James Kent (July 31, 1763 – December 12, 1847) was an American jurist, New York legislator, legal scholar, and first Professor of Law at Columbia College.

[3] Despite interruptions caused by the American Revolutionary War, Kent graduated from Yale College in 1781, having helped establish Phi Beta Kappa society there in 1780.

[6] In 1793, Kent moved his family to New York City, where he had been appointed the first professor of law in Columbia College, where he would teach (part-time) for the next five years.

[8] In 1821 he was a member of the New York State Constitutional Convention where he unsuccessfully opposed the raising of the property qualification for African American voters.

[10] Kent has been long remembered for his Commentaries on American Law (four volumes, published 1826–1830), highly respected in England and America.

His judgments of this class cover a wide range of topics, and are so thoroughly considered and developed as unquestionably to form the basis of American equity jurisprudence.