Husa, Jaakko --- "Legal families*" [2012] ELECD 1002; in Smits, M. Jan (ed), "Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, Second Edition" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012) 491

Book Title: Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, Second Edition

Editor(s): Smits, M. Jan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849804158

Section: Chapter 40

Section Title: Legal families*

Author(s): Husa, Jaakko

Number of pages: 14

Abstract/Description:

Comparative law is notoriously accustomed to dealing with big packages as for example common law, civil law and Islamic law. As is well known, these are called ‘legal families’ in the language of academic comparative law, albeit there is no consensus on what a ‘legal family’ actually is. In the absence of a clear-cut definition of ‘legal family’, it may be regarded as a conceptual and methodological device of the comparative lawyer, not as sociologist of law or legal theoretician, but as lawyer. It has been suggested that, as an academic field, comparative law may be divided into two main areas of research, yet this division is flexible as to its nature. There is macro-comparative law and micro-comparative law. Customarily the micro-comparison deals with specific legal rules, cases and institutions that are conceived from the point of view of actual problems or particular legal conflicts of interests, whereas the macro-comparison normally focuses on larger-scale themes and questions. Systematization, grouping and classification of the legal systems of the world lie at the heart of macro-comparative law: it deals with the comparison of entire legal systems, not specific small-scale questions of a legal nature (Zweigert and Kötz, 1998; Örücü, 2004b).