William Callyhan Robinson

"An experience of several years, in the direction of legal studies, has convinced the author, that the progress of the student, in the different branches of the law, is vastly facilitated by a previous examination of those branches collectively, and with reference to their relations to each other."

"For more than forty years I have been a frequenter of court-rooms, and have studied the modes in which the trials of causes are conducted from the various points of view of a spectator, a court officer, a participating counsel, and a judge. The conviction was long since forced upon my mind that the enormous waste of time and energy involved in these proceedings is due to a want of method in preparing and presenting causes, whereby the conflicts of the forum, which should consist in the concentration of well ordered forces on the exact points of attack and defence, degenerate into a guerilla warfare of indefinite duration, characterized by irregular and often fruitless sallies, surprises, and retreats."

"His thorough knowledge of law made him eminent as a teacher and enabled him to render important service to the Church."