Federal Legislative History

This is a free program

Format: Online Only (and will be recorded)

Panel

• Brian J. Harkins, Senior Reference Attorney, Social Law Library
• Alex G. Philipson, Chief Legal Counsel, Massachusetts Superior Court
• Jacob Samuelson, Associate Dean of Library and Information Services, Wilmington University School of Law

Legislative history is a critically important advocacy tool in Federal Court when statutory language is ambiguous and requires clarification. Practitioners and judges use legislative history to avoid incongruous results, illuminate drafting errors, determine specialized meanings, and choose reasonable interpretations from competing possibilities.

Legislative history materials include, most importantly:

• The text of the bill and proposed amendments that were accepted or rejected
• Transcripts of hearings conducted by Congressional committees responsible for the bill
• Committee reports written about the bill
• Committee prints
• Compiled legislative history
• Transcripts of House and Senate floor debates related to the bill

Our panelists will teach the research skills necessary to reconstruct a statute’s legislative history for use in pleadings, briefs, and oral arguments.