Douglas County is crawling with lawyers. There are federal judges, law professors, death-penalty defenders, high-dollar litigators and more.

They put out tons of paperwork, and whenever there’s a heated issue, they’re involved.

But Kerry Altenbernd noticed something strange recently. For the past 150 years, it seems no one has bothered to keep historical records of the county’s bar association.

“If you don’t save the history, it’s gone,” said Altenbernd, the librarian at the Douglas County Law Library. “The legal system is an integral part of the county and how it developed. : It might show a side that hasn’t been recorded.”

Altenbernd is hoping the public can help.

He’s asking for anyone with information about the history of the local bar to contact him at the library, either by e-mail or by phone. If longtime attorneys wanted to write memoirs of their years in the bar, that would also be helpful, he said.

Altenbernd, 53, is a history enthusiast whose great-grandfather Wilhelm Altenbernd came to Lawrence in 1860.

Kerry Altenbernd, librarian of the Douglas County Law Library, is researching lost county bar association records, some more than 150 years old. Altenbernd's interest in history has spurred the search.

His interest in the history of the bar was piqued in 2002 after he heard the name of Judge Louis Carpenter during a memorial service for victims of Quantrill’s Raid. He began researching the judge and his accomplishments, and he eventually came across one reference to “a meeting of the bar of the county of Douglas, on the 19th day of November, 1863.”

He checked with Kansas University’s Spencer Library, the state historical society, and the Watkins Community Museum, but he found no records of the county bar.

One of Altenbernd’s theories is that a previous officer may have kept old records but failed to pass them on to incoming officers.

Attorney John Chappell, who runs a Web site for the county bar, said he sees the gap in the records as one sign of a bar that has grown in recent decades. There’s been an influx of new attorneys, and many of the old-timers have retired, he said.

“Some of the cohesiveness of the bar has perhaps been lost,” he said.

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Until Altenbernd runs out of space, any records he finds will be kept inside the law library, located on the first floor of the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center, 111 E. 11th St.

But so far, he has only two things: a transcript of a memorial service for attorney James Postma, held in 1999, and a plaque that makes reference to Lawrence High School Mock Trials held between 1978 and 1989.

What’s the significance of the plaque?

“I don’t know,” Altenbernd said. “This is just something that somebody brought in. : The more you can get, the better.”