Open House for Alumni Weekend
The Paskus-Danziger Rare Book Room welcomed dozens of Yale Law School alumni to an open house during Alumni Weekend, Oct. 8-9. On display were books and manuscripts donated by alumni. It was especially gratifying to have two of the alumni donors among the visitors.
Lois Montbertrand, LAW ‘85 (below, left), has single-handedly built the Connecticut Legal Instruments Collection with the gift of close to sixty early Connecticut legal documents – ranging from land deeds to summonses to lawyers’ ledger books – as well as printed legal forms, almanacs, attorney directories and other printed materials. The collection spans 150 years of legal practice in Connecticut, and is valuable for both teaching and research.
Mr. Jim Thompson LAW ‘55 (below, center), donated Elias Ashmole’s The Institution, Laws & Ceremonies of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (London, 1672). The volume has a long connection with Yale Law School. It was a gift to his late law partner, Anthony Rollins Burnam III, from his grandmother upon Burnam’s graduation from Yale Law School in 1943. Burnam’s widow gave the book to Mr. Thompson, who in turn donated it to the Law Library “as a memorial to Mr. Burnam, reflecting the high esteem which I hold in memory of his personal character and ethics, and his understanding of their vital importance to the successful practice of law.”
MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian
