New York Law Institute

The New York Law Institute

Located in the Equitable Building
Established	1828
Location	120 Broadway, New York, NY
Branches	N/A
Collection
Size	300,000 cataloged books in the New York Law Institute's collection of monographs and serials, bound newspapers, pamphlets, supplements, Congressional documents, and other printed material, and many electronic resources.
Access and use
Circulation	2,612
Population served	17,700 members
Other information
Director	Lucy Curci-Gonzalez (Executive Director)
Website	www.nyli.org

The New York Law Institute is the oldest circulating law library in New York City and is open to contributing members of the New York Bar, as well as to scholars of history and the law.

Coordinates: 40°42′30″N 74°00′40″W / 40.70833°N 74.01111°W / 40.70833; -74.01111

In 1876, The Report on Libraries of the United States described the New York Law Institute Library as “the best public law library in this country,” and a success in the highest and broadest sense ….”  The Institute and its library were the result of the efforts of two young lawyers, George Sullivan and James W. Gerard, to break up the so-called “barrister ring” of twelve to fifteen lawyers who with the connivance of the judiciary monopolized all the worthwhile legal business in the circuit and supreme court, and the court of chancery during the mid-1820s.  They achieved one of their goals when the legislature established the Superior Court in 1828, but they believed that to break up the ring for good, the establishment of a “Law Association” was essential.

This Law Association, renamed the Law Institute, was founded in February 1828.  One of its main goals was the founding of a law library, a task that was considered essential since at that time the only significant collections of law books in New York were held privately by such notables as Chancellor James Kent and Chief Justice John Jay.  Thus, listed in the charter granted by the legislature in 1830 was a provision for “providing a seminary of learning in the law and the formation of a Law Library.”  The founders also had the lofty aim of “guard[ing] the purity of the profession,” but it became almost immediately apparent that this was beyond anyone’s power, so the members’ primary activity became the establishment of a law library that would contain “the law of the larger part of the civilized world.”