HISTORY OF LAW REPORTING
 |
Left:
Chancellor James Kent. Portrait courtesy of the Court of Appeals Collection |
 |
Left:
Johnson's Reports and Johnson's Chancery Reports, which contained most of Kent's decisions. |
In New York, these goals were enthusiastically championed by James Kent (1763-1847). An able attorney, law professor and author, Kent was appointed to New York’s Supreme Court of Judicature in 1798 and was named Chief Justice in 1804. Kent lamented the lack of law reporting: "When I came to the Bench there were no reports or State precedents. The opinions from the Bench were delivered ore tenus. We had no law of our own, and nobody knew what it was." As Chief Justice, and later as Chancellor of the Court of Chancery, New York’s court of equity, Kent purposefully and enthusiastically encouraged his brethren to transcribe their decisions and concomitantly sought to foster reliance on these written decisions: "The reports of judicial decisions contain the most certain evidence, and the most authoritative and precise application of the rules of common law."
Above:
Albany, N.Y. in the early 1800s.
New York State Museum & Archives
Page 11
