Media Highlights

Femi Cadmus Named Yale Law Librarian

Femi Cadmus began as the new director of the Lillian Goldman Law Library and Professor of Law at Yale Law School on July 1, 2021. Her three decades-long professional career in law libraries spans both academic and law firm libraries where she has taught legal research and analysis, and technology in law practice to students and attorneys. Cadmus comes to the Law School from the Michael J. Goodson Library at Duke Law School, where she was also Archibald C. and Frances Fulk Rufty Research Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Information Services and Technology. Cadmus returns to New Haven and the Law School after serving as Associate Director for Administration from 2008 to 2011. Following her time at the Law Library, she served as Edward Cornell Law Librarian and Professor of the Practice at Cornell Law School before joining Duke Law as its library director. “I am thrilled to rejoin the library’s dedicated team of librarians and support staff who have a wonderful sense of adventure and are not afraid to try out initiatives that improve and enhance the experience of library users in our community and beyond,” Cadmus said. “I am also excited by the rich intellectual stimulation flowing from the deep embedment of the Law Library in the scholarly life of the Law School, the significant arenas in which we are impactful in the world of legal information and our active collaborations in providing access to information both locally and afar.” Cadmus likened returning to the Law Library to the way one returns to a favorite restaurant or vacation destination—a place where one had a good experience or which evokes pleasant memories. “While the Lillian Goldman Law Library is neither a restaurant nor a vacation spot (although I would gladly linger with a book in our breathtaking reading room), it has a distinct culture and tradition of excellence, exploration, innovation, and creativity,” she said. Law libraries continue to face challenges and major industry disruption, and the profession has become increasingly technological and data drive, according to Cadmus. “ Progressive and forward-thinking libraries view these as opportunities to reimagine the world of legal information access, discovery, and delivery,” she said. “In terms of support for research, teaching and scholarship, the diversity of the skills and expertise of librarians translates to an expanded and deeper scope of support for faculty and researchers.

Cadmus’s research focus, publications, and presentations cover topics such as law and technology, the evolving role of the modern-day law library, open access to legal information, and law library management and administration. In a 2020 blog post, Cadmus wrote that the profession has progressively become infused with digital tools, and librarians lead strategies in competitive intelligence, knowledge management, artificial intelligence, and legal analytics. “The world of legal research and analysis has changed markedly and academic law librarians are central to helping law students develop strategies to effectively navigate the ever-changing terrain,” Cadmus said. The Lillian Goldman Law Library is located within the heart of Yale Law School and provides the Law School community with access to one of the world’s finest collections of printed legal materials.

Constance Baker Motley: Lady of the Law

Constance Baker Motley (second from right) with attorneys (l to r) Donald L. Hollowell, A.T. Walden, and Howard Moore Jr. from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1958.

The life and legacy of Constance Baker Motley as seen through images, news clippings, letters, her autobiography, and her commendations constitute a new exhibition at the Lillian Goldman Law Library, curated by Kathryn James and organized by Jordan Jefferson, Marinda Monfilston, and Fallon Thomas. “Constance Baker Motley: Lady of the Law” is the latest of several Yale University celebrations of the pioneering civil rights lawyer since the 2021 centennial of her birth. Events have included book talks, virtual screenings and discussions, and an International Women’s Day program. The current exhibition at the Law Library showcases photographs, letters, awards, and other items kept by Motley and her family, including her niece, Constance L. Royster. The idea for the exhibit began when Marinda Monfilston of Yale University’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion reached out to Jordan Jefferson, Associate Director for Research and Instructional Services for the Yale Law Library. “When [Monfilston] approached me about the opportunity to host an exhibit dedicated to Judge Motley, I thought it was a great opportunity to highlight a woman who is very important to the New Haven and legal community,” said Jefferson. James, the Law Library’s Rare Book Librarian and Thomas, Community Liaison for the New Haven Hiring Initiative, were also instrumental in helping the exhibition come to life.

Mrs. Constance B. Motley standing in between husband Joel, Jr. and son Joel Motley III

Thomas said Motley’s accomplishments have often gone unnoticed and the discrimination cases she litigated are still relevant today. “The fact that African Americans are still experiencing so many ‘firsts’ today, makes us question how progressive the law has been over the years,” said Thomas. “We all have a lesson to learn from Judge Motley’s journey and while today’s culture tends to dismiss issues of the past, her work was revolutionary.” Motley was a true trailblazer. Born in New Haven in 1921, Motley was the ninth of 12 children and graduated from Hillhouse High School in 1939. With the financial assistance of New Haven businessman Clarence W. Blakeslee, she began college at Fisk University before transferring to New York University after her first year. She then went on to receive her law degree from Columbia Law School in 1946. After law school, Motley became the first female staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In 1964, she became the first Black woman to serve in the New York State Senate. The following year, she was elected Manhattan Borough President, the first woman and first Black person to serve in the role.

In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson nominated her to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, becoming the first Black woman to serve as a federal judge.

Faced with gender discrimination in the courtroom, Motley built a career fighting for civil rights and social justice in transportation, public housing, and education. She won nine out of 10 cases she argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. She assisted on nearly 60 cases. “Judge Motley was one of the great women of the civil rights movement who kept that work alive throughout her entire life,” said Jefferson. “Her career spanned decades and changed the course of history, but people don’t know her name or read about her in history books. I think what makes her so relevant today is that she did the work. She saw injustice and was determined to fight it to make a better America. She dedicated her entire career to equity and justice and sadly, that fight is still raging today.” Motley was instrumental in several desegregation cases across the South including the high-profile case that allowed James Meredith to register and be admitted to the University of Mississippi. She also wrote the brief for the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education. Monfilston said that she hopes that visitors to the exhibit learn about Motley and feel proud of a local heroine—one she said deserves the same recognition as Motley’s civil rights peers Thurgood Marshall and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. James described the exhibit as bringing together histories that start with Motley’s childhood in New Haven and ending with the dedication of her house in Chester, Connecticut, as a nature preserve and landmark of the Connecticut Freedom Trail.

Constance Baker Motley (right) and civil rights lawyer Orzell Billingsley at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Law Librarian’s Book Is the Last Word on Quotations

Fred R. Shapiro’s monumental new collection of quotations is not exclusively about the law, but being edited by a law librarian certainly shaped how the 1,136-page book came together. “My work at Yale Law School is very much reflected in this book,” said Shapiro, editor of The New Yale Book of Quotations (Yale University Press) and Associate Director for Collections and Special Projects at the Lillian Goldman Law Library. “Lawyers use words to persuade, to justify, and to govern.” Shapiro edited the first edition of the book in 2006 with the ambitious dual goal of creating the most comprehensive compilation of its kind and using path-breaking research methods to find the true origins of these words. After its publication, as he writes in a new introduction, readers from around the world sent him suggestions for quotes to include in future editions. They also provided new information about the sources of many quotations in the book. Since the first book, Shapiro writes, improved research tools have made it possible to better determine the origin and frequency of quotations. For this new edition, Shapiro has updated many quotations from the original book with more accurate wording and attribution. Notably, the book reveals that women originated many familiar words that have instead been credited to prominent men. Shapiro, who is also a Lecturer in Legal Research and a major contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary, revised and updated the book to include more than a thousand new quips, pithy remarks, and memorable lines. The new edition contains more than 13,000 quotations in all, arranged alphabetically by author and sourced from literature, history, popular culture, sports, digital culture, science, politics, the social sciences, and nearly all realms of human activity. That includes law. “As part of my larger project of compiling the most remarkable quotations from all fields, I have paid particular attention to law, and I believe that The New Yale Book of Quotations includes in its pages the most thorough collection of famous legal quotations,” said Shapiro, who previously edited The Oxford Dictionary of American Legal Quotations. For The New Yale Book of Quotations, Shapiro added quotes by a host of contemporary figures including Beyoncé, Sandra Cisneros, James Comey, Drake, Louise Glück, LeBron James, Lady Gaga, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Barack Obama, John Oliver, Nancy Pelosi, Vladimir Putin, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and David Foster Wallace. Also new to this edition are older quotations that have become relevant to the present day. Describing in the book what makes a good quote, Shapiro gives an example from literature on a familiar theme. He writes: “The ideal quotation for inclusion should sparkle, like Anatole France’s comment on the ‘majestic equality of the law, which forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.’”

parting words

Shapiro shared two favorite law-related entries from The New Yale Book of Quotations.

“If you think that you can think about a thing inextricably attached to something else without thinking of the thing which it is attached to, then you have a legal mind.”—Thomas Reed Powell

“[To William E. Gladstone, who asked what the usefulness of electricity was:] “Why, sir, there is every probability that you will soon be able to tax it!”—Michael Faraday

Watch Fred R. Shapiro of the Lillian Goldman Law Library discusses The New Yale Book of Quotations

Law Library Launches Books- to-Prison Project

The Lillian Goldman Law Library has launched a books-toprison initiative to establish libraries in jails and prisons across Connecticut. Julian Aiken, Assistant Director for Access and Faculty Services for the Law Library, was inspired to spearhead the effort after discussions with poet and Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law Dwayne Betts ’16, who was formerly incarcerated. Among other work, Betts is the Founder and Director of Freedom Reads, a project housed at the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School designed to build microlibraries in prisons as a resource and symbol of freedom and possibility. “Dwayne described how he rediscovered a sense of freedom after being given a book of poems while he was in prison,” said Aiken. At the time they spoke, Betts was working with the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project, an undergraduate group focused on developing student outreach to prisons.

“Inspired by Dwayne and the undergraduates he was working with, the law library began its first book drive for inmates,” Aiken said.

The project made its first donation of more than 700 books to the Cheshire Correctional Institution just before the pandemic began in 2020. The donation included popular fiction and non-fiction, as well as recent legal casebooks for those working on appeals or other legal questions. “Because jails are intended as short-term housing for those who are incarcerated, many have absolutely no books for their inmates,” Aiken said. Their next delivery was to the New Haven Correctional Center, located less than a mile from the Law School, where they delivered more than 300 books on Feb. 22. To date, more than 1,500 books have been donated and distributed through the generosity of Law School faculty, staff, students, and community groups. “Jails tend to be the poorest equipped correctional facilities for their residents,” Aiken said. The books-to-prisons project aims to change that and has also reached out to other facilities including local jails, homeless and domestic violence shelters, food pantries, and more. “The human connection when I make the initial outreach, speak with the staff, offer the book donation, and ensure the follow-up is a deep privilege and opportunity,” said Law School staff member Miriam Benson, who has helped Aiken with the project. Next, the project delivered 150 books each to two shelters in Ansonia, CT for victims of domestic violence and their children. Going forward, Aiken’s goal is to establish libraries in jails across Connecticut. For some locations, the delivery of books is the first donation of its kind. “Before our donations, many of the facilities didn’t have a library. It was great to set them up with a starter collection of adult and young adult fiction and popular nonfiction books,” said Aiken. The project fits into the Library’s dedication to making materials available to those who need them, according to Law Librarian Femi Cadmus. “The Lillian Goldman Law Library has an ethos of providing access to information in all formats to underserved populations,” Cadmus said. “The prison outreach spearheaded by Julian Aiken is just one of the many ways we are fulfilling that commitment.” To donate fiction or popular nonfiction books in new or good condition, contact Julian Aiken at julian.aiken@yale.edu.

Books ready to be boxed and delivered as part of a books-to-prison initiative by the Lillian Goldman Law Library at the Law School.

A Q&A with Mike Widener on 15 Years as YLS Rare Book Librarian

After 15 years, Mike Widener will retire as Rare Book Librarian at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School on April 30, 2021. Widener has “made the Law Library a model of creativity and service,” said Interim Director of the Lillian Goldman Law Library Jason Eiseman in an email to the Law School community. During Widener’s tenure, The New York Times covered the Law Library’s rare collections and exhibitions six separate times. His exhibition of illustrated law books from the collection was exhibited at the Grolier Club in New York City. The exhibition drew worldwide attention and was accompanied by an award-winning exhibition catalog. “On the day-to-day level, he used his many talents to help Law School faculty and students research, teach, and learn, and did the same for patrons throughout the University and far beyond,” Eiseman said. On the occasion of his retirement, we asked Widener to share some highlights from and reflect on his career at the Law School. What have been some unique and interesting parts of your job? My work is fairly typical of most special collections librarians, but among law librarians there are very few who have had the opportunity and privilege to work with such a wide and deep range of materials: everything from medieval manuscripts to early printed books, children’s books, and even bobblehead dolls. Building the collections has been great fun, with the help of a network of dealers in the U.S. and Europe. Before the pandemic, visits to the annual book fairs in Boston and New York were annual highlights. The most gratifying part of my work has been the opportunity to share our extraordinary collections with students, faculty, researchers, and visitors. Professor John Langbein regularly invited me and our books to his History of the Common Law class. I’ve supported a number of other classes in the Law School, history and art departments, and the Graduate School. I’ve taught sessions to high school students in the Yale Young Global Scholars program and the Yale for Life classes for adult learners. Tours for entering LL.M. students and the Linkages program are among my favorites. I teach a one-week intensive summer course for the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School, “Law Books: History & Connoisseurship,” and teaching it here in the Law Library with our collection gives my students hands-on experience with the entire gamut of western legal literature, book bindings, and print formats. Both building and sharing the collections has been possible thanks to the sustained support of the Law School and the Law Library.

What are some of your favorite exhibitions over the years? In part because I don’t have a law degree, I’ve always been drawn to the physical aspects of law books. I’ve done several exhibitions on law books as objects. Perhaps the most successful was “Reused, Rebound, Recovered: Medieval Manuscript Fragments in Law Book Bindings.” Benjamin Yousey-Hindes, my co-cura-

tor, provided the subject and language expertise, and made the initial selections. The parchment that most medieval manuscripts were written on remained durable long after the texts became obsolete or unwanted, so early bookbinders would recycle it. Today there is a cottage industry in identifying and studying these fragments, some of which are all that remain of long-lost texts. Our exhibition coincided with the 2010 annual meeting of the Medieval Academy of America at Yale. At an open house for conferees, we brought out dozens of volumes that couldn’t fit in the exhibition and invited the medievalists to help identify the fragments. They were like kids on Christmas morning, snapping photos and talking excitedly. One of the world’s leading experts took Ben aside and told him, “A week from now I won’t remember any of the conference papers, but this I’ll remember.” I’ve done most of my exhibitions with an outstanding cast of co-curators who provided subject expertise, collections, and inspiration. These include Yale Law School faculty (Judith Resnik, Dennis Curtis, and Allison Tait ’11 on legal iconography), Yale Law students (Justin Zaremby ’10 on Elizabethan law, Ryan Martins ’20 on early legal textbooks), Yale Law School alumni (Edward Gordon ’63 on Hugo Grotius), other Yale faculty, librarians, and students (Anders Winroth on the pope as lawmaker, Cynthia Roman on Queen Caroline’s trial, Christopher Platts on Venetian law), legal historians (William E. Butler on Russian law, Wilfrid Prest on Blackstone’s Commentaries), book collectors (Mark Zaid’s law-related comic books, Farley Katz’s collection of the French book illustrator Joseph Hémard, Bryan Garner’s association copies), and rare book dealers (Michael von der Linn on early Connecticut legal education, Lorne Bair on the radical labor organizer Tom Mooney, and Michael Laird on historical bindings). Our largest exhibition, “Law’s Picture Books: The Yale Law Library Collection,” showcasing 140 of our illustrated law books at the Grolier Club in New York City, was a collaboration with legal historian Mark S. Weiner ’00. I am especially fond of the two exhibitions I co-curated with my wife, Emma Molina Widener, a former librarian and literary scholar. “Murder and Women in 19th Century America,” drawing on our outstanding collection of trial pamphlets, was her idea. She was also my co-curator on “Around the World with Law’s Picture Books,” featuring illustrated law books from every continent except Antarctica.

What are a few of your favorite items in the YLS collection? I have so many favorite items that it’s hard to know where to start. I’ve become particularly fond of illustrated books and Italian books, and a book that checks all my boxes is Francesco Maria Pecchio’s Tractatus de aquaeductu, a four-volume treatise on the law of aqueducts published in Pavia between 1700 and 1713. The illustrations of watercourses are rendered in vigorous, almost abstract woodcuts. The thick paper retains a wonderful drape after three centuries. The volumes have plain, limp bindings made of very thick and flexible paper, called “cartoncino” in Italian, which develops a soft, velvety patina and opens the way a book binding should. The text itself is an early example of intersections between law, technology, and engineering. I love small-format law books, designed to be portable and affordable for practitioners, local officials such as justices of the peace, and law students. Their simple, dinged-up bindings and scribbled notes demonstrate their usefulness to early owners and remind us that law is a human endeavor. Books on the fringes of law, such as law reform tracts, satires, and other popular works, display passion and zing that black letter law lacks. In general, early printed law books are a visual delight. Even the simplest ones make some attempt at adornment, and many are lavish productions, with engraved title pages, type ornaments, and decorated initials. The contrast with modern codes and case reports is stark, and I wonder what this suggests about changing attitudes toward the law itself.

What makes the YLS Rare Book Collection special for you? For me, it is the human element that pervades every aspect of the collection. Books produced before the Industrial Age are handmade objects, often bearing the marks and scars of their use and their movement from one hand to another. Our collection bears the imprint of the professors and librarians who formed it, beginning with the Founders (Staples, Daggett, and Hitchcock), followed by law librarians such as Albert Wheeler, Frederick Hicks, Samuel Thorne, and Morris Cohen. It is a collection I have had the privilege of enhancing and sharing with students, faculty, and scholars, with the support and encouragement of past library directors Blair Kauffman and Teresa Miguel-Stearns, my supervisor the incomparable Fred Shapiro, and the finest academic law library staff in existence. At their best, collections such as ours are profoundly social instruments.