1.2 — An Overview of Common Law — Class Content
Contents
Thursday, February 4, 2021
Overview
Today we discuss some of the major terms and distinctions between areas of law and types of legal systems, focusing on the common law and the legal institutions in the United States.
Readings
Recommended/Referenced Readings
Ch. 3 in Cooter and Ulen, 2012, Law & Economics
Hayek (1973), “The Changing Concept of Law,” Ch.4 in in Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Vol.1
Chapter 3 of the textbook provides a good overview of these issues.
Hayek discusses the nature of the common law, and how the role of judges is to “discover” what the law is (rather than make it), and this is very different from our nature of legislation (Congress makes a law). He also discusses how common law evolves, and a bit of the history of the idea of law. I highly recommend reading this to get a sense of how the Anglo-American legal system works, and why there is a large degree of spontaneous order (like markets).
Slides
Assignments
Discussion Board
While this week will not be for a grade, let’s give the Blackboard discussions a try. I will open a discussion board on this week’s topics if you would like to discuss any of the suggested readins, or content we discussed in class.