Samuel Williston

Jurist, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He was professor (1890–1938) and active professor emeritus (1938–63) at Harvard Law School. He continued in private practice into his nineties and became Harvard's oldest living alumnus. His Law of Contracts (5 vols, 1920–2) became a standard, and he codified commercial law that was adopted by most American states. The American Bar Association awarded him its first gold medal in 1929.

Samuel Williston (September 24, 1861 - February 18, 1963) is an American lawyer and law professor.

Early in Williston's career, from 1888 to 1889 he worked as the private secretary to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Horace Gray.

From 1895 to 1938, Williston served as a law professor at Harvard Law School, and in 1910, he briefly served as acting dean.

He became a consultant for the Boston law firm Hale &

First published during the span of 1920 to 1922, Williston wrote 5 volumes of "The Law of Contracts" which were widely acclaimed as the foremost authority on the topic and was later enlarged in 1938.

In 1929, Williston was honored with the very first American Bar Association medal for "conspicuous service to American jurisprudence."

In a 1963 Harvard Law Review essay (76 Harv.