Call for Presenters: Notre Dame Legal History Colloquium 2026-27

The Notre Dame Legal History Colloquium convenes a series of workshops during the academic year for emerging legal historians. It is now in its third consecutive year of meetings and is financially supported by Notre Dame Law School and The Graduate School.

Formerly known as the ASLH/Notre Dame Graduate Legal History Colloquium, the forum gives early career legal scholars and practitioners feedback on works-in-progress, which the organisers describe as an important step in fine-tuning research to a point where it can be submitted for publication.

The Colloquium has been restyled for 2026-27 to widen eligibility. The following may present their work:

• Law students
• Master's students
• Doctoral students
• Faculty members in visiting or other term-limited positions, including postdocs

You may also indicate interest in attending meetings without presenting.

Each presenter is paired with a designated respondent, typically a senior scholar in the field. Previous respondents have included faculty from Notre Dame Law School, Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, the University of Chicago Law School, and the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.

All works-in-progress are pre-circulated to prospective attendees to facilitate a robust discussion, so the session is a genuine workshop rather than a conference presentation.

The Colloquium was established in 2024 with the support of the American Society for Legal History, organised at that time by Dennis Wieboldt, who graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 2026.

Over its first two years, the Colloquium enabled more than 40 students from across the country to present their research. Articles workshopped at the Colloquium have already appeared, or will soon appear, in leading journals including the Yale Law Journal, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, and Fordham Law Review Online.

For 2026-27 the Colloquium is co-convened by Mintae Cha, a 3L at Notre Dame Law School, and Sophie Rizzieri, a history Ph.D. student.

Cha previously earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University and received the American Society for Legal History's 2024 William Nelson Cromwell Dissertation Prize, awarded annually to the best dissertation in any area of American legal history. Rizzieri's research focuses on early American intellectual, social, and legal history.

During the 2026-2027 academic year, meetings will be held at the Notre Dame Law School campus in Chicago on:

• 26 September 2026
• 17 October 2026
• 6 February 2027
• 6 March 2027

An additional meeting will be held at the Law School's South Bend campus on 16 January 2027.

Those interested in presenting at and/or attending meetings of the Colloquium should indicate their interest through the official Google Form linked below.

The announcement does not specify a fixed application deadline, so applications appear to be considered on a rolling basis ahead of the scheduled meetings. Given that the first session is on 26 September 2026, applicants hoping to present early in the cycle should indicate interest well before that date.