Walter Collins Clephane (1867 – August 15, 1951)[1][2] was an American attorney and author best known for his 1926 Handbook of the Law of Equity Pleading and Practice.
Career
editHe gained admission to the bar in 1899.[2]
In 1904, Clephane was one of the founders of the Intercontinental Correspondence University.[3] The report of its establishment noted:
The incorporators and the trustees are Justice David J. Brewer and Justice Henry Brown of the supreme court of the United States, Senator Chauncey M. Depew of New York, the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, Senator George F. Hoar of Massachusetts, Henry B. F. MacFarland, commissioner of the District of Columbia, Channing Rudd, registrar of Columbia university, Martin A. Knapp, chairman of the interstate commerce commission, and Walter C. Clephane, a prominent Washington attorney. The Capital stock is $1,000,000 divided into 10,000 shares at $100 each. The object of the corporation is stated to be "to give and furnish instructions by mail or otherwise, in any or all branches of knowledge in any or all parts of the world".[3]
He served in the United States Army during World War I, in the office of the judge advocate general, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel.[1][2]
Clephane "helped draft revised rules of practice in District court and was the author of legal volumes on corporations and equity. He taught for 39 years in George Washington university law school and became a professor emeritus in 1936".[1]
He was a member of the firm of Clephane, Latimer and Hall until its dissolution in 1949.[2]
Publishing
editIn 1926, he published the Handbook of the Law of Equity Pleading and Practice, as a successor to Benjamin Jonson Shipman's long out of date Handbook of the Law of Equity Pleading.[4]
Colonel Clephane's experience as a practitioner in the District of Columbia and as a teacher in the George Washington School of Law qualify him for writing a book, balanced in theory and practicality. The leading rules and principles are stated with clarity and succinctly. The footnotes contain references to many of the leading decisions and to sections from Langdell, Story, Daniell, Van Zile, Fletcher, Foster and other writers on the subject. Features of much utility are an outline of the steps in an equity suit (pp. 17-19), the Federal Equity Rules revised to date, and a complete set of forms. A table of cases is lacking.[4]
Personal life and death
editClephane married Nellie Walker, with whom he had two sons.[1]
Clephane died of heart disease in Blue Hill, Maine, at the age of 84.[2] He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.[2]
References
edit- 1 2 3 4 "Walter C. Clephane". Washington Times Herald. August 17, 1951. p. 30 – via newspapers.com.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Obituary for Walter C. Clephane". The Washington Daily News. August 16, 1951. p. 43 – via newspapers.com.
- 1 2 "To Furnish Knowledge For The Whole World", Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette (August 11, 1904), p. 2.
- 1 2 George Gleason Bogert, "Book Review (reviewing Walter C. Clephane, Handbook of the Law of Equity Pleading and Practice (1926))", 13 Cornell Law Quarterly 160 (1927).
Category:1867 births Category:1951 deaths Category:United States Army personnel of World War I Category:United States Army officers
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