November 2007 - Witkin on Berkeley - Bernard Witkin's personal copy of Bishop Berkeley's A New Theory of Vision and Other Select Philosophical Writings is heavily annotated with Witkin's manuscript observations and comments. George, Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753) was the Irish philosopher whose poem "Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America" was the inspiration for the naming of the town that would grow around the University of California campus....
October 2007 - Commemorative Bowl - The Alumni Association of the University of California has over the years issued three different sets of commemorative china displaying scenes of campus life, ranging from buildings, professors, benefactors and famous alumni, to traditional events such as the Senior Pilgrimage and the Burial of Bourdon and Minto...
September 2007 - District Attorney Flip Book - Published in 1941, Mr. District Attorney on the Job is based on a long-running radio program and comic book series (see Object of the Month February 2007). It was loosely based on the early career of New York Governor Thomas Dewey, who in 1948 would be the Republican candidate for President (selecting Earl Warren, '14 as his running mate)...
August 2007 - United Nations Flag - This flag was brought from Geneva, Switzerland by Dean Frank Newman (1917-1996) and donated to the Law Library. Beginning in 1967, Dean Newman and his "Berkeley crew" of students, academics and young lawyers traveled frequently to Geneva and to New York to attend the meetings of the United Nations...
April 2007 - Attorney General Edwin Meese Pen - Edwin Meese III, '58, served in a number of capacities under Governor, and then President Ronald Reagan. He was chief of staff to Governor Reagan from 1969 through 1974, and served as Attorney General under President Reagan from 1985 to 1988. ...
March 2007 - Herman Phleger Scrapbook - The Archives recently received a donation of a scrapbook compiled by Herman Phleger, founding partner of the San Francisco law firm of Brobeck Phleger & Harrison...
February 2007 - Lawyers as Superheroes - While attorneys remain a popular staple of television dramas, it is difficult to imagine small children handing over their hard-earned dimes to buy a comic book with a lawyer as the hero. Such was not the case in the 1940s, when the Mr. District Attorney comics began to appear...
January 2007 - Melvin Belli at 33 1/3 - In the late 1950s, trial lawyer Melvin Belli, '33, issued this three-volume set of long-playing records demonstrating the best of modern trial techniques...
December 2006 - Law School Embosser - This small (two inches in diameter) brass disk was designed to be used in a paper embosser. The intaglio inscription reads along the perimeter...
November 2006 - Advertising Letter Opener - Back in the days before attorneys were permitted to advertise on television, way back in the days when people still sent and received actual letters in paper envelopes, clever attorneys made sure that information about their services was always at the fingertips of potential clients...
October 2006 - Bookplate Printing Block - The story behind this printing block is uncertain. It was obtained from a Canadian dealer, and was probably created in the first half of the 20th century. It depicts the figure of Lady Justice, blind-folded and carrying a sword and a set of scales...
September 2006 - McCutchen Magnifying Glass - The San Francisco firm of McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen (now Bingham McCutchen) at one time distributed these very classy silver-plated cases engraved with the name of the firm...
May 2006 - Twelvetrees Postcard - This postcard by illustrator Charles H. Twelvetrees was mailed in 1921, but the image may be from an earlier date. Charles H. and Charles R. Twelvetrees, father and son, were New York artists...
April 2006 - Sounds of Boalt CD - The student organizations boalt.org and the Creative Law Society have produced two compact disks of music, The Sounds of Boalt and The Return of the Sounds of Boalt...
March 2006 - Cali. Flaw Review - In the mid-1960s a satiric law journal appeared at Boalt Hall under the name Cali. Flaw Review. Closely modeled on the California Law Review (though only a dozen pages in length), the new review sported a title page promising articles on a wide range of social issues...
February 2006 - Law Association Embosser - This paper embosser is not marked with a manufacture date, but is probably from the period 1911-1930. Made of heavy cast iron and painted black and gold, it was used to emboss an ownership stamp, most probably on the page of a book. The emboss reads, "University of California Law School Association," and includes an image of the original Boalt Hall...
January 2006 - Ehrenzweig Seal - On the 12th of May, 1965 Boalt Professor Albert Armin Ehrenzweig (1906-1974) was elected honorary senator of the Faculty of Law of the University of Vienna. The impressive parchment document proclaiming the appointment, ...
December 2005 - Warren Christmas Card - At a time when California's governors were less sensitive to cultural diversity issues, Earl Warren, '14, sent this Christmas card to his supporters. It shows the governor and his wife as Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus and their younger family members as toys on the mantelpiece...
November 2005 - Cal Tobacco Insert - This leather card is from a series on universities and colleges, and features a scene of the Berkeley campus. Sather Gate appears prominently, and through the gate can be seen a number of buildings, including the original Boalt Hall...
October 2005 - Boalt Hall Scrapbooks - The collection includes three large-format scrapbooks with newspaper clippings on the history of the Law School. The provenance of the scrapbooks is uncertain, but they have been associated with Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong...
September 2005 - Sterling Spoon with Old Boalt Hall - This sterling silver commemorative spoon shows the Greek Theatre in high relief in the spoon's bowl, and a scene of the campus on its handle...
August 2005 - Warren Ingot - In celebration of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the United States, the Franklin Mint issued a set of 100 small (1 ½" x 2 ¼") pewter ingots depicting landmark events in American history...
May 2005 - Chevy Chase, Commencement Speaker - Comedian Chevy Chase appears pleased to have been invited as a speaker for the 1978 commencement exercises held in the Darling Courtyard...
April 2005 - Boalt Portrait - John Henry Boalt (1837-1901) was a student at Amherst College in Massachusetts when this graduation portrait was drawn. He went on to study mining and mineralogy in Germany, then formed a partnership in an assaying business in Austin, Nevada, where he "read the law" and became a member of the Nevada Bar. He briefly served as judge of the 6th Judicial District, but in 1871 moved to California and opened a law practice in San Francisco...
March 2005 - America's First Law School - With his brother-in-law, Aaron Burr, as his first student, Tapping Reeve in 1774 began teaching law in the small village of Litchfield, Connecticut. In 1784 he opened a formal law school, the first in the United States. By the time his school closed in 1833, Reeve had taught over one thousand law students, including two future Vice-Presidents, twenty-eight senators, fourteen governors and three justices of the United States Supreme Court...
February 2005 - Lawyers in Love - This postcard, captioned "Verdict — Love for Life" was published in 1909 by the Gutmann and Gutmann company, and shows Cupid in judicial robes poised on a copy of Blackstone, pronouncing his judgment on a well-dressed couple sitting in a law office. While the artwork is unsigned, it appears to be the work of Bessie Pease Gutmann (1876-1960), one of America's earliest and most successful female commercial artists...
January 2005 - Early Pre-Boalt Bookplate - A few of the older books in our collection carry this unusual bookplate. The bookplate probably dates from the period 1900-1911, when Jane K. Sather donated the impressive sum of $24,122.35 to buy books for the law collection, then housed in the basement of Bacon Hall...
December 2004 - Child's Letter to Professor McMurray - Orrin Kip McMurray was granted a sabbatical leave from Boalt Hall for the academic year 1913/14 in order to study "the Continental systems of law and the European methods of law teaching." He sent his wife Amy and his three children ahead to set up housekeeping in Berlin, but was detained in Berkeley until May of 1914...