David Dudley Field
| David Dudley Field II | |
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 7th district |
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In office January 11, 1877 – March 3, 1877 |
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| Preceded by | Smith Ely, Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Gerhard Anton (Anthony) Eickhoff |
| Personal details | |
| Born | February 13, 1805 Haddam, Connecticut |
| Died | April 13, 1894 (aged 89) New York City, New York |
| Political party | Democratic |
David Dudley Field II (February 13, 1805 – April 13, 1894) was an American lawyer and law reformer who made major contributions to the development of American civil procedure. His greatest accomplishment was engineering the move away from common law pleading towards code pleading, which culminated in the enactment of the Field Code in 1850 by the state of New York.
Field was born in Haddam, Connecticut. He was the oldest of the eight sons and two daughters of the Rev. David Dudley Field I, a Congregational minister and local historian, and Submit Dickenson Field. His brothers included Stephen Johnson Field, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Cyrus Field, a prominent businessman and creator of the Atlantic Cable, and Rev. Henry Martyn Field, a prominent clergyman and travel writer.
He graduated from Williams College in 1825, studied law with Harmanus Bleecker in Albany, and settled in New York City. After his admission to the bar in 1828, he rapidly won a high position in his profession.
In 1829, Field married Jane Lucinda Hopkins, with whom he had three children: Dudley, Jeanie, and Isabella. After his wife's death in 1836, Field remarried twice, first to Harriet Davidson (d. 1864) and second to Mary E. Carr (d. 1874). The eldest child, Dudley Field, followed in his father's footsteps and studied law. He was made a partner in his father's practice in 1854.
After having practiced law for several years, Field became convinced that the common law in America, and particularly in New York state, needed radical changes to unify and simplify its procedure. In 1836, he went to Europe to investigate the courts, procedure, and codes of England, France and other countries. He then returned to the United States and labored to bring about a codification of its common law procedure.
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