To celebrate the school’s centennial anniversary and recreate their origins, Santa Clara Law staged a reenactment of the famous Clarence Darrow trial. The event used real-life judges, attorneys, and law professors from around the country, and was attended by several hundred people, many of them donors, prospective donors, and alumni of the law school.
The Clarence Darrow reenactment now has a permanent residence in Santa Clara Law Digital Commons and it includes streaming videos of the reenactment as well as the actual statutes from the case—all available not just to the attendees but to a global audience. With this unique collection, SCU Law’s repository serves it purpose to preserve the school’s content– in this case both entertaining and historically significant.
In addition to paying homage to an important piece of legal history for Northern California, Santa Clara Law’s event also garnered support from their local law community: the reenactment cast included faculty from Santa Clara Law, Duke University School of Law, and American University Washington College of Law along with Santa Clara Law’s Dean and graduates, as well as three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals and the Northern District of California. Twelve members of the centennial graduating class served as jurors.
Capturing this collaboration in re-producing an important historical moment, this collection purports the importance of community engagement and faculty involvement.
Clarence Darrow Trial Re-Enactment – Conferences, Symposiums, and Events – Santa Clara Law
To see what Santa Clara Law has been up to, watch Building a Successful Law Repository with Limited Resources: http://digitalcommons.bepress.com/webinars/39/
