Theodore William Dwight

Theodore William Dwight (1822–1892) was an American jurist and educator, cousin of Theodore Dwight Woolsey and of Timothy Dwight V. He founded Columbia Law School in 1858 and New York Law School in 1891.

Early life and education Theodore William Dwight was born in Catskill, New York on July 18, 1822. His father was Benjamin Woolsey Dwight (1780–1850), a physician and merchant, and his grandfather was Timothy Dwight IV (1752–1817), a prominent theologian, educator, author, and president of Yale University from 1795 to 1817. Theodore Dwight graduated from Hamilton College in 1840. At Hamilton, he was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. He also later studied physics under Samuel F.B. Morse and John William Draper.

Career Dwight taught classics at Utica Academy in 1840–1841. He studied law at Yale and was admitted to the bar in 1845. Between 1842 and 1858, he taught at Hamilton, first as tutor and later as professor of law, history, civil polity, and political economy. However, this was declared unconstitutional by state court judges a decision that was appealed by Professor Dwight. By 1864, graduates of the program could be admitted to the bar without further examination.

Dwight was the sole professor of law at Columbia until the department was expanded in 1873, eventually becoming Columbia Law School. He served as the dean at Columbia Law School until 1891. That year, he and other faculty, students, and alumni protested the Columbia trustees' attempts to convert the law school to the case method, and left to found New York Law School. The backside of the column on the east side of Columbia University's College Walk at 116th and Amsterdam is dedicated to Dwight. At Columbia, Dwight was the creator of the Dwight method of legal instruction, which emphasized memorization of treatises, practice drills, and frequent moot courts. The Dwight method was in competition with the case method developed by Christopher Columbus Langdell, then Dean of Harvard, which emphasized the study of individual cases, and inductive reasoning. As described by Columbia Professor Peter L. Strauss, "Where Dwight aimed to give a sound knowledge of the law to men of average ability, Harvard's case method aimed to give as much intellectual stimulation as possible to those who would become the profession's elite." Today, the more abstract case method dominates legal education, even at New York Law School. However, the Dwight method, while not described as such, is still used in some law schools. Dwight-like memorization techniques are also widely used to prepare for state bar exams.

A Republican, Dwight was also a prominent figure in political and social reforms. was associate editor of the American Law Register and legal editor of Johnson's Cyclopaedia; and published Charitable Uses: Argument in the Rose Will Case (1863). He was a non-resident professor of law at Cornell (1869–1871) and at Amherst (1870–1872).

Death Dwight died in Clinton, New York, on June 18, 1892. Because he had not finished writing his signature by the time he died, the will was not enforced.