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| Authored by: IANALitj on Sunday, March 31 2013 @ 01:52 PM EDT |
The following is gross generalizations. "All generalizations have
exceptions, including this one."
Most of the law in the United States is state law, not Federal law. In many
respects, the state law is (mostly, but not entirely) based in turn on the
common law originally derived from England. One of the characteristics of
common law jurisprudence is that common law judges tend to pay attention to
common law decisions from other common law courts (although this is a matter of
accepting what they find persuasive, not of being bound by decisions
elsewhere).
The common law base in most states is heavily overlaid by extensive tinkering by
all the states' legislatures. (Some of this is not mere tinkering, but rather
innovation in over two hundred years since U.S. independence from Britain.)
Moreover, judges in the different states sometimes make different decisions.
This means that each of the fifty states (and several other non-state U.S.
jurisdictions) has laws -- and law -- that can differ from all the others.
U.S. Federal law covers a wide variety of important subjects, and can override
contrary state law. The U.S. constitution explicitly imposes some limits on
what the states can do and (by virtue of language in the 14th Amendment) now
implicitly imposes a great many more. There is a wikipedia article about this,
"Incorporation of the Bill of Rights."
Nevertheless, most law in the United States is at the state and local level.
Before the time when law was available online, a lawyer would (in my experience,
and always depending on the nature of the practice) most often need to consult
his or her state's statutes, that state's court decisions, and the U.S.
statutes. The need to consult the considerable body of federal court decisions
would arise less frequently.
The law of conversion is just one of innumerable examples. It dates back to the
common law, and applies (with local differences) almost entirely as a matter of
state law in the United States.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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