Lorin,
Ethan Katsch explains in a footnote:
FN3. There is considerable ambiguity about the origin of this expression.
Frederic Maitland, an English legal historian, appears to have been the
first to use the phrase "seamless web" in a law-related context. Maitland
wrote: "Such is the unity of all history that any one who endeavours to
tell a piece of it must feel that his first sentence tears a seamless
web." Frederic William Maitland, A Prologue to a History of English Law,
14 L.QUARTERLY REV. 13 (1898); see also 1 Frederick Pollock & Frederic W.
Maitland, THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH LAW 1 (2d ed. 1899).
-- 38 Vill. L. Rev. 403 Villanova Law Review 1993 Symposium: The
Congress, The Courts and Computer Based Communications Networks: Answering
Questions About Access and Content Control LAW IN A DIGITAL WORLD:
COMPUTER NETWORKS AND CYBERSPACE Ethan Katsh
It's been used so much, it's a cliche. So if someone says, "Holmes said
that the law is a seamless web" or "Learned Hand said ..." or "Felix
Frankfurter said..." it could well be true. Heck, I've said "The law is a
seamless web." But Katsh's footnote looks good to me, so I'll go with
Maitland.
-- Mary
* Mary Whisner, Head of Reference, Gallagher Law Library
* University of Washington, Seattle, WA . . . whisner@u.washington.edu
* library's website: http://lib.law.washington.edu
On Wed, 9 Jun 1999, Lorin Geirtner wrote:
> A professor posed me an interesting question, yesterday:
>
> We all know the old quote, "The Law is a Seamless Web".
>
> However, what exactly is the citation? The professor who asked me
> thought
> it was Justice Holmes. I had always thought it was Justice Cardozo.
> Another person I have contacted thought it was originally Frederic
> Maitland.
>
> So far, I have checked sources for quotations on Westlaw and Lexis, and
> Bartletts (both on-line and in print) and a number of other Web and
> Print
> sources for this quotation, but have yet to find it. It is proving a
> lot
> harder to pin down than I originally anticipated.
>
> If anyone knows the exact source, and citation, for this quote, it will
> be much appreciated.
>
> Lorin Geitner
> Reference Lawyer/Librarian
> Chapman University School of Law
>
>
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