Thayer, James Bradley

Thayer, James Bradley

(1831–1902) jurist; born in Haverhill, Mass. Educated at Harvard, he was admitted to the Boston bar in 1856 and conducted a private practice while contributing to legal volumes. He then became a professor of law at Harvard (1874–1902) and was one of those who introduced the case system to the law school. He wrote Cases on Constitutional Law (1895), A Preliminary Treatise on Evidence (1898), and numerous other works. Off the bench he urged tariff reform and allotment of lands to Native Americans. He published a variety of nonlegal works, including reviews of translations from Latin and Greek and a biography of John Marshall.