MIXED JURISDICTIONS COMPARED: PRIVATE LAW IN LOUISIANA AND SCOTLAND. Ed by Vernon Valentine Palmer and Elspeth Christie Reid Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh Studies in Law vol 6, 2009. xxxvii + 424 pp. ISBN 9780748638864. £60.
| Pages | 129-130 |
| Date | 01 January 2012 |
| Published date | 01 January 2012 |
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2012.0090 |
| Author | Ross Gilbert Anderson |
The relationship between Scotland and Louisiana may not be obvious. But the links are deep. They immediately focus on Law – not the system, but the person: John Law of Lauriston, a character with whose biography (which James Buchan has written) the course of history itself changes course. Louisiana's break with France can be traced to the actions of this remarkable Scotsman when, in his capacity as
This collection of essays, however, celebrates two other shared traditions – that of the mixed legal system and, ever important for law, a shared language. The law of Louisiana is, in principle, easily accessible to Scots lawyers. No particular foreign language skills are required. Many of the issues with which the courts of Louisiana have had to deal have been taken in the context of a political system which successive British governments tell us is closer to our own than anywhere else. If there is a difficulty in locating the law of Louisiana, it is because of the neglect of law libraries in Scotland (the Old College library in Edinburgh University is the honourable exception). Some law librarians consider foreign material in the same way as Mary Ann Glendon compared the general attitude of American lawyers to comparative law: “similar to a taste for fine wine – some familiarity with them is a sign of good taste and refinement, but to specialize in them is apt to be considered wasteful or extravagant or worse”.
But, as these essays show, not only is there a rich and cosmopolitan civilian tradition within Louisiana; much, but not all, of it is embodied in the...
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