John Henry Wigmore

John Henry Wigmore (4 March, 1863 – 20 April, 1943) was an American jurist and expert in the law of evidence.

Born in San Francisco, son of John and Harriet Joyner Wigmore, he attended Harvard University and earned the degrees AB in 1883, AM in 1884, and LLB in 1887. He subsequently taught law in Tokyo for several years and then later at Northwestern University. He was the dean of Northwestern Law School from 1901 to 1929. In 1904 he published his most famous work, "Treatise on the Anglo-American System of Evidence in Trials at Common Law" (usually known as "Wigmore on Evidence" or just "Wigmore"), an encyclopedic survey of the development of the law of evidence.

Wigmore's evidence rules are still used by many U.S. courts, including the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Among other things, these rules hold that evidence inadvertently disclosed is fair game in court, even if that evidence should have been protected by attorney-client privilege. The Wigmore rules might conflict with the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which endorse so called "claw-back" agreements, under which a producing party can assert privilege over evidence after it has been produced.

In the 1880s Wigmore was also a leader for election law reform issues such as the secret voting method, and fair ballot access laws.

He also developed a graphical method for analysis of evidence known as the Wigmore chart.

Bibliography

External links

* [http://www.library.northwestern.edu/archives/findingaids/wigmore.pdf John Henry Wigmore Papers, 1868-2006, Northwestern University Archives, Evanston, Illinois]