Jurists, or legal scholars, have had a profound impact on the development of the law. Their emergence can be traced back to ancient Rome and traced through the centuries to today. Since their inception, jurists have worked in like-minded schools united by the particular project they were pursuing. The project can be described by the goal they sought and the methods they used to achieve it. These projects were heavily influenced by their historical context and as such they pursued different goals by different methods. This proved helpful to later jurists who used the writings of previous schools to learn from both their successes and their failures. However there was one crucial element that all jurists throughout the ages have had in common: their attempts to understand and explain the law. This book is an intellectual history of the work of Western jurists from ancient Rome to the present. It describes how the law has been reshaped by the work of these successive schools. For each school, the book introduces its emergence within its historical context, the prevailing aims and methods of scholars working in it; and its legacy for legal thought and scholarship.

A masterful overview of Islamic law and its diversity Al-Qadi al-Nu'man was the chief legal theorist and ideologue of the North African Fatimid dynasty in the tenth century. This translation makes available in English for the first time his major work on Islamic legal theory, which presents a legal model in support of the Fatimids’ principle of legitimate rule over the Islamic community. Composed as part of a grand project to establish the theoretical bases of the official Fatimid legal school, Disagreements of the Jurists expounds a distinctly Shi'i system of hermeneutics, which refutes the methods of legal interpretation adopted by Sunni jurists. The work begins with a discussion of the historical causes of jurisprudential divergence in the first Islamic centuries, and goes on to address, point by point, the specific interpretive methods of Sunni legal theory, arguing that they are both illegitimate and ineffective. While its immediate mission is to pave the foundation of the legal Isma'ili tradition, the text also preserves several Islamic legal theoretical works no longer extant—including Ibn Dawud’s manual, al-Wusul ila ma'rifat al-usul—and thus throws light on a critical stage in the historical development of Islamic legal theory (usul al-fiqh) that would otherwise be lost to history. A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

This book examines the development of legal professionalism in the early English common law, with specific reference to the 13th-century treatise known as Bracton and to its likely authors.

From the early days of European settlement in North America, Christianity has had a profound impact on American law and culture. This volume profiles nineteen of America's most influential Christian jurists from the early colonial era to the present day. Anyone interested in American legal history and jurisprudence, the role Christianity has played throughout the nation's history, and the relationship between faith and law will enjoy this worthy and unique study. The jurists covered in this collection were pious men and women, but that does not mean they agreed on how faith should inform law. From Roger Williams and John Cotton to Antonin Scalia and Mary Ann Glendon, America's great Christian jurists have brought their faith to bear on the practice of law in different ways and to different effects.

A sitting justice reflects upon the authority of the Supreme CourtÑhow that authority was gained and how measures to restructure the Court could undermine both the Court and the constitutional system of checks and balances that depends on it. A growing chorus of officials and commentators argues that the Supreme Court has become too political. On this view the confirmation process is just an exercise in partisan agenda-setting, and the jurists are no more than Òpoliticians in robesÓÑtheir ostensibly neutral judicial philosophies mere camouflage for conservative or liberal convictions. Stephen Breyer, drawing upon his experience as a Supreme Court justice, sounds a cautionary note. Mindful of the CourtÕs history, he suggests that the judiciaryÕs hard-won authority could be marred by reforms premised on the assumption of ideological bias. Having, as Hamilton observed, Òno influence over either the sword or the purse,Ó the Court earned its authority by making decisions that have, over time, increased the publicÕs trust. If public trust is now in decline, one part of the solution is to promote better understandings of how the judiciary actually works: how judges adhere to their oaths and how they try to avoid considerations of politics and popularity. Breyer warns that political intervention could itself further erode public trust. Without the publicÕs trust, the Court would no longer be able to act as a check on the other branches of government or as a guarantor of the rule of law, risking serious harm to our constitutional system.