The collection documents Stevens' advancement to the highest court in New York State and his contributions to the legal profession particularly his role as a founder of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC). Stevens' accomplishments are reflected in letters from his contemporaries, colleagues, and dignitaries. Approximately one third of the collection, ten archival boxes, from 1951 to 1969, consists of judicial journals or volumes containing descriptive notes and transcripts from court cases ranging from litigation between companies and personal lawsuits to grand larceny, robbery, separations and divorces, custody proceedings and murder trials over which Stevens presided. There is also one notebook entitled, "Torts, Abstracts, and Five Point Method Notes." The collection also contains some letters, legal documents from a few court cases, and two folders of International Commission of Jurists Conference papers. During his professional career, Stevens founded two association, the Medical Malpractice Mediation and the National Center for State Courts. The former, informal association, was begun by him to reduce the backlog of medical malpractice cases in New York State. The latter, formal association was created by him to provide assistance and consultative services to improve state and local trial and appellate courts. Newspaper clippings and other memorabilia found in his scrapbooks, which comprise another third of the collection, document his career accomplishments in more detail than is available in his correspondence files.
