Procedure and Practice: An Age of Reform

This chapter discusses procedural reform in the second half of the nineteenth century, covering the Field Code, appellate courts, and codification and reform. The year 1848 is considered by some lawyers and historians as a time of procedural revolution, although perhaps a mild one. In that year, New York passed an “act to simplify and abridge the Practice, Pleadings, and Proceedings of the Courts.” This was a full-blown Code of Civil Procedure, radically new at least in appearance. The Code is often called the Field Code, after David Dudley Field, who did more than anyone else to devise it and get it enacted. The Field Code also served as a catalytic agent for procedural reform in other parts of the United States.