This November marks the 225th anniversary of the District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the court has announced a series of events to commemorate and celebrate that anniversary. Events kick off on November 4 with a special session and reception, and will include a reenactment of the Pentagon Papers case, a performance of a patent trial – “American Pin v. National Button” – and panels on the judicial lives of Judges Edward Weinfeld, Learned Hand, and Constance Baker Motley. A full listing of events is here. The Southern District – which convened for the first time on November 3, 1789 – is the oldest federal court in the United States, pre-dating by several weeks the organization of the U.S. Supreme Court, which did not hold its first session until February 1790. A history of the court, published in 1962 by the Federal Bar Association of New York, New Jersey & Connecticut, can be found here.
