Lincoln Editor

              January - March 2009 Volume 9 Number 1
LINCOLN’S LEGAL PAPERS NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE
The Papers of Abraham Lincoln is delighted to announce
the publication of The Law Practice of Abraham
Lincoln, Second Edition in a free online format. This
publication is an updated version of the project’s award-winning
The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete
Documentary Edition, published in 2000 on three DVD-ROMs
by the University of Illinois Press. In addition to
including all of the cases, documents, and reference
information in that landmark publication, the Second Edition
includes additional information and corrections based on the
research conducted for the project’s four-volume print edition
published in 2008.
The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln, Second
Edition, available at www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org,
features the same functionality as the DVD-ROM product
with new documents and cases discovered since publication
in 2000. Included in this edition are forty-five new cases
from Lincoln’s law practice, twelve new
activities that did not result in litigation, and
nearly 1,300 new documents. In addition,
the editors have replaced more than 1,500
black-and-white images of documents with
more legible color images based on the
continuing work of the Papers of Abraham
Lincoln. Although the original publication
was widely available in law libraries,
colleges, and universities across the nation,
the Second Edition is freely available to
users worldwide through the Internet.
In addition, the Second Edition is
integrated into the Papers of Abraham
Lincoln’s other major online publication,
The Lincoln Log. Users of The Lincoln
Log (at www.thelincolnlog.org) who find
a reference to a legal case there can now
follow a hyperlink to information about the case and images
of the documents from the case in The Law Practice of
Abraham Lincoln, Second Edition. Readers of the four-volume,
selective print edition The Papers of Abraham
Lincoln: Legal Documents and Cases can now view images
of any of the documents transcribed in those volumes as
well as other documents from the cases included there.
Together with the selective print edition, this online
edition of Lincoln’s legal papers concludes Series I of the
Papers of Abraham Lincoln by achieving and surpassing the
goals established for the Lincoln Legal Papers in 1985.
Instead of a comprehensive, multi-reel microfilm edition
available only at major research libraries, the project has
produced an easy-to-use electronic edition of all documents
from Lincoln’s law practice, freely available to anyone with
an Internet connection.
Search Screen of The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln, Second Edition
available at www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org