Thomas M. Cooley

THOMAS MCINTYRE COOLEY [1824-1898] was the most important American jurist of the late-nineteenth century. For twenty years he served as the leading justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. He was appointed by President Grover Cleveland to serve on the Interstate Commerce Commission, where he was the leading commissioner and set several important precedents for administrative process. He taught at Johns Hopkins University and was dean of the University of Michigan Law School. First issued in 1870, his edition of Blackstone, popularly known as "Cooley's Blackstone," was the standard American edition of the late nineteenth century. Some of his other works include A Treatise on the Law of Taxation (1876) and A Treatise on the Law of Torts (1878). Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, founded in 1972, was named in his honor.