It draws its cases from areas of the law which have resisted rational analysis, largely because they have tenaciously preserved the language of an earlier age. Common lawyers found themselves unable to escape from money had and received, money paid, quantum meruit , while those on the chancery side became defensively fond of the unsolved mysteries of tracing and trusts arising by operation of law. In the result down to earth questions about getting back money and value in other forms have been made to seem much more difficult than they need be. The aim of any course on restitution must be to try to understand what has really been going on and to play back that understanding to the courts in accessible modern language. These aims are helped by keeping an eye on the main lines of civilian solutions to the problems with which the common law has to wrestle.
Teaching is through sixteen seminars.
The seminars are supported by a number of lectures and by the provision of tutorials arranged by college tutors. A detailed account of the course is produced every year in booklet form. In that booklet the subject of every lecture and seminar is set out, with a list of cases and other materials to be read, together with questions and problems intended to stimulate thought. Two of these matters, namely subrogation and resulting trusts, are considerably more likely to rise to the surface in this way than the others.