While the right to be judged by one's peers in a court of law appears to be a hallmark of American law, protected in civil cases by the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution, the civil jury is actually an import from England. Legal historian, James Oldham assembles a mix of his signature essays and new work on the history of jury trial, tracing how trial by jury was transplanted to America and preserved in the Constitution. "Trial by Jury" begins with a rigorous examination of English civil jury practices in the late eighteenth century, including how judges determined one's right to trial by jury and who composed the jury. Oldham then considers the extensive historical use of a variety of "special juries," such as juries of merchants for commercial cases and juries of women for claims of pregnancy. Special juries were used for centuries in both English and American law, although they are now considered antithetical to the idea that American juries should be drawn from jury pools that reflect reasonable cross-sections of their communities. An introductory overview addresses the relevance of Anglo-American legal tradition and history in understanding America's modern jury system.

James C. Oldham

St. Thomas More Professor of Law and Legal History

B.S., Duke; LL.B., Stanford; M.S.B.A., University of Denver

Expertise:

Alternative Dispute Resolution

Contracts

Labor and Employment Law

Legal History

Address:

600 New Jersey Avenue N.W.

Washington, DC 20001

Email: oldham@law.georgetown.edu

Office Location: McDonough 594

Assistant: Tyrone Manzy

Phone: 202-662-9403

Biography

In addition to his teaching duties at the Law Center, Professor Oldham spends time in London doing manuscript research in English legal history. His major work is The Mansfield Manuscripts and the Growth of English Law in the Eighteenth Century, two volumes, published by the University of North Carolina Press for the American Society for Legal History. An updated one-volume abridgement of this work was published by UNC Press in 2004. In 2006, another book by Professor Oldham, Trial by Jury: The Seventh Amendment and Anglo-American Special Juries, was published by New York University Press. Professor Oldham collects books from and about early modern England and teaches seminars on English legal history and the history of the jury. He also teaches Contracts, Labor Law, and Labor Arbitration. He specialized in labor law during his practice after law school with the Denver firm of Sherman and Howard. Since coming to Georgetown, as time permits, he serves as a labor arbitrator. He has been the grievance arbitrator for the National Hockey League and the NHL Players Association and is currently a salary arbitrator for Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association. He has also served as the chair of the Foreign Service Grievance Board at the State Department and has performed extensive arbitration work in the steel and aluminum industries. For over twenty-five years he has been a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators. Professor Oldham serves on the editorial board of Law and History Review. He has published numerous articles on legal history and on labor and employment law.