From the Anglo-Saxons to the ABA

I did it.  And it was quite an accomplishment, if I do say so myself.  I read all 1144 pages of Professors Langbein, Lerner and Smith’s massive textbook on legal history: History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions (Aspen, 2009).

This book could be described as everything you ever wanted to know about the Common Law but was afraid to ask.  The book begins by describing law and order in Anglo-Saxon England before the Norman Conquest of 1066 and ends with a description of the legal profession in the United States in the twenty first century.

Greatest Stars of the Common Law:  Lord Chief Justice Edward Coke

If you ever wanted to know what procedure was utilized in the Court of the Exchequer in the 18th century, this is the book for you.  It took me, off and on, probably about six months of mornings to read this all the way through.  It was a really worthwhile experience.  I learned a great deal of interesting facts which explain why we do things the way we do them.  For instance, the authors opine that the procedure of the Chancery Courts in England have swallowed up the Common Law in Civil Cases in the modern United States.  All of our pre-trial discovery procedures, interrogatories, depositions and pre-trial motions have their root in the practice of the Courts of Equity.  A common law trial on the other hand, was a pleading contest to narrow an issue to submit to a jury.  Depositions and written interrogatories were unknown to the Common Law.

There are liberal quotes throughout the book from all of the “greats” of the law.  Lord Hale, Lord Cook, and Blackstone are all here as well as American greats like John Marshall, Oliver Wendall Holmes, and Benjamin Cardozo.

If you have any interest in legal history, and you have the time.  History of the Common Law by Langbein, Lerner and Smith is well worth your time.

Professor John H. Langbein, Sterling Professor of Legal History, Yale University