1805-1894
David Dudley Field II was born in 1805 in Haddam, Connecticut, the son of an eminent Congregational minister. He was the older brother of Stephen J. Field, an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1863 to 1897, and of Cyrus W. Field, the entrepreneur who laid the first telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean in 1858.
Field graduated from Williams College in 1825 and studied law under Harmanus Bleecker in Albany, New York. He was admitted to the bar in 1828 and moved to New York City where he soon became “one of the foremost lawyers of America,” participating “on one side or the other in nearly all of the celebrated cases tried in the metropolis.”[1] Field was counsel for James Fisk in the protracted litigation with Cornelius Vanderbilt over control of the Erie Railroad; counsel for Samuel J. Tilden before the Electoral Commission established to resolve the disputed presidential election of 1876; and lead defense counsel for William M. “Boss” Tweed in his criminal trials and the appeal which reversed Tweed’s conviction.[2] In the latter case, Field was among the five prominent attorneys who were cited for contempt after seeking the trial judge’s recusal on the grounds of bias against Tweed. Field also argued several cases before the United States Supreme Court.
Early in his career, Field became known for his expert handling of “pleadings” and complicated pretrial procedures. “In 1837, despite the handsome living he was making as one of the few people to understand their full complexity, he began agitating to reform these procedures.”[3] His reform campaign culminated in the Constitutional Convention of 1846, which recommended that the legislature create a special commission to abolish the arcane procedural distinctions between common law and equity courts and create a simplified uniform code of procedure applicable to all civil courts. In 1847, the Legislature appointed Field to a three-person commission which quickly prepared a code of civil practice and procedure that was enacted and put into operation in 1848.[4] The “sweeping simplification” of the Field Code was soon widely adopted in other states and the federal courts.[5]
Field then shifted his attention to codifying the substantive law of the state. In the early 1880s, he finally succeeded in getting the legislature to enact separate codifications of the state’s procedural and substantive criminal law, “but his most ambitious undertaking—the so-called civil code, which deals with substantive civil law . . . failed of passage.”[6] While largely forgotten today, the codification debate deeply divided the New York bar for several decades “and produced a seemingly unending stream of speeches and pamphlets.”[7] Powerful members of the bar, led by James C. Carter, strongly opposed codification and the state legislature repeatedly declined to enact Field’s civil codes. While a minority of states, including California, adopted Field’s codes, New York never did, and large portions of the state’s tort and contract law remain uncodified today. Ironically, Field’s codes had a far greater influence outside New York:
In 1873, his codes formed the basis of the reform of the common law in Britain and from there spread throughout the English-speaking world and far beyond. In the 1870s, he produced a Draft Outline of an International Code, which has deeply influenced international law to this day. David Dudley Field’s legal codes were one of the great intellectual achievements of the 19th century. Yet, outside the profession Field is today almost wholly forgotten. This is a great irony, for Field’s influence on the law vastly exceeds that of any justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.[8]
Field was publicly criticized for his willingness to represent notorious and corrupt individuals such as Boss Tweed and the robber barons Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr., whose protracted Erie Railroad litigation spawned instances of judicial corruption leading to the impeachment and removal from the bench of Judge George G. Barnard. Field defended himself vigorously in the press, demanding that his critics identify what specific misconduct he had committed and arguing that it was his duty as an advocate to accept the cases offered to him and to do what every good lawyer should do, i.e., “everything for his client that he can honestly do.”[9] In 1872-73, New York State Attorney General Francis C. Barlow sought to formally censure Field in connection with his involvement in the Erie Railroad litigation. Field, however, offered a spirited defense and marshaled the support of numerous judges and lawyers who assessed his conduct and concluded that that there was insufficient evidence to show that he had knowledge of the judicially corrupt acts or otherwise acted unethically. No disciplinary action was taken against Field.[10]
Field, originally an anti-slavery Democrat, joined the Republican Party in 1856 and supported the Lincoln Administration throughout the Civil War. He later returned to the Democratic Party, where he was aligned with Samuel J. Tilden and the party’s reform wing. He served briefly in Congress in 1877, completing the term of Smith Ely, Jr., who had been elected mayor of New York City.
In January 1884, when the Court of Appeals inaugurated the grand Richardson courtroom that it still occupies today (the courtroom was later moved to its present location from the state capitol), Field had the privilege of being the first attorney to address the court. He presented a resolution of the New York State Bar Association urging the judges to wear formal robes on the bench, which they did the following month and have ever since.[11]
David Dudley Field died in New York City on April 13, 1894.
[1] McAdam, et al., The History of the Bench and Bar of New York State Vol. 1, New York Hist. Co., 1897, at 325.
[2] Id.
[3] John Steele Gordon, “Reforming the Law,” American Heritage, Vol. 42, Iss. 5, Sept. 1991.
[4] The other appointees were Arphaxed Loomis and David Graham. See Rosenblatt, ed., The Judges of the New York Court of Appeals, Fordham Univ. Press, 2007, at xxxiii,
[5] Id; See also McAdam, at 325.
[6] McAdam, at 325.
[7] Andrew P. Morriss, “Codification and Right Answers,” 74 Chi.-Kent Law Review 355, 1999, at 357.
[8] Gordon, supra.
[9] Michael S. Ariens, “David Dudley Field and the Limits of Conscience,” Legal History Blog, Feb. 14, 2023, available at legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com.
[10] Id.
[11] Rosenblatt, supra, at 201.
Sources
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. FIELD, David Dudley, (1805-1894).
Philip J. Bergan, Owen M. Fiss, Charles W. McCurdy. The Fields and the Law: Essays (1986)