Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Kent, James

James Kent was a U.S. attorney, judge, and scholar who played a central role in adapting the COMMON LAW of England into the common law of the United States. As a justice and later chief justice of the New York Supreme Court and a chancellor of the New York Court of Chancery (then the highest judicial officer in New York), Kent wrote many decisions that became foundations of nineteenth-century law. Kent's great legal treatise Commentaries on American Law (1826–30) offered the first comprehensive analysis of U.S. law.

Kent was born July 31, 1763, in Putnam County, New York. In 1777 he entered Yale University. The Revolutionary War periodically disrupted his studies. During one of his forced suspensions, Kent read Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–69), which led him to decide on a legal career. Following college he...