Babie and Orth Speaking at UNC Law, November 7

It is my pleasure to announce that Paul Babie, professor of law and associate dean at Adelaide University, Australia, and my UNC colleague John Orth will both by speaking at lunchtime on November 7 at UNC Law, on the Torrens title system.  The title of their program is “Property Stories: How Torrens Title Failed to Solve All the Problems, and Actually Created Some.”

Babie's talk is entitled "The Carey Gulley Squatter: Crown and Possessory Title of Torrens Land in South Australia." You may have heard that Babie gave one of the best of the talks at the North Carolina Law Review's terrific symposium on Magna Carta last fall.  And that's really saying something because those talks were fabulous. Babie asked the intriguing question, why did do we remember Magna Carta but not other charters from that era. He focused on the forest charter, for instance, of 1217.  And then he also unfolded how that charter has other implications for progressive property.  I can't do the whole argument justice.  You should read it here.  (And the rest of the articles from that issue here.)

John Orth's talk is entitled "The Prisoners of Adams Creek: Family, Race, Adverse Possession, and Torrens Title in North Carolina."  John is well-known to Triangle legal historians, so let me just add that he is engaged in an expansive study of Blackstone's legacy in the United States, and even on an early nineteenth century interpreter in rural North Carolina.  It's a fascinating and unexpected story and this is further testimony to the importance of pre-Civil War southern intellectual thought, a subject very near my heart.

Although this is not an official triangle legal history meeting (those are on Friday afternoons), I know this will be of interest to many triangle legal historians and I hope you can join us.  If you're going to join us, please let me know (abrophy@email.unc.edu) so we can get appropriate food and parking.