About
The American Society for Legal History (ASLH) is an international academic society dedicated to fostering scholarship and teaching in the many fields of legal history around the world. The organization supports its members through conferences, publications (including the Law and History Review journal and Studies in Legal History book series with Cambridge University Press), fellowships, research grants, prizes for dissertations, books, and articles, as well as programs for early-career scholars such as the Hurst Summer Institute and the Wallace Johnson First Book Program.
Funding Opportunities
Projects and Proposals Funding
The Projects and Proposals Committee of the American Society for Legal History invites proposals for the funding of new initiatives in the study, presentation, and production of legal historical scholarship and in the communication of legal history to all its possible publics and audiences. The committee aims to bring talented new voices into the field, promote novel forms of scholarly interchange, support pedagogical experiments in legal history, and seed new forms and venues for public history. The program welcomes a broad range of proposals including support for conferences, scholarly publications, museum exhibits, pedagogical experiments, or other collective pursuits. The committee particularly encourages projects that seek to internationalize legal history by widening the study of legal history or by bringing a global array of scholars and students into conversation with one another. Projects that promise to bring a younger generation of scholars and students into the field are especially welcome. Most grants awarded are less than $5,000, with amounts typically ranging from $4,000 to $6,000. Proposals may come from educational institutions or from informal groups or networks of individuals. The committee expects that projects would have other institutional collaborators and/or cosponsors, including home universities. Funds are usually expended in the calendar year following the award. This funding does not support ongoing and recurrent activities, projects that have already been funded three times by the committee, individual research projects, or ASLH pre-conference organizers. In most cases, someone involved in the proposal will be a member of the Society.
Virtual Early Career Legal History Workshop
The American Society for Legal History (ASLH) Early Career (Virtual) Legal History Workshop is designed to provide support and intellectual community to early career scholars working in legal history, broadly defined. Applications are invited from early career scholars, publishing in English, who have completed PhDs or JDs (those working toward a JD/PhD must have completed the PhD), and are working on their first major monograph or research project. The committee will select seven (7) Fellows for the 2025-26 workshop. The workshop will be limited to the Fellows and Faculty Chairs and will meet once monthly via Zoom from September through April (no meeting in November because of the Annual Meeting) giving each fellow an opportunity to share work-in-progress with the group for discussion and feedback. The 2025-26 Early Career LHW will be chaired by distinguished faculty from Princeton University and University of Oregon. Fellows must commit to participate for the full academic year. The workshop encourages applications from scholars with expertise in all chronological periods and geographical fields, both within and outside the United States, as well as from those who may not yet identify as legal historians.
ASLH Early Career Global Legal History Research Fellowships
This new initiative is intended to provide funding for early career scholars, publishing in English, who are working on projects in legal history relating to non-U.S. history topics. Non-U.S. history topics refers to research that does not qualify for the fellowships awarded by the Cromwell Foundation in coordination with the ASLH. Early career scholars includes those researching or writing a PhD dissertation (or equivalent project) and recent recipients of a graduate degree working on their first major monograph or research project. The Committee will make up to five awards of $2,000 each to support research activities. Applications must make clear the relevance of law to the project and how the research will tell us something new about law. Applications should engage with relevant scholarship in the field and have a clear budget that is specific about how and where research funds will be spent. Awards will be formally announced at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History.
Max Planck-ASLH Dissertation Prize for European Legal History in Global Perspective
The Max Planck-ASLH Dissertation Prize for European Legal History in Global Perspective honors exceptional dissertations on topics in European legal history in global perspective and presented for PhD or JSD degrees awarded in the previous calendar year. Topics may include European legal interactions with people or places outside Europe, legal processes spanning Europe and other world regions, and developments in legal theory closely related to imperial, transnational, or trans-regional trends. The prize recipient receives a three-month residential fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in Frankfurt. The fellowship includes a monthly stipend (currently €2,700 for scholars with a PhD or JSD), round-trip airfare to Frankfurt (up to €1,500), and accommodation in an institute apartment (valued at €700 per month). Dissertations must be written in English. The timing of the period in residence at the Max Planck Institute is flexible and will be arranged in consultation with the Institute directors. Typically, the three-month period will take place in the fall or spring within a year or two of the date of the award.
William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Book Prize
The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Book Prize is awarded annually to the best book in the field of American legal history by an early career scholar. The prize is designed to recognize and promote new work in the field by graduate students, law students, post-doctoral fellows and early career faculty. The work may be in any area of American legal history, including constitutional and comparative studies, but scholarship in the colonial and early national periods will receive some preference. The prize is limited to a first book copyrighted no later than the tenth calendar year following the calendar year in which the author was awarded a PhD or other highest degree earned. Submission of a book by an author who has previously been awarded a Cromwell Foundation Prize for a dissertation or article must be accompanied by a showing that the book enhances, or differs in subject from, the previous work. The author of the winning book receives a prize of $5,000. The Foundation awards the prize after a review of the recommendation of the Cromwell Prize Advisory Committee of the American Society for Legal History. The Committee shall consider a book in the year of its copyright date or of its actual publication. However, no book shall be considered for the prize more than once. The committee will accept nominations from authors, presses, or anyone else, of any book published in the previous calendar year or that bears a copyright date from the previous calendar year. Nominations are submitted by sending copies of the book and the curriculum vitae of its author to the Chair of the Cromwell Prize Advisory Committee and to each member of the committee.
William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Article Prize
The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Article Prize is awarded annually to the best article in American legal history published in the preceding calendar year by an early career scholar. Articles published in the field of American legal history, broadly conceived, will be considered. There is a preference for articles in the colonial and early National periods. Articles published in the Law and History Review are eligible for the Surrency Prize and will not be considered for the Cromwell Article Prize. The author of the winning article receives a prize of $5,000. The Foundation awards the prize after a review of the recommendation of the Cromwell Prize Advisory Committee of the American Society for Legal History. The Cromwell Foundation makes the final award, in consultation with a subcommittee from the American Society for Legal History. This subcommittee invites nominations for the article prize. Authors are invited to nominate themselves or others may nominate works meeting the criteria that they have read and enjoyed. Nominations should include a brief letter of nomination, no longer than a page, along with an electronic copy or URL of the publication site of the article.
William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Dissertation Prize
The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation Dissertation Prize is awarded annually to the best dissertation in any area of American legal history, including constitutional and comparative studies, although topics dealing with the colonial and early national periods will receive some preference. The prize recognizes outstanding doctoral research in American legal history completed in the previous calendar year. The author of the winning dissertation receives $5,000. Anyone who received a Ph.D. or S.J.D. in the previous calendar year will be eligible for this year's prize, which is awarded by the Foundation after a review of the recommendation of the Cromwell Prize Advisory Committee of the American Society for Legal History. Submissions should be made by the author including only the dissertation as submitted to the university for the degree and a curriculum vitae.
Peter Gonville Stein Book Award
The Peter Gonville Stein Book Award is awarded annually for the best book in non-US legal history written in English. This award is designed to recognize and encourage the further growth of fine work in legal history that focuses on all regions outside the United States, as well as global and international history. To be eligible, a book must be published during the previous calendar year. Announced at the annual meeting of the ASLH, this honor includes a citation on the contributions of the work to the broader field of legal history. The Stein Award is named in memory of Peter Gonville Stein, BA, LLB (Cantab); PhD (Aberdeen); QC; FBA; Honorary Fellow, ASLH, and eminent scholar of Roman law at the University of Cambridge, and made possible by a generous contribution from an anonymous donor. A book may only be considered for the Stein Award, the Reid Award, or the Cromwell Book Prize. It may not be nominated for more than one of these three prizes.
John Phillip Reid Book Award
The John Phillip Reid Book Award is awarded annually for the best monograph by a mid-career or senior scholar, published in English in any of the fields defined broadly as Anglo-American legal history. The prize is named for John Phillip Reid, the prolific legal historian and founding member of the Society, and made possible by the generous contributions of his friends and colleagues. When awarding this prize, preference is given to work that falls within Reid's own interests in seventeenth- through nineteenth-century Anglo-America and Native American law. The award is given on the recommendation of the Society's Committee on the John Phillip Reid Book Award. First books, written wholly or primarily while the author was untenured, should be sent to the Cromwell Book Prize committee of the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation, as the Reid Award and the Cromwell Book Prize are mutually exclusive.
Surrency Prize
The Surrency Prize is awarded annually for the best article published in the Society's journal, the Law and History Review, in the previous year. The prize is named in honor of Erwin C. Surrency, a founding member and first president of the Society and for many years the editor of its former publication, the American Journal of Legal History. The committee reviews every article published in the Law and History Review in the previous year, making this a recognition of outstanding scholarship in legal history published through the Society's journal. As nominations are unnecessary since all articles are automatically considered, this prize serves as an important benchmark for excellence in legal history scholarship.
Sutherland Prize
The Sutherland Prize, named in honor of the late Donald W. Sutherland, a distinguished historian of the law of medieval England and a mentor of many students, is awarded annually to the person or persons who wrote the best article on the legal history of Britain and/or the British Empire published in the previous year. The award is granted on the recommendation of the Sutherland Prize Committee. To ensure consideration, authors are invited to nominate an article by sending an electronic copy to the committee chair. In keeping with past practice, the committee may also consider eligible articles nominated by the chair. This prize recognizes excellence in scholarly publication in British legal history.
Mary L. Dudziak Digital Legal History Prize
The Dudziak Prize, named in honor of Mary L. Dudziak, a leading scholar of twentieth century U.S. legal history and international relations as well as a digital history pioneer, is awarded annually to an outstanding digital legal history project. These projects may take the form of either traditionally published peer reviewed scholarship or born-digital projects of equivalent depth and scope. Preference will be given to projects that either have a published component in 2025, have gone live online in 2025, or have implemented major updates or upgrades in 2025. The prize recognizes excellence in digital legal history and is awarded by the American Society for Legal History.
Jane Burbank Global Legal History Article Prize
The Jane Burbank Article Prize in global legal history is awarded annually to the best article in regional, global, imperial, comparative, or transnational legal history published in the previous calendar year. Submissions may address any topic or period, and may focus on case studies in which the analysis relates to broader processes or comparisons. Articles on methodological or theoretical contributions are also welcome. Nominated articles should be published in English and have appeared in scholarly journals. This prize recognizes outstanding scholarship that advances the field of global legal history through published research.
Anne Fleming Article Prize
The Anne Fleming Article Prize is a joint prize of the American Society for Legal History (ASLH) and the Business History Conference (BHC). It is awarded every other year to the author or authors of the best article published in the previous two years in either Law and History Review or Enterprise and Society on the relation of law and business/economy in any region or historical period. The prize recognizes excellence in scholarship that explores the intersection of legal and business/economic history. The award is made on the recommendation of the editors of Law and History Review (the official journal of ASLH) and Enterprise and Society (the official journal of Business History Conference). No submission is necessary, as the editors select the winner from articles published in these two journals. The prize will be next awarded in 2026.
Global Dissertation Prize
The Global Dissertation Prize recognizes the best dissertation from the previous calendar year on topics centered outside the United States. This prize is awarded by the American Society for Legal History to honor outstanding doctoral research in global legal history. Eligible dissertations must be written in English and submitted for a PhD, JSD, or equivalent doctoral degree (excluding the JD) awarded in the previous calendar year. Dissertations should not be predominantly focused on the US and may examine contexts, processes, or institutions that are local, regional, imperial, comparative, global, or otherwise. The prize recognizes exceptional scholarship that advances the understanding of legal history in non-US contexts.
Cromwell Fellowships
The William Nelson Cromwell Foundation makes available a number of $5,000 fellowships to support research and writing in American legal history by early-career scholars. Early-career generally includes those researching or writing a PhD dissertation (or equivalent project) and recent recipients of a graduate degree working on their first major monograph or research project. The Committee for Research Fellowships and Awards of the American Society for Legal History (ASLH) reviews the applications and makes recommendations to the Foundation. The number of awards made, however, is at the discretion of the Foundation. In the past several years, the trustees of the Foundation have made five to nine awards. Applications should demonstrate how law (broadly construed) is at the center of their projects and how their research will tell us something new about law. The Cromwell Foundation was established in 1930 to promote and encourage scholarship in legal history, particularly in the colonial and early national periods of the United States.
At a Glance
- Total Funding Opportunities
- 16
- Active Now
- 16
- Source Domain
- aslh.net
Catalog Data
This funder profile was automatically extracted from grant listings. Information may be incomplete.
Visit official website