D.C. Historic Preservation Law

In partnership with the D.C. Office of Planning, the Georgetown University Law Library provides access to historic preservation decisions issued by the Mayor’s Agent of the District of Columbia as well as the D.C. Federal and local courts. Mayor’s Agent decision records include information about historic properties and often an analysis of the decision, as well as the decision itself. Materials that supplement the Mayor’s Agent decisions include selected papers from the Historic Preservation Law Seminar, records from cases that have gone on to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, and other resources for historic preservation law locally and nationally.

Donohue Intelligence Law

Professor Laura K. Donohue, the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and National Security at Georgetown University Law Center, in collaboration with the Law Library, has developed a collection of the most important primary and secondary resources pertaining to U.S. foreign intelligence law and national security. The collection includes foreign intelligence-related statutory and regulatory instruments; the legislative histories for statutory changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA); publicly available and declassified opinions and orders issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR); FISA-related cases in non-specialized Article III courts; statutorily-required reports on the operation of FISA and formal correspondence between FISC and Congress; FISC/FISCR Rules of Procedure; and an annotated bibliography of secondary sources related to FISA, FISC/FISCR, and foreign intelligence law.

Georgetown Law Journals

Since the inaugural 1912 publication of the Georgetown Law Journal, the student-edited law journals published at the Georgetown Law Center have been an important part of the law student experience and provide a valuable venue for scholarship. The Law Library is currently digitizing archived issues of the Georgetown Law Journal, the flagship law review at the Law Center, and the Georgetown Environmental Law Review. Issues of the Georgetown Law Journal are available in Digital Georgetown from 1912-2022. Issues from the Georgetown Environmental Law Review are in production. Current issues of the student journals are available through the Office of Journal Administration.

George Yamaoka Collection

George Yamaoka (L’28), was one of a select group of American Attorneys appointed by General MacArthur in 1945 to help in the defense of those Japanese accused of war crimes. The George Yamaoka Collection includes proceeding transcripts, defense documents, indexes, proceedings in chambers transcripts, correspondence, exhibits and rejected exhibits from the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal produced and handled by the Defense Team. The collection also includes bound Congressional Hearings on the attack on Pearl Harbor. A few of George Yamaoka’s personal correspondence files are also included. Production digitization of all 52 boxes of the Yamaoka Papers was completed in October 2024. More information on Yamaoka and the Yamaoka Papers can be found in the Special Collections finding aid for the collection. These materials will be made available in Digital Georgetown in late 2025.

Judge Arthur J. Gajarsa Papers

The Judge Arthur J. Garjarsa Papers covers the life and career of Georgetown Law alumnus and former justice for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Arthur J. Gajarsa (L’67). Production digitization of all 163 boxes was completed in February 2020. The Law Library is currently developing access copies along with accompanying metadata. More information on Judge Gajarsa and the Gajarsa Papers can be found in the Special Collections finding aid for the collection.

Ralph A. Barney Collection of Indian Claims Commission Papers

The Indian Claims Commission was established in 1946 by Congress to address cases brought by Native American tribes against the United States Government. Tribes filed claims against the US government for financial compensation for losses due to broken or infringed federal treaties. Before the creation of the commission, Native American claims were filed with Congress, the Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs or the President of the United States. This collection contains the decisions and exhibit material, such as land, water and mineral appraisals, for cases presented to the Indian Claims Commission from 1948-1974. More information on the ICC Papers can be found in the Special Collections finding aid for the collection. These materials are currently being digitized and will be made available in Digital Georgetown in 2026.

SEC No-Action Letters

Created by an Act of Congress in 1934 in response to the 1929 Wall Street crash, the Securities and Exchange Commission is charged with enforcing the law against market manipulation. A no-action letter is issued by the SEC staff to an issuer stipulating that the staff does not object to a course of action proposed by the issuer. When the SEC staff issues a no-action letter, it usually confirms in the letter that it will not recommend that the SEC take enforcement action relating to the issuer’s proposed activities as long as the specific facts and circumstances presented by the issuer do not change. Digitization of the Law Library’s collection of no-action letters is ongoing and currently covers 1971-2003 and is made available through Digital Georgetown.

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is the primary federal appellate court for constitutional and administrative law cases. The records and briefs in the Law Library’s collection, preserved on microfiche and microfilm, cover cases between 1899 and the 1980s. Digitization of the microfilm and microfiche is ongoing and is made available through Digital Georgetown and hosted on Internet Archive.

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has jurisdiction over federal cases in New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. Legal matters that frequently appear in the Second Circuit are contract law, antitrust law, and securities law. The records and briefs in this collection, preserved on microfiche, cover cases between 1974 and 1998. Digitization of the microfiche is ongoing and is made available through Digital Georgetown and hosted on Internet Archive.