Alma mater New York University Fields Law Education New York University | Role Lawyer Name Austin Abbott | |
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Born December 18, 1831 ( 1831-12-18 ) Died April 19, 1896, New York City, New York, United States Books A Brief for the Trial of Criminal Cases | ||
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Austin Abbott, LL.D. (December 18, 1831 – April 19, 1896) was a lawyer and academic. He is probably best remembered as being the government counsel in the trial of Charles J. Guiteau for the assassination of President James Garfield.
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Early life
On December 18, 1831, Abbott was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Abbott's father was Jacob Abbott.
Education
In 1851, Abbott graduated from New York University.
Career
In 1852, Abbott was admitted to the bar and became a partner with his brother Benjamin Vaughan Abbott in the legal firm Abbott Brothers, a firm he stayed with through 1870. He aided his brother Benjamin in the preparation of his well-known digests of laws and was himself a prolific legal author. His works, mostly of a practical character, included a comprehensive digest of New York Statutes and Reports, a treatise on Trial Practice, and a useful collection of legal forms, all of which proved to be useful to the profession. He married Ellen Louise Dummer Gilman in 1854. His second wife was since 1879 Anna Rowe Worth.
He assisted commissioners in preparing the codes of New York in 1865. In 1875, he gained a national reputation as counsel for Henry Ward Beecher in Theodore Tilton's suit against him.
In 1881, he took the case against Guiteau and won. The case was one of the first highly publicized uses of the insanity defense in the United States. From 1891 until his death he was Dean of the Law School of the New York University, and the professor of pleading, equity, and evidence there as well.
He wrote several books, including the novels:
His non-fiction works include the following books, as well as several briefs and other legal writings: