Tapping Reeve

Tapping Reeve (born October 1744, Brookhaven, N.Y.—died Dec. 13, 1823, Litchfield, Conn., U.S.) was a U.S. legal educator and jurist. In 1784 Reeve founded the Litchfield Law School, which was the first of its kind in the United States. (Previously, legal training could be acquired in the United States only by apprenticeship.) He was the school’s sole teacher until 1798, when he took on an associate. Before it closed in 1833 the school trained about...