The bulk of the Motley papers document her professional life. The papers include correspondence, manuscripts, memoranda, speeches, interviews, photographs, audio cassettes, and memorabilia.

This collection contains the recorded minutes from the different faculty meetings: from the representative University Council to the individual schools (Columbia College, Engineering, Journalism, Law, etc.). Faculty meeting minutes include information on admissions, the academic calendar, curricular changes, faculty appointments and leaves, student petitions, fellowships, grants, prizes, and graduation requirements among other topics. Unfortunately, this collection is not complete. Additional minutes can be found in the record collections of the different faculties. For example, there is complete set of the minutes of the Faculty of Columbia College in the Columbia College records. Similarly, the minutes of the Seth Low Junior College and the minutes for the New York School of Social Work can be found in their respective collections.

This collection contains the papers of lawyer and legal scholar Herbert Wechsler. The various documentation includes Wechsler's work with the United States Department of Justice (including documents from the Nuremberg and International Military Tribunals), The American Law Institute (including the work of the Model Penal Code), Columbia University, and several other organizations to which Wechsler contributed or with which he was affiliated. The collection also contains papers related to Wechsler's legal work, including documents pertaining to his work on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. Wechsler's scholarly work is also collected here including drafts of articles, books, speeches, and special lectures such as his Oliver Wendell Holmes Lecture, "Toward Neutral Principles of Constitutional Law". The Herbert Wechsler papers also cover various points of interaction Wechsler had with other figures in his field including Francis Biddle, Telford Taylor, and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. The genre of documentation is primarily correspondence, reports, and writings with annotations. The collection also contains some ephemera and photographic materials and one audiocassette.

Personal, academic, and legal correspondence, manuscripts, documents, photographs, and memoranda. Among the legal files, there is particular emphasis on labor and welfare law. The files also contain materials about his judicial appointment, the American Law Institute, the Columbia University School of Law, and the Project on International Procedure. Among the major correspondents are: James A. Farley, Arthur J. Goldberg, Philip C. Jessup, Robert F. Kennedy, Harold R. Medina, James A. Pike, and Lionel Trilling

Papers of the Society, including correspondence among the officers and directors of the Society, memoranda, reports, legal papers, minutes, financial records, radio scripts, clippings, scrapbooks, comic books, and a subject file of pamphlets and clippings on all aspects of crime prevention. Also, an extensive history of the Society.