Comparative Study, United Kingdom, United States of America, America, Russia 

"One of the casualties of the current approach to law is a sense of history, a feeling for the direction and growth of the law and its institutions. Today's pressure from current problems too often crowds out a genetic examination of lawmaking organs like the judiciary and the legislature - which control the quality of our law. The Life of the Law a text composed of beautifully written, provocative essays on the central institutions of lawmaking, integrated and bound together by the editor's connecting commentary remedies this. It sketches in landmarks in the development of legal ideas and institutions and examines the dynamic growth and problems of lawmaking..." - Jacket 

Contents:
The place of history in understanding the law / by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. -- Origins of legal institutions / by Frederic W. Maitland -- Later development : Coke and beyond / by Frederic W. Maitland -- The development of equity / by Frederic W. Maitland -- A view of equity from The commentaries / by William Blackstone -- The case-law system : historical factors which controlled its development / by William Searle Holdsworth -- Law and authority in early Massachusetts / by George L. Haskins -- The formative era of American law / by Roscoe Pound -- The administration of equity through common-law forms / by Sydney G. Fisher -- Law and social change in the United States / by Carl A. Auerbach -- An offer to codify the law of the United States / by Jeremy Bentham -- Report on Codification to the House of Representatives of Massachusetts -- The movement leading to codes in the West / by Maurice Harrison -- First Report of the Commissioners of the Code (1858) / by David Dudley Field, William Curtis Noyes and Alexander W. Bradford -- Introduction to the completed Civil Code (1865) / by David Dudley Field and Alexander W. Bradford -- Reasons for codification / by David Dudley Field -- The proposed codification of our common law / by James Carter -- The first half-century of the California Civil Code / by Maurice Harrison -- A strange story -- The advisability of codifying Anglo-American law / by Roscoe Pound -- Report of the Committee on the Establishment of a Permanent Organization for the Improvement of the Law -- How we did it / by William Draper Lewis -- What should the American Law Institute do? / by Hessel E. Yntema -- The Restatement of the Law of Contracts / by Charles E. Clark -- A review of the Property Restatement / by Myres S. McDougal -- The restatements as they were in the beginning, are now, and perhaps henceforth shall be / W. Barton Leach -- New law in the restatements / by Harrison Tweed -- Restatement and codification / by Herbert F. Goodrich -- The democratic revolution in America, 1830-1850 / by Evan Haynes -- Courts and politics in New York City / by Wallace S. Sayre and Herbert Kaufman -- Magistrates' courts in operation : the Philadelphia story -- Judicial selection / by Sidney Schulman -- Federal judicial selection : the role of the American Bar Association / by Bernard G. Segal -- The bar reviews the judicial appointments of President Kennedy / by Bernard G. Segal-- The selection of judges in England : a standard for comparison / by Morse Erskine -- Politics, the bar, and the selection of judges / by Francis D. Wormuth and S. Grover Rich, Jr. -- A ministry of justice / by Benjamin N. Cardozo -- Legal research translated into legislative action : the New York Law Revision commission 1934-1963 / by John W. MacDonald -- The makers of laws : the state legislature / by S. Gale Lowrie -- Twentieth-century legislatures for twentieth-century problems / by Richard L. Neuberger -- The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws / by James W. Day -- The British system / by Herman Finer -- The gap in lawmaking : judges who can't and legislators who won't / by Henry J. Friendly -- The development and role of the administrative process / by Kenneth Culp Davis -- Changing attitudes toward the administrative process / by Walter Gellhorn -- The modern legal profession / by A.A. Berle -- The bar as lawmaker / Whitney North Seymour -- Comments / by Harry W. Jones -- Too little progress / by Morris L. Ernst -- Comments / by Arthur T. Vanderbilt and Charles E. Clark -- Equal access to justice : the challenge and the opportunity / by Orison S. Marden -- The people behind Legal Aid statistics -- The profession and practice of the law in England and America / by L.C.B. Gower and Leolin Price -- The Wall Street lawyers / by Spencer Klaw -- Review of Levy, corporation lawyer ... saint or sinner? / by A.A. Berle -- The emerging role of the corporate counsel / by Leon E. Hickman -- The civil law system : an historical introduction / by Arthur T. von Mehren -- The code systems / by Rudolf B. Schlesinger -- French legal tradition / by Rene David and Henry D. Devries -- The approach to German law / by Max Rheinstein -- The comparison of Soviet and American law / by Harold J. Berman -- The dilemma of Soviet law reform / by Harold J. Berman -- Taught law is tough law / by Robert A. Leflar -- The tapestry unfolds / by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Catalogued by editor.