FIELD, DAVID DUDLEY, b. Haddam, Conn., 1805; an eminent lawyer; son of David Dudley, D.D. He graduated at Williams college in 1825, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1828. He commenced practice in New York, where he has been a conspicuous figure at the bar for more than fifty years. Besides a very large professional practice, he devoted all the time which lie could spare from pressing engagements for forty years to the reform of the law. He began the movement by writing articles in reviews and papers and pamphlets, showing the urgent necessity of reconstructing the modes of legal pro cedure. Having been appointed in 1847 a commissioner on practice and pleadings by the legislature of New York, he devoted himself first to the preparation of a code of civil pro cedure. The design of the new system of civil procedure was to wipe out the diStinc tion between the forms of action, and between legal and equitable remedies, in order that all the rights of the parties in relation to the subjects of litigation could be decided in a single action, instead of dividing them, as formerly, between different suits. This system has been adopted in 24 states and territories, and has been substantially fol lowed by Great Britain and many of her dependencies. The same commission framed a code of criminal procedure, which has been adopted by 15 states and territories. In 1837, Mr. Field was placed at the head of a new commission to prepare a political code, a penal code, and a civil code, which were finished and reported, but have not been adopted by the state of New though the civil and penal codes were passed by the two houses, almost unanimously, in 1879, and failed only for want of the governor's signature. They have been of great service, however, in the legislation of other states,
especially in California, where they were adopted with a few alterations that were neces sary in order to adapt them to the condition of that state. In 1866, the British associa tion for the promotion of social science held a meeting at Manchester, at which Mr. Field made a proposal for a general revision and reform of the law of nations, similar to that aimed at in his labors for the reform of the civil and criminal law. Acting on his proposal, lie completed, in 1873, a work entitled Outlines of an International Code, which he presented to the social science congress of that year. It met with very favorable criticism from eminent jurists all over the world.
In 1873, he was elected first president of an association for the reform and codifica tion of the law of nations, formed at Brussels in that year. This association has for one of its great objects the substitution of arbitration for war in the settlement of dis putes between nations.