1825 Civil Code Bicentennial CLE – From New York Politician to Louisiana Code Writer: The Tumultuous Life and Times of Edward Livingston

Continuing its commemoration of the Bicentennial of the 1825 Civil Code, the Supreme Court of Louisiana Historical Society presented a CLE program on February 13, 2025, on the life and times of Code writ-er Edward Livingston. Delivered at the Historic New Orleans Collection’s Williams Research Center and attended by over 150 people, Phelps Gay’s speech focused on all aspects of Livingston’s “tumultuous” life—from his early days as the child of an aristocratic family in New York’s Hudson River Valley and his service as a Congressman, U.S. Attorney, and Mayor of New York City, to his “escape” from scandal to New Orleans in December 1803, where he reinvented himself as a successful lawyer and a vigorous proponent of civil law.