The Law & Humanities Institute (LHI) is a non-profit organization devoted to promoting interdisciplinary studies between law and the humanities.  LHI focuses on law and literature, law and narrative, legal history, sociology of law, and other fields of study involving the humanities and law.  The LHI sponsors various symposia and smaller gatherings (salons) throughout the year. 

LHI was founded in 1978 under the creative leadership of Prof. J. Allen Smith of the Rutgers ( Newark) Law School and with the originating presidency held by Prof. Richard Weisberg of Cardozo. The distinguished board included at the origins Robert Cover, Geoffrey Hartman, Irving Younger, and such originating officers as David Haber (Chair), Judith Koffler (Treasurer), Katherine Roome, Esq. (Secretary), and Dan Tritter, Esq. (Vice President). A key incorporator for LHI was Loree Collins, a student of Smith's with a prior career in business, who largely brought about the successful application for 501 (c) (3) public foundation status.

Richard Weisberg and others built on a series of three special sections on "Law and Literature" of the Modern Language Association (1976-8) to identify the relevant community of some 100 scholars, lawyers, and judges and to begin planning a series of conferences, one at AALS and then what would become more than a dozen with partnering institutions across the country and the world. LHI's first major conference, on "Terror in the Literary Imagination and the Legal Text" was published in the Human Rights Quarterly, and its next (held at Washington & Lee) on "Billy Budd, Sailor", became the founding number of Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature -- now (as Law and Literature and published by the UCAL Press Journals division) as then edited in pertinent part by members of the LHI Board.

Quickly, too, LHI established The Mediator, its in-house semi-annual newsletter that included relevant bibliographical material for the burgeoning field and many other articles and announcements.  The Mediator is available still at some law libraries and selected back-issues can be acquired from Daniel Solove of the GWU Law School, whose website and blog will bring interested parties up to date on the world-wide workings of LHI today.

This website is maintained by Professor Daniel Solove.  Please contact him if you would like to know more about LHI.  The LHI has a listserv for those who want to receive information about upcoming events.  If you're interested in joining the listserv, please contact Professor Solove.