Wallace Johnson First Book Program
The Wallace Johnson First Book Program brings together 6 first book authors in even-numbered years. The program meets throughout the year, first at the ASLH Annual Meeting, and then both virtually and in person over the next 12 months, culminating in a lightning round session at the following annual meeting. The next Johnson Program will be held in 2022.
Learn MoreAwards
ASLH supports members and the broader field of legal history in many ways. The Society offers a number of dissertation, book, and article prizes, as well as research grants for early career scholars. Many of these awards are made through the generosity of the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation; others are funded by members’ donations and dedicated funds. ASLH also provides limited start-up funding for new or early stage ventures in legal history for up to three years.
Learn MorePublications
ASLH sponsors the Law and History Review (LHR), a quarterly peer-reviewed journal and accompanying online venue, The Docket. The editor-in-chief of LHR is Gautham Rao. The official book series of the Society, Studies in Legal History (SLH), publishes monographs in collaboration with Cambridge University Press. Editors of SLH are Holly Brewer, Sarah Barringer Gordon, Michael Lobban, and Reuel Schiller.
Learn MoreOur Upcoming Conference —
Banff, Alberta, CA
November 12–14, 2026
Latest News
View all NewsNovember 15, 2026
ASLH Dissertation Prize Winners 2026
William Nelson Cromwell Dissertation Prize Sarah Rose Meiners, “Asylum Archipelago: Migration in the Borders of Empire in the Pacific and the Caribbean,” (Cornell). Meiners’ “Asylum Archipelago” analyzes how the United States government used extraterritorial U.S. jurisdictions to develop, implement, and enforce migration laws and policies from the 1970s to the… Keep ReadingNovember 15, 2026
ASLH Article Prize Winners 2026
The William Nelson Cromwell Article Prize Joe Borsato, “‘To Rule by Customes’: Powhatan Assertions of Territorial Possessions against the Virginia Company, 1607–1624,” Ethnohistory 72, no. 3 (2025): 277-312. Joe Borsato’s “‘To Rule by Customes’” traces the assertion and recognition of Powhatan territorial possession claims against seventeenth century English colonists… Keep ReadingNovember 15, 2026
ASLH Book Prize Winners – 2026
The Peter Gonville Stein Book Award Omar Cheta, How Commerce Became Legal: Merchants and Market Governance in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Stanford University Press). Omar Cheta has marked out a remarkable terrain at the intersection of law and economic life in nineteenth-century Egypt. In How Commerce Became Legal, Cheta draws on… Keep ReadingNovember 15, 2026
Early Career Fellowships & Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars 2026
William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Fellowships Arvind Abraham Kasha Appleton Courtney Bither Alexander Cors Christein Hammock Jones Emily Martin Gabriel Panucu-Mercado Peper Rivers Magdalene Zier Early Career Global Legal History Research Fellowships Becca Aponte Julia Burke Xincheng Hou Olusegun Olatunji Ka Shing So Kathryn T. Preyer Scholars Iqra Saleem… Keep Reading
Become a Member
The ASLH supports our members in many ways, including offering a variety of awards and fellowships, and funding of proposals and projects.
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