Definition
To "do equity" is to act in conformity with equitable principles toward an opposing party as a condition of receiving equitable relief. A court of equity will not aid a petitioner who refuses to recognize or fulfill the equitable rights of the party against whom relief is sought. The principle operates both as a threshold condition and as a remedial constraint: a party must either have done equity, have offered to do equity, or be prepared to be compelled to do equity before a court will exercise its equitable jurisdiction in that party's favor.
The doctrine is closely connected to the clean hands maxim but is distinct from it. Clean hands looks backward — it asks whether the petitioner acted wrongfully in acquiring or asserting the right at issue. Do equity looks forward and laterally — it asks whether the petitioner is willing to honor the counterpart's legitimate equitable interests as part of the relief sought. A court may simultaneously grant relief to a petitioner and condition that relief on the petitioner's performance of obligations owed to the other side.
Common Confusion
Do equity is frequently conflated with the clean hands doctrine (sometimes rendered as "he who comes into equity must come with clean hands"). The two are related but operate differently. Clean hands is a defense — misconduct by the petitioner bars relief entirely. Do equity is a condition — the petitioner may obtain relief but only on terms that protect the respondent's equitable entitlements. A petitioner with clean hands may still be required to do equity; a petitioner who will do equity may still be barred by unclean hands. Researchers should not treat these as synonymous when reading historical equity pleading or chancery opinions.
Do equity is also sometimes confused with the broader maxim "equity will not suffer a wrong without a remedy." That maxim concerns whether equitable jurisdiction exists at all; do equity concerns the terms on which it is exercised.
Why It Matters in Research
The phrase appears throughout chancery records, equity pleadings, and treatises in ways that can mislead researchers unfamiliar with its technical function. Several research traps deserve attention.
First, in older English and American chancery practice, a bill in equity routinely included a formal offer to "do equity" as part of the pleading structure. This was not mere rhetorical courtesy — it was a legally operative statement that could affect whether the bill survived demurrer. Researchers reading historical pleadings should recognize this as a term of art, not a vague moral appeal.
Second, the doctrine has a particularly visible application in mortgage law. A mortgagor seeking to redeem property or resist foreclosure was traditionally required to tender the full amount due — to do equity toward the mortgagee — as a condition of the court's intervention. This connects directly to equity of redemption doctrine and explains why redemption cases in historical reports often condition relief on payment or tender. The Property Law Encyclopedia entry on equity of redemption develops this context.
Third, after the merger of law and equity under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (1938) and equivalent state reforms, the do equity principle did not disappear — it migrated. Modern courts apply it through the conditional structuring of injunctions, the imposition of equitable terms on declaratory relief, and in restitution and unjust enrichment analysis. Researchers working in post-merger materials should look for the substance of the doctrine even when the phrase itself is absent.
Fourth, the principle surfaces in international and commercial arbitration contexts as a general principle of fairness, sometimes divorced from its strict equity-court origins. Researchers should be alert to this expanded usage and not assume the technical chancery meaning applies.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary states the principle broadly: it applies "to all classes of cases whenever necessary to promote justice" and requires that a party seeking equitable aid "shall have accorded, shall offer to accord, or will be compelled to accord, to the other party all the equitable rights to which the other is entitled in respect to the subject matter." Bouvier further notes that relief inconsistent with the equities of the adverse party will be withheld.
This tripartite formulation — has done, offers to do, will be compelled to do — is the most precise historical articulation of the doctrine's scope and is worth holding onto for research purposes. It confirms that the requirement is not solely a threshold condition on the petitioner's conduct before filing; the court retains authority to structure relief so that the respondent's equitable rights are protected even when the petitioner has not voluntarily honored them.
What Bouvier does not fully develop is the relationship between this doctrine and the remedial discretion of equity courts — the idea that a court of equity is not merely enforcing rights but constructing a just outcome between parties. Later treatise writers, including Pomeroy in his Equity Jurisprudence, treat do equity as an expression of that broader remedial philosophy rather than as a mechanical rule.
Jurisdictional Note
The doctrine applies across all American jurisdictions that inherited equity jurisdiction, but its procedural expression varies. In states that merged law and equity early or through constitutional provision rather than procedural rule, the doctrine may appear in common law opinions without explicit reference to equity practice. In jurisdictions that retained separate equity courts into the twentieth century, the formalities of the do equity offer in pleading persisted longer.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Remedies at Law vs. Remedies in Equity — The Adequacy Test and the Merger of Law and Equity (The Law Mind Remedies & Equity Encyclopedia)
Mortgages — Equity of Redemption and Statutory Redemption (The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia)