Equity helps maintain the structures within property called for by the rule of law,
but something similar holds true of the legal system as a whole. The overall architecture
of formal structures and equitable safety valves is replicated on a more macro level, in
part for similar reasons of information cost. The rule-of-law criteria themselves are
formal and can be evaded opportunistically. Evasion of the rule of law criteria is the
most straightforward and thoroughgoing way in which a formal version of the rule of law
is consistent with “bad law.” Prevention of substantive evasion of the rule of law requires
(limited) reference to norms outside the formal law, in a macro version of equity. Just as
moral and information cost theories tend to converge at the level of legal doctrine, so too
formal law and what used to be known as “natural justice” or “natural equity” can be seen
to point in similar directions at the level of the law as a whole.