Nussbaum, Arthur (1877–1964)

Arthur Nussbaum was a German jurist, born in Berlin, best known for his writings on private international law, the law of money, and the history of public international law. He left Nazi Germany and came to Columbia Law School in 1934 and remained active as a scholar there until shortly before his death.

Nussbaum came to prominence in 1914 when he published Die Rechtstatsachenvorschung (Fact Research in Law), an innovative forty-eight-page tract that anticipated some elements of American legal realism. His book that same year on the German law of mortgages applied this manifesto, connecting legal doctrine with socioeconomic practice, and used statistical data in a way that was then uncommon in legal texts.

He moved from private legal practice in 1914 and became Privatdozent, and from ...