The papers of Harold Montelle Stephens (1886-1955) span the years 1895-1955, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1935-1955. The collection includes correspondence, diaries, biographical papers, legislative matter, legal files and judicial case material, photographs, speeches, personal and legal writings, and papers relating to social organizations, universities, financial affairs, and hospital administration. The papers are organized into twenty series: Diaries; Special Correspondence; General Correspondence; Personal Correspondence; Judicial Correspondence; Personal Papers; Legal Files; Legislative File I; Judicial Salaries and Administrative Law; U.S. Judicial Conference; Assistant Attorney General; Speech, Article, and Book File; Miscellany; Court File: Cases and Opinions, Set I; Court Files: Gypsum Case; Court File: Legislation and Judicial Conference; Court File: Cases and Opinions, Set II; Court File: Administrative Miscellany; Court File: Cases and Opinions, Set III; and Legislative File II.

The main part of the collection consists of files relating to the internal workings of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Included are memoranda between judges relating to pending decisions of the court of appeals, minutes of conferences of the judges, preliminary drafts of opinions, and the administration and general functioning of the court. Also in the collection are papers from Stephens's student period at Harvard University, as a prosecuting attorney and judge in Utah, material and papers relating to Frank E. Holman, and speeches by Homer Cummings from the period 1933-1935 when Stephens was an assistant to Attorney General Cummings in the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. A subject file series is devoted to his service as assistant attorney general of the United States Department of Justice AntiTrust Division, including records concerning the U.S. National Recovery Act of 1933 and minutes of meetings of the U.S. Special Industrial Recovery Board.