A STUDY IN LEGAL ADMINISTRATION AND RECORDS SHARON ...

often bound by judgments based on previous cases.
Just as it had in comrnon law, greed interfered with the administration of
justice. Clerks in the Chancery office charged fees for the preparation of
documents. Fees were charged for the expedition of suits and officiais accepted
gifts when cases were successfutly ~ncluded.~' In addition, many of the offices
in Chancery were bought and sold (an abuse that also existed in comrnon law).
There were atternpts at refonn as early as the sixteenth century. But
while these solved some problems they frequently aeated new ones in their
stead. Lord Ellesmere, chancellor at the beginning of the seventeenth century,
remedied certain Chancery abuses.15 Near the end of that œntury Lord
Nottingham began systematizing the rules and procedures of Chan~ery.'~ Later
chancellors clarified the uses of specific performance and the injunctions.
However, by the nineteenth century equitable justice remained so dependent on
precedent that the system lost much of its efficiency and many plaintiffs
languished for years "in Chancery" without ever obtaining relief.
Resolution of these problems was finally effected through parliament.
The three Judicature Acts of 1 87 1 -76 abolished the Chancery and the medieval
cornmon law courts and replaced them with a single court, the Supreme Court of
Judicature.17 This new Supreme Court included the High Court of Justice, and
the Court of Appeal (divided into civil and criminal, with final appeal to the House
of Lords). The High Court, after some amalgamations, ultimately incorporated
the Queen's Bench Division, the Chancery Division, and the Family Division