Definition
A Latin phrase used in pleading and legal instruments meaning "in consideration thereof." The phrase functioned as a formulaic connective in formal legal documents — particularly writs, declarations, and contracts — linking a stated consideration to the obligation or promise that followed from it. It signaled that what came next in the instrument was grounded upon, and arose directly out of, the consideration previously recited.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of pure pleading craft, not substantive law. Researchers encountering it in historical instruments, writs, or printed forms should treat it as structural punctuation within the document rather than as a term carrying independent legal weight. Its presence marks the transition from the recital of consideration to the operative clause — understanding this prevents misreading the logical architecture of early common law pleadings and contracts.
The phrase appears almost exclusively in pre-twentieth-century materials. It drops out of modern legal drafting entirely as plain-English drafting conventions displaced Latin formulae. Researchers searching digitized historical court records, deed books, or early American contract forms may encounter it without any gloss; the historical dictionaries are the primary reference point.
Because all four source dictionaries give an identical, minimal entry — "in consideration thereof" plus a single citation to 3 Salk. 64, pl. 5 — there is no meaningful doctrinal dispute about the phrase's meaning. The research challenge is recognition, not interpretation.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (both editions), Burrill, and Bouvier are in complete agreement: the phrase means "in consideration thereof," and all four entries cite the same authority — 3 Salk. 64, pl. 5 (Salkeld's Reports). The unanimity is itself informative: this was never a contested term. It belonged to the fixed vocabulary of Latin pleading formulas that practitioners and clerks reproduced by rote.
Burrill's identification of the phrase as "L. Lat." (Law Latin, as distinct from classical Latin) is the only editorial addition across the four entries. This is a useful flag: Law Latin was a specialized, often grammatically irregular register used in English legal proceedings for centuries, not classical prose. Researchers should not expect to resolve ambiguities in such phrases by consulting classical Latin sources.
What the historical dictionaries do not supply: any analysis of how the phrase interacted with the doctrine of consideration, or how courts treated instruments that used it improperly or omitted it. For that substantive question, treatise sources on the law of contracts and pleading are necessary.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Consideration (Contracts); Latin Terms in Pleading and Practice