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Legal History

Georgetown University Law Center

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Equity

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Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

A Profusion Of Chancery Reform, James Oldham Jan 2004

A Profusion Of Chancery Reform, James Oldham

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The refrain that law and equity cannot peaceably cohabit the same court is familiar and persistent. In his 1790 treatise on contracts, Joseph Powell protested that blending law and equity was "subversive of first principles." He claimed, "That a right in itself purely legal cannot be the proper subject of discussion in a jurisdiction purely equitable, and that a right purely equitable, cannot be the proper subject of a purely legal jurisdiction, are axioms that cannot be denied," adding for good measure: "It is a proposition as self-evident as that black is not red, or white black." Almost two centuries …


Foreword: Is Reliance Still Dead?, Randy E. Barnett Jan 2001

Foreword: Is Reliance Still Dead?, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

One thing I found out when I was a prosecutor is that you should never tell a police officer he cannot do something, for that just serves as an open invitation for him to do it. In recent years, I have learned a similar lesson about legal scholarship which I should probably keep to myself but won't. If you proclaim the existence of a scholarly "consensus," this is an open invitation for academics to try to demolish such a claim.