Headshot of W. Hamilton Bryson

W. Hamilton Bryson

Blackstone Professor of Law
  • Profile

    Professor Hamilton Bryson teaches and writes in the areas of English legal history, Virginia legal history, and Virginia procedure and practice. He has published numerous books and book chapters on these subjects, and is the founding editor of the Virginia Circuit Court Opinions. He has also edited and published several collections of early modern English law reports. Professor Bryson is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the Executive Committee of the John Marshall American Inn of Court, and the Virginia Correspondent of the Selden Society. He serves on the Advisory Committee on rules of Court of the Supreme Court of Virginia.

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    • Awards

      Fulbright Scolars Fulbright Grant to study Economics in Grenoble, France (1963)

    • Memberships

      Fellow of the Royal Historical Society


      Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London


      Member, Medieval Academy of America


      Member, Virginia Historical Society


      Member of the Council of the Civil Litigation Section, Virginia Bar Association (1984 - present)


      Executive Committee of the "Boyd-Graves Conference" on Civil Procedure, Virginia Bar Association (1982 - present)


      Executive Committee, John Marshall Inn of Court (1999 - 2023)


      Assistant Editor, American Journal of Legal History (1999 - 2009)


      Editorial Board, American Journal of Legal History (1976 - 1999)


      Committee on Reducing Litigation Costs and Delays, Virginia State Bar (1982 - 1990)


      Surrency Prize Committee, American Society for Legal History (1981 - 1987)


      Secretary, Commonwealth of Virginia, Service of Process Study Committee (1986 - 1986)


      Law School Delgate, Association of American Law Schools (1985 - 1985)


      Board of Directors, American Society for Legal History (1981 - 1984)


      Bicentennial Committee, Virginia State Bar (1975 - 1980)


      Legal History Section Chairman, Association of American Law Schools (1977 - 1977)

    • Bar Admissions

      Virginia

    • Professional Experience

      Professor of Law (1980 - present)
      University of Richmond School of Law, Richmond, VA


      Associate Professor of Law (1976 - 1980)
      University of Richmond School of Law, Richmond, VA


      Assistant Professor of Law (1973 - 1976)
      University of Richmond School of Law, Richmond, VA

  • Publications
    Books

    Virginia Circuit Court Opinions (ed.) no 111 (LexisNexis) (December 2023).

    Reports of Cases in the Court of Chancery from 1660 to 1673 583 Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies (2022).

    Virginia Circuit Court Opinions (ed.) 1-109 (LexisNexis) (April 2022).

    Reports of Cases in the Court of Chancery in the Time of Queen Anne (1702 to 1714) 581 Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies (2021).

    Some English Law Reporters of Seventeenth Century Cases (2020).

    Paul Jodrell's Chancery Reports (1737-1751) (ed.) (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies) (June 2020).

    Reports of Cases in the Court of Exchequer in the Middle Ages (1295-1496) (ed.) (KDP Publishing) (2019).

    Reports of Cases in the Court of Chancery in the Time of Lord Coventry (1625-1640) (ed.) (KDP Publishing) (2018).

    Reports of Cases in the Court of Chancery in the Time of Sir Francis North, Lord Gulford (1683-1685) (ed.) (KDP Publishing) (2018).

    Bryson on Virginia Civil Procedure (LexisNexis 5th Ed.) (2017).

    Law Books in the Libraries of Colonial Virginians “Esteemed Bookes of Lawe” and the Legal Culture of Early Virginia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press) (2017).

    Reports of Cases in the Court of Exchequer in the Time of King Charles II (ACMRS) (2017).

    Miscellaneous Reports of Cases in the Court of Delegates from 1670 to 1750 (KDP Publishing) (2016).

    Reports of Cases in the Court of Chancery in the Middle Ages (KDP Publishing) (2016).

    Reports of Cases in the Court of Exchequer from 1604 to 1648 (2016).

    Sir Robert Raymond’s Common Law Reports, 1694-1696 (2016).

    Fourteen Cases from Herbert Jacob’s Queen’s Bench Reports (ed.) (2015).

    John Merefield’s Common Pleas Reports, 1620-1621 (ed.) (2015).

    Reports of Cases in the Court of Chancery in the Time of King James II (ed.) (2015).

    Sir John Randolph's Reports of Cases in the General Court of Virginia, 1729-1735 (ed.) (2015).

    Reports of Cases in the Court of Exchequer in the Time of King George I (1714-1727) (ed.) (2014).

    Ratio Decidendi: Guiding Principles of Judicial Decisions, Volume 2: 'Foreign Law' 2 (Duncker & Humblot) (W. Hamilton Bryson et al., eds.) (2010).

    Robert Paynell's King's Bench Reports (ACMRS) (2010).

    Robert Paynell's Exchequer Reports (ACMRS) (2009).

    Equity Cases in the Court of Exchequer, 1660 to 1714 (ACMRS) (2007).

    Alexander Forrester's Chancery Reports (1732-1739) (ed.) (2006).

    Ratio Decidendi: Guiding Principles of Judicial Decisions 1 (Serge Dauchy) (2006).

    Reports of Cases in the Court of Exchequer in the Time of King Charles I (1625 to 1648) (ed.) (2006).

    The Chancery Reports of John Herne And of George Duke (1599 to 1674) (ed.) (2002).

    Cases Concerning Equity and the Courts of Equity 1550-1660 (2001).

    Samuel Dodd's Reports, 1678-1713 and Miscellaneous Exchequer Cases, 1671-1713 (2000).

    Virginia Law Books: Essays and Bibliographies (2000).

    Essays on Legal Education in Nineteenth Century Virginia (1998).

    A Bibliography of Virginia Legal History Before 1900 (William S. Hein & Co., Inc. 2nd Ed.) (1997).

    The Law Reports of J. Singleton Diggs of Lynchburg, Virginia (ed.) (1997).

    Dictionary of Sigla and Abbreviations to and in Law Books before 1607 (ed.) (William S. Hein & Co., Inc. 2nd Ed.) (1996).

    Sir John Randolph's King's Bench Reports 1715 to 1716 (1996).

    Miscellaneous Virginia law reports, 1784-1809: Being the reports of Charles Lee, John Brown, David Watson & David Yancey (1992).

    Legal Education in Virginia 1779-1979: A Biographical Approach (1982).

    A Census of Law Books in Colonial Virginia (University Press of Virginia) (1978).

    Discovery in Virginia (1978).

    The Virginia Law Reporters Before 1880 (University Press of Virginia) (1977).

    Dictionary of Sigla and Abbreviations to and in Law Books before 1607 (ed.) (University Press of Virginia) (1975).

    The Equity Side of the Exchequer (Cambridge University Press) (1975).

    The Equity Jurisdiction of the Exchequer Legal History Studies 118-121 (1972).

    Interrogatories and Depositions in Virginia (1969).

    Journal Articles

    In Memoriam J. Rodney Johnson (1939-2015), 50 University of Richmond Law Review 477 (2016).

    Some Thoughts Raised by Magna Carta: The Popular Re-Election of Judges, 51 University of Richmond Law Review 49 (2016).

    “But I Know It When I See It”: Natural Law and Formalism, 50 University of Richmond Law Review Online 107 (2016) (Book Review).

    Virginia Law Reports, 54 American Journal of Legal History 107 (2014).

    The Merger of Common-Law and Equity Pleading in Virginia, 41 University of Richmond Law Review 77 (2006).

    Herbert A. Johnson, Editor Symposium: An Appreciation of Professor Herbert Johnson, 56 South Carolina Law Review 441 (2005).

    The Prerogative of the Sovereign in Virginia: Royal Law in a Republic, 73 Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 371 (2005).

    Judicial Independence in Virginia, 38 University of Richmond Law Review 705 (2004).

    The Winchester Law School, 1824-1831, 21 Law and History Review 393 (with E. Shephard) (2003).

    Motions for Sanctions Annual Survey of Virginia Law, 30 University of Richmond Law Review 1509 (1996).

    Twentieth-Century Virginia Legal Periodicals: A Bibliography and Commentary, 86 Law Library Journal 541 (with J. Jorgensen) (1994).

    Virginia Manuscript Law Reports, 82 Law Library Journal 305 (1990).

    Annual Survey of Virginia Law - Civil Procedure and Practice, 23 University of Richmond Law Review 511 (1989).

    Court Costs in Virginia, 14 Virginia Bar Association Journal (1988).

    Annual Survey of Virginia Law - Civil Procedure and Practice, 21 University of Richmond Law Review 667 (1987).

    English Common Law in Virginia, 6 The Journal of Legal History 249 (1985).

    The Use of Roman Law in Virginia Courts, 28 American Journal of Legal History 135 (1984).

    The Abolition of the Forms of Action In Virginia, 17 University of Richmond Law Review 273 (1983).

    Discovery of Penalties, 15 University of Richmond Law Review 283 (1981).

    Service of Process in Virginia, 5 Virginia Bar Association Journal 16 (1979).

    A Note on Robinson's Brief Collection of ... Courts of Records, 6 Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 181 (1974).

    The Problem Method Adapted to Case Books, 26 Journal of Legal Education 594 (1974).

    A Letter of 1734 from Lewis Burwell to James Burrough, 81 Virginia Magazine of History & Biography 405 (1973).

    William Senior(1862-1937), Legal Historian, 16 American Journal of Legal History 252 (1972).

    Papal Releases from Royal Oaths, 22 The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 19 (1971).

    Exchequer Equity Bibliography, 14 American Journal of Legal History 333 (1970).

    Witnesses: A Canonist's View, 13 American Journal of Legal History 57 (1969).

    Annual Survey of Virginia Law - Administrative Law, 54 Virginia Law Review 1459 (1968).

    Book Chapters

    The General Court of Virginia 1619-1776, in Central Courts in Early Modern Europe and the Americas (A. M. Godfrey et al., eds.) (December 2020).

    Law Reporting in the Seventeenth Century, in English Legal History and its Sources: Essays in Honour of Sir John Baker (Cambridge University Press) (David Ibbetson et al., eds.) (2019).

    Bacon, Example of a Treatise Touching Universal Justice, in The Formation and Transmission of Western Legal Culture: 150 Books that Made the Law in the Age of Printing (Springer International Publishing) (2016).

    Maitland, The Forms of Action at Common Law, in The Formation and Transmission of Western Legal Culture: 150 Books that Made the Law in the Age of Printing (Springer International Publishing) (2016).

    Introduction, in in Ratio Decidendi: Guiding Principles of Judicial Decisions, Volume 2: 'Foreign Law' (Duncker & Humblot) (2010).

    The Code of Virginia of 1849, in Within a Reasonable Time: The History of Due and Undue Delay in Civil Litigation (Duncker & Humblot) (2010).

    The Use of Roman Law in Virginia Courts, in Ratio Decidendi: Guiding Principles of Judicial Decisions 2 (Duncker & Humblot) (2010).

    Bushrod Washington (d. 1829), in Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law (Yale University Press) (R. Newman, ed.) (2009).

    Edmund Pendleton (d. 1803), in Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law (Yale University Press) (R. Newman, ed.) (2009).

    St. George Tucker (d. 1827), in Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States (Macmillan ) (2008).

    Summary Conclusion, in Ratio Decidendi: Guiding Principles of Judicial Decisions, Vol. 1 (Serge Dauchy, ed.) (2006).

    Some Old Problems in England and Some New Solutions from Virginia, in The Law's Delay: Essays on Undue Delay in Civil Litigation (2004).

    Educator, Legal, in The Oxford Companion to American Law (2002).

    English Ideas on Legal Education in Virginia, in Learning the Law: Teaching and the Transmission of Law in England, 1150-1900 (Hambledon Press) (J. Bush et al., eds.) (1999).

    George Landon Browning (d. 1947), in Dictionary of Virginia Biography 2 (1998).

    George Wayne Anderson (d. 1922), in Dictionary of Virginia Biography 1 (1998).

    Equity Reports and Records in Early-Modern England, in Case Law in the Making (Duncker & Humblot) (1997).

    Virginia Law Reports and Records, 1776-1800, in Case Law in the Making (Duncker & Humblot) (1997).

    Dictionary of Sigla and Abbreviations to and in Law Books before 1607 , in World Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations (William S. Hein & Co., Inc.) (1996).

    Law Reports in England from 1603 to 1660, in Law Reporting in Britain (Hambledon Press) (1995).

    Law Reporting and Legal Records in Virginia, 1607-1800, in Judicial Records, Law Reports, and the Growth of Case Law (Duncker & Humblot) (1989).

    Leon Jaworksi, in Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (University of North Carolina Press) (1989).

    Equity and Equitable Remedies, in Encyclopedia of American Judicial System (Robert Janosik, ed.) (1987).

    The History of Legal Education in Virginia, in The Legal Profession (K. Hall, ed.) (1987).

    The Virginia Bar, 1870-1900, in The New High Priests: Lawyers in Post-Civil War America (Gerard Gawalt, ed.) (with E. Shepard) (1984).

    The Court of Exchequer Comes of Age, in Tudor Rule and Revolution (Delloyd J. Guth et al., eds.) (1982).

    The Equity Jurisdiction of the Exchequer, in Legal History Studies 1972: Papers Presented to the Legal History Conference Aberystwyth, 18-21 July 1972 (University of Wales Press) (1975).