Simon Greenleaf - Professorships

Professorships

In 1833, Greenleaf was named to the Royall professorship, and in 1846 succeeded Judge Joseph Story as Dane professor of law at Harvard University. Greenleaf contributed extensively to the development of Harvard Law School, including expansion of the Harvard Law Library. He was retained as chief counsel by the Warren Bridge group in the US Supreme Court case Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge 36 U.S. 420 (1837), where the case laid down the rule that public contracts must be construed in favor of states.

In 1848, Greenleaf retired from his active duties, and became professor emeritus. After being for many years president of the Massachusetts Bible Society, he died at Cambridge. Greenleaf's well-known work, a Treatise on the Law of Evidence, is considered a classic of American jurisprudence. Greenleaf prepared the original constitution of the Colony of Liberia.