Degree Recipient

Life Experience

Raised in poverty, David Walter LaFollette was born the tenth of eleven children of Robert and Martha LaFollette. His parents had immigrated to the Indiana Territory in 1804. He studied law with W. A. Porter of Corydon, Indiana, before attending IU, where he received his Bachelor of Laws degree in 1849. That same year, he was admitted to the bar and started practice in Corydon, Indiana. In 1852, he was elected district attorney for the court of common pleas. Three years later, he moved to New Albany and formed a partnership with James Collins.

For the next thirty-one years, LaFollette served the legal profession in a variety of ways: as an elected judge of the court of common pleas of Floyd County in 1872, the appointed prosecuting attorney of Floyd and Clark Counties in 1872, and as a law professor at IU in 1873. He spent the rest of his career in New Albany, where he was city attorney  in 1881 and 1886 before being named prosecuting attorney of the circuit court. From 1880 to his death in 1888, he was an elder in the Christian church and president of the New Albany City School Board.

Marriage and Family

On April 17, 1850, LaFollette married Catharine R. Goldsberry. On November 2, 1862, Catharine died, leaving one daughter. In 1868, he married Harriett A. Williams.

Interesting Anecdote

W. Cottom wrote that LaFollette “in early life learned that honest toil is the surest road to prosperity. By his own labor he acquired the means to defray his expenses at the State University, and graduated from the law department.”

References

1. Wylie
2. Findagrave.com
3. repository.law.indiana.edu/formerfaculty/49/
4. Cottom, C. W. (1889) “Floyd County” in Gresham, pp. 63-69