THE LAW SCHOOL AND THE PROFESSIONAL TRADITION

Authors

Roscoe Pound, Law School, Harvard University

Abstract

Only historians know that Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin were once, at least in legal theory, governed by the Custom of Paris. That fact has not left a mark upon the actual law of any of those jurisdictions. Nor is the reason far to seek. In the pioneer days of the French occupation of this part of North America there was little scope for such law as is to be found in books. There was need only for a rude administration of offhand justice in the simple concerns of a frontier society. And had there been need for anything more, the chances are that there was no one in the region who knew much about what the Custom of Paris was. In like manner the legal theory is that our forefathers brought to this country the common law of England as their inheritance. But let us remember that it was a long time before the common law of England, as any actual body of legal precepts, was in fact a measure of the administration of justice in what are now the United States. In colonial America the administration of justice was chiefly either ministerial or legislative. It was for the most part in the hands of magistrates who were either clergymen or soldiers. Indeed, in the simple society of colonial America, there was little need for law as we now understand it. The chief problem was to keep the peace. There was no complex social and economic structure requiring an elaborate legal apparatus as a condition of its existence.

Recommended Citation

Roscoe Pound, THE LAW SCHOOL AND THE PROFESSIONAL TRADITION, 24 Mich. L. Rev. 156 (1925).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol24/iss2/5