Charting the Divide Between Common and Civil Law

What does it mean when civil lawyers and common lawyers think differently? In Charting the Divide between Common and Civil Law, Thomas Lundmark provides a comprehensive introduction to the uses, purposes, and approaches to studying civil and common law in a comparative legal framework. Superbly organized and exhaustively written, this volume covers the jurisdictions of Germany, Sweden, England and Wales, and the United States, and includes a discussion of each country's legal issues, structure, and their general rules. Professor Lundmark also explores the discipline of comparative legal studies, rectifying many of the misconceptions and prejudices that cloud our understanding of the divide between the common law and civil law traditions. Students of international law, comparative law, social philosophy, and legal theory will find this volume a valuable introduction to common and civil law. Lawyers, judges, political scientists, historians, and philosophers will also find this book valuable as a source of reference. Charting the Divide between Common and Civil Law equips readers with the background and tools to think critically about different legal systems and evaluate their future direction.
"Thomas Lundmark rightly challenges taxonomic and static appreciation of 'legal families' in the world and does so in the most effective manner, through detailed and informed appreciation of the institutions of specific jurisdictions. England, Sweden, Germany and the U.S.A. are here dynamically compared with one another in terms of prevailing legal philosophy, legal linguistics, legal actors and legal methods. The treatment is erudite and cosmopolitan, the conclusions irresistible. It is a splendid book."
--H. Patrick Glenn, Peter M. Laing Professor of Law, McGill University

"In Charting the Divide Between Common and Civil Law, Thomas Lundmark explains what makes legal systems unique and questions the value of the conventional distinction between 'civil law' and 'common law' systems. He illustrates this through an impressive survey of scholarship, particularly on Germany and the USA, as well as England and Wales and Sweden. He offers a sophisticated picture of legal reasoning that includes the structure of language and jurisprudential traditions, professions, and the interpretation of statutes and precedents. He demonstrates convincingly that such a picture reveals the individuality of legal systems and the need to avoid traditional stereotypes in the classification of legal families."
--John Bell, Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, UK

"Like the question of torture, the policy of targeted killing, based on questionable theories of presidential supremacy wrapped in secrecy, poses fundamental questions of American commitment to long-established principles of international law. Few authoritative commentators have the unique counter-terror operational experience that Professor Guiora, a former IDF legal advisor in Gaza, brings to a critical analysis of how best to formulate a coherent and effective national security strategy that honors the rule of law."
--David R. Irvine, Brigadier General, U.S. Army (RetireINTRODUCTION ; CHAPTER ONE: THE DISCIPLINE OF COMPARATIVE LAW ; CHAPTER TWO: COMPARATIVE LEGAL LINGUISTICS ; CHAPTER THREE: COMPARATIVE JURISPRUDENCE ; CHAPTER FOUR: LAWYERS ; CHAPTER FIVE: JUDGES AND JUDICIARIES ; CHAPTER SIX: LAY JUDGES AND JURIES ; CHAPTER SEVEN: LEGAL REASONING ; CHAPTER EIGHT: STATUTES AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION ; CHAPTER NINE: JUDICIAL PRECEDENTS ; CONCLUSION