See a selection of articles published in Lawyers Weekly, written by the Library’s Executive Director, Robert J. Brink.
The zany story of the courthouse zodiac
July 3, 2017
I recently read a quirky 1939 story from the old Boston Daily Globe regarding a controversy involving the fortune-telling signs of the zodiac, which, oddly, had been engraved as symbols of justice on the façade of the “new” Suffolk County Courthouse, completed only a year earlier in Pemberton Square.
On viewing friezes of Libra, Taurus, Scorpio, Gemini and other soothsaying symbols orbiting the second-floor walls of the courthouse, a Medford High School math teacher was piqued by the placement of the horoscope on the new home of the Supreme Judicial Court, the Social Law Library and various trial courts — guardians of our government of laws, but not guarantors of cosmic justice.
The math teacher’s concerns about the zodiac looking down from the sides and back of the building caught the architects by surprise.
Unfortunately, they confessed, there was not much they could do about reworking the granite-embedded symbols that could be taken to suggest that lawyers and litigants should check their daily horoscopes before entering the halls of justice.
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Excellent judges: a description and prescription
November 28, 2016
A few Fridays ago I fielded a request from Ukraine for permission to translate the Flaschner Judicial Institute’s book Excellent Judges into Ukrainian.
That same day, the Supreme Judicial Court and the Appeals Court convened at the Social Law Library for their annual Massachusetts Appellate Court Conference sponsored by the Flaschner Institute.
The two occurrences are actually related, and are connected by one person: the late, great SJC Chief Justice Edward F. Hennessey.
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Declarations, Cobb Houses and constitutions
July 4, 2016
“This Day,” John Adams wrote from Philadelphia to a friend in Boston, the Continental “Congress has passed the most important Resolution, that ever was taken in America.”
Two days later, Adams wrote that it was a declaration of “total absolute Independence.” He likened himself to Moses, the lawgiver leading his oppressed people to freedom in the Promised Land.
“I feel Awe upon my Mind,” he confessed to his wife, Abigail.
Several days after that, Adams witnessed 4,000 people in Philadelphia rallying for a new state constitution, an essential step in America’s long march to independence.
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John Adams, John Marshall and judicial review
April 16, 2016
This year marks the 215th anniversary of President John Adams’ momentous appointment of John Marshall as the country’s greatest chief justice. Not surprisingly, it is the centerpiece of a national celebration at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Marshall’s legacy is most closely identified with his 1803 decision, Marbury v. Madison, which is an iconic symbol of American constitutionalism.
Former Chief Justice Former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist aptly recognized the historic decision establishing judicial review as “the most famous case ever decided
by the United States Supreme Court.”
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