Joseph James Darlington (February 10, 1849- June 24, 1920), was an attorney, author of Darlington on Personal Property, and instructor in the Georgetown University Law School from 1881-1900.
He was born in South Carolina and educated at Erskine College. He received his legal education at Columbian College (now George Washington University) where he graduated with a bachelor of laws degree in 1875 and was first appointed to the Georgetown Law School faculty in 1881. For the next twenty years he taught a variety of courses on personal property , contracts, testamentary law, and domestic relations. In 886, he received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Georgetown and in 1891 he published Darlington on Personal Property. In 1920, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the law School his portrait was hung, alongside other influential members of the Law School faculty, in the Law School library.1
He had an office on 5th Street in northwest D.C. and among his clients were the Washington Railway and Electric Company and the Potomac Electric Power Company and Riggs National Bank. After his death, a memorial fountain to him was erected in Judiciary Park at 5th Street and D Street by his friends and colleagues.2
- 1Georgetown University in the District of Columbia, 1789-1907, its founders, benefactors, officers, instructors and alumni. James Stanislaus Easby-Smith. New York : Lewis, 1907; The Hoya, October 8, 1920, page 8; "J. J. Darlington Called by Death," The Washington Post, June 25, 1920; Darlington Memorial Fountain entry on Wikipedia
- 2Darlington Memorial Fountain entry on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlington_Memorial_Fountain
