Los Angeles, March 1, 2016 – Loyola Law School, Los Angeles will commemorate its new Peter M. Tiersma Collection of historical legal documents with a lunch and dedication featuring a survey of Tiersma’s scholarship by Professor Lawrence Solan, editor of a recently published overview of Tiersma’s work. The event will be held on Friday, April 1, 2016 on Loyola’s downtown LA campus.
The event, which is co-sponsored by the California Supreme Court Historical Society, will re-examine Tiersma’s prolific body of scholarship. Solan, a Yale Law School professor and frequent collaborator, will discuss “Speaking of Language and Law: Conversations on the Work of Peter Tiersma,” an Oxford University Press selection published in late 2015 of 12 pieces of Tiersma’s scholarship. The event will also mark the launch of the Peter M. Tiersma Collection, which will offer legal scholars unprecedented access to rare legal texts dating back to the 15th century.
Tiersma, whose fascination with the etymology of legal terms fueled his prominence as an expert on jury instructions and a student of old texts, amassed a large collection of centuries-old legal manuscripts before he passed away in April 2014 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Totaling 300 documents, highlights include patent letters from France’s King Louis XV, a page from the Ge’ez Bible from 17th-century Ethiopia and important legal documents prepared for Napoleon and other world dignitaries.
To foster scholarly research, Loyola is scanning and cataloguing the texts, which will be housed in a dedicated space in the school’s William M. Rains Library. Parts of the collection are available at http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/tiersma_collection/. Seed money for the endeavor comes in part from the generous support of Matthea Cremers, Tiersma’s widow, and an ongoing campaign.
The event will be held in the Walter J. Lack Reading Room on Loyola’s campus at 919 Albany St., Los Angeles, CA 90015. Members of the media interested in attending should contact Brian Costello, assistant director of marketing & communications, at brian.costello@lls.edu, 213-736-1444 (o) or 310-902-9560 (c).
About Peter M. Tiersma
Peter M. Tiersma joined the Loyola Law School faculty in 1990. His courses included Remedies, the Language & the Law Seminar and Trusts & Wills. The holder of the Hon. William Matthew Byrne Jr. Chair, he was a member of the California Judicial Council Advisory Committees on Jury Instructions and a co-founder of the International Language and Law Association. Tiersma was the co-editor of “The Oxford Handbook of Language and Law” (with Solan). He authored several books, including “Parchment, Paper, Pixels: Law and the Technologies of Communication,” “Legal Language” and “Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice” (with Solan), as well as numerous articles and book chapters. More information about his scholarship is available at http://www.lls.edu/tiersma.
About Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
Located on an award-winning Frank Gehry-designed campus in downtown Los Angeles, Loyola Law School is home to prominent faculty and dedicated students. Its cutting-edge programs include a focus on cybersecurity, which is available as a focused area of study. The Law School strives to instill in students the knowledge they need to excel on their chosen paths. It dedicates itself to preparing students for the rigors of practice with an extensive portfolio of practical-training opportunities, a 17,000-strong alumni network and a focus on social justice. Learn more at www.lls.edu.
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