1970-1971

Dr. Edith Lond Fisch was confined to a wheelchair due to childhood polio, but she did not let that limit her accomplishments. She earned a B.S. in chemistry from Brooklyn College, was the first person to earn all degrees awarded by Columbia Law School (LL.B., LL.M. and Jur.Sc.D.), and the first woman to earn a Jur.Sc.D. from Columbia. In private practice, she focused on trusts and estates. In 1959, she published Fisch on New York Evidence, widely used by bench and bar and as a law school text. In addition to nearly forty law review articles, she authored The Cy Pres Doctrine in the United States (1951) and Charities and Charitable Foundations (1974). Appointed an Assistant Professor at New York Law School in 1963, the school’s first female law professor. She later returned to private practice and passed away in 2006. In 2009, Columbia unveiled a plaque honoring Dr. Fisch, who bequeathed $1.8 million to endow the Law Library Collection in perpetuity.