Tim Toohey is a native of Bozeman, Montana. After graduating from Bozeman High School, Tim attended Stanford University, where he graduated with honors with a degree in history and German. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship (one of thirty two given in the United States each year) and attended Wadham College, Oxford University. At Oxford, Tim earned a first class degree in Modern History. He then attended Harvard University, where he received a PhD in the Department of History with a thesis on the nineteenth century English legal profession: Piety and the Professions: Sir John Coleridge and His Sons (Garland Press, 1987).
Tim attended Berkeley Law and has practiced for over twenty-five years as a lawyer. He has not only been active practicing lawyer, but a teacher and historian. He has taught classes at Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles on European History and the history of the United States constitution. He has also developed an on-line class at University of San Diego Law School.