Go to Home Page Communities
  
Let your voice be heard by joining the community today. Sign up.
International and Foreign Law Center
RSS Email Alert




Your Toolbox
7/11/2008 1:32:05 PM EST
Thomas J.R. Stadnik, Esq.
Civil Law & Mixed Jurisdictions: The LexisNexis Foreign Law Toolbox
We're not just US anymore!
LexisNexis Legal Editor/Site Coordinator LexisNexis International & Foreign Law Center
For students of the law of all ages and lawyers faced with transactions involving foreign law in Civil Law or Mixed Jurisdictions perhaps for the first time, we at LexisNexis can provide you with fundamental tools and sources to enable you to grasp the concepts of non-common law based legal systems.
 
Welcome to the I&FLC Civil Law & Mixed Jurisdictions Toolbox!   
Whether you’re an actual law student or a legal practitioner encountering or learning about this practice area for the first time, LexisNexis offers several works that can help the beginner in this field.
Why Learn about Civil Law and Mixed Jurisdictions?
This can be succinctly stated by considering the following two paragraphs from the "Fondation pour  le Droit Continental" website:
"60% of world market subject to civil law

"Systems of civil (or Romano-Germanic) law, together with mixed systems drawing on civil law, account for approximately 60% of the world’s GDP. The figure for common law is 35%. The percentage of the world’s population governed by continental legal systems is exactly the same.

"The many advantages of civil law

"No system of law is intrinsically better than any other, but civil law has a number of strong points. It is accessible, having been largely consolidated into codes. It is based on preventing litigation and promoting certainty in transactions. It rests on rules known in advance, rather than rules identified by a judge, after the fact. Civil law is also characterized by its concern for balance between contracting parties, its flexibility, and its openness to all sources of law (European sources in particular). Lastly it is a relatively inexpensive system of law, in terms of both legal advice and litigation. Accordingly it enables parties to reduce the legal costs related to their transactions."
Foreign and Comparative Law Practice Notes: As an American lawyer, you are not permitted to practice “foreign” law (unless you are duly admitted to the practice of law in the jurisdiction in question, of course), but you may be faced with your client’s request of you for an opinion, formal or otherwise, about the laws and regulations of another jurisdiction that may impact their transaction in another country. You will need to select foreign local counsel and will likely want their legal opinion on various topics that you will refer to in your opinion (with the appropriate disclaimers that you are not admitted to practivce in the foreign jurisdiction, you are relying on local foreign counsel's opinion (a copy of which you should attach as an exhibit), etc. In order to go about selecting foreign local counsel and to have a meaningful discussion with that foreign counsel, it behooves you to have some understanding of how that jurisdiction’s laws work. You will find a useful summary of such laws in the Martindale-Hubbell International Law Digest, but to gain a basic understanding and an analysis of how those laws work, we direct you to the following:
The Civil Law Tradition: Europe, Latin America, and East Asia, Cases and Materials, 1994
Author: John Henry Merryman, Sweitzer Professor of Law Emeritus, Stanford Law School;  David S. Clark, Maynard and Bertha Wilson Professor of Law, Willamette University College of Law;  John Owen Haley, Wiley B. Rutledge Professor of Law & Director of the Whitney Harris Institute for Global Legal Studies, Washington University at St. Louis School of Law
 
You may also find it useful to examine some of the following works for more particular analysis of the Civil law  or mixed jurisdiction legal systems:
 
Louisiana

Louisiana Law of Sale and Lease: A Précis
Author: Alain Levasseur and David Gruning 
 
Jean Domat           Robert Joseph Pothier
 
 
 
 
To access the Bookstores of our sister companies around the world for other local foreign law titles:

Go to the LexisNexis Bookstore http://bookstore.lexis.com/bookstore/catalog and select "Non-US Products" in the left Navigation menu. This will take you to a page that will allow you to select one of our various non-US LN Bookstores. If you can’t find what you are seeking there, return to the Lexis.com homepage, select the "Company Information" link at the top of the page, and on the next page at the top click on "Worldwide" by the world map to find a link to the jurisdiction you are seeking then follow that to the particular country Bookstore link.

Work Around the World With The Global Reach of LexisNexis Via Our Online Catalogues and Bookstores

Where you can find these and other great works:


France
 
Auteur(s) :  Daniel Mainguy
 
 
 
South Africa
 
 
  
  
Bas-reliefs in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives
 
Scotland

Glossary – Scottish and European Union Legal Terms and Latin Phrases, Second Edition

 
Quebec:
The Law of Bilingual Interpretation by The Hon. Michel Bastarache et alios with an Introductuion by Dean Nicholas Kassirer of Mc-Gill University School of Law (click on the title for a podcast about this book; click here for its LN Canada bookstore link)
JurisClasseur Québec – Obligations et responsabilité civile
JurisClasseur Quebec - Series entry
 
 

 Et  pour droit québécois, découvrez nos ouvrages en français !

 
Related reference works:
 
Author: Guillermo Cabanellas del las Cuevas, Eleanor C. Hoague
 
Author: Gene R. Shreve, Richard S. Melvin Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law , Bloomington
 
Author: Justice Menachem Elon, Caroline and Joseph S. Gruss Professor of Jewish Legal Studies, New York University School of Law; Bernard Auerbach, Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law (retired); Daniel D. Chazin, Esq., Attorney-at-Law, Teaneck, NJ; Melvin J. Sykes, Esq., Attorney-at-Law, Baltimore, MD
 
To explore Civil Law more and find other resources, also see:
 
 
In addition to the above offerings, you may find the following links to be useful:
 
For an engaging and informative blogging experiences in the Civil Law and Mixed Jurisdictions world, be sure to visit:

For those truly interested in Civil law and Mixed Jurisdictions, don’t miss:
  

 

Going Beyond the Mixed

 

 

Jurisdiction Theory: the Emergence of Hybrid

 

 

Legal Systems and their

 

 

Implications for the

 

 

Comparative Lawyer

 

 

‘Negociating Boundaries: Hybrid Legal Traditions

 

 

and Comparative Lawyers’

 

 

Thursday, 10 – Friday, 11 September 2009

 

 

organised by the

 

 

Swiss Institute of Comparative Law (SICL), Lausanne, Switzerland

 

 

 

 

Thursday, 10 September 2009

 

 

15:15 Annual Meeting of the Alumni and Friends of the Swiss Institute of

 

 

Comparative Law (AiSDC)

 

 

17:15 Keynote Lecture: Mixity as a Constitutive Element of the

 

 

European Legal Order and of European Law

 

 

Michael Hahn, University of Lausanne

 

 

18:00 Cocktail sponsored by the AiSDC

 

 

19:30 Opening Dinner

 

 

 

 

Friday, 11 September 2009

 

 

8:45 FIRST SESSION: LIVING HYBRIDS

 

 

 

 

8:45 Opening Remarks

 

 

Eleanor Cashin Ritaine, Swiss Institute of Comparative Law

 

 

9:00‐9:20 Hybridity, Identity, Strategies and Mutation: Cyprus as a Mixed

 

 

Legal System

 

 

Nikitas Hatzimihail, University of Cyprus

 

 

9:20‐9:40 Maltese Mixing in Action: Legal Pluralism as a Weapon in Migration

 

 

Management

 

 

David E. Zammit, University of Malta

 

 

9:40‐10:00 Coexistence of Customary Law and State Law

 

 

Martin Sychold, Swiss Institute of Comparative Law

 

 

10:00‐10:30 Discussion

 

 

10:30‐11:00 Coffee Break sponsored by the AiSDC

 

 

 

 

11:00 SECOND SESSION: DEVELOPING HYBRIDS

 

 

 

 

11:00‐11:20 Chinese Law: a New Hybrid?

 

 

Ignazio Castellucci,Trento and Macau

 

 

11:20‐11:40 Informal Commerce and Legal Integration within OHADA: the Role

 

 

of African Native Law in the Development of the New African Law

 

 

Salvatore Mancuso, Macau

 

 

11:40‐12:00 Legal Cultural Politics in International Trade: Mixed Jurisdiction

 

 

Elements within the WTO

 

 

Colin Picker, Missouri‐Kansas City University, USA

 

 

12:00‐12:20 Two Dimensions of Hybridity: Legal Development in Nepal

 

 

Lukas Heckendorn Urscheler, Swiss Institute of Comparative Law

 

 

12:20‐12:50 Discussion

 

 

12:50‐14:15 Lunch

 

 

 

 

14:15 THIRD SESSION: TOWARDS A NEW THEORY OF LEGAL FAMILIES?

 

 

 

 

14:15‐14:35 ‘A Various and Motley Origin’: Legal Hybridity and Diffusion in

 

 

European Legal History

 

 

Seán Patrick Donlan, Limerick University, Ireland

 

 

14:35‐14:55 Two Hundred (200) Years of Civil Law in English: Louisiana’s Lonely

 

 

Destiny

 

 

Alain Levasseur, Louisiana State University, USA

 

 

14:55‐15:15 Comparative and Methodological Considerations

 

 

Eleanor Cashin Ritaine, Swiss Institute of Comparative Law

 

 

15:15‐15:45 Discussion

 

 

15:45‐16:15 Coffee Break sponsored by the AiSDC

 

 

 

 

16:15 FOURTH SESSION: FINAL DISCUSSIONS

 

 

16:15‐17:15 Round Table and Discussion of Further Steps:

 

 

Creation of an international and interdisciplinary community focusing

 

 

on legal hybridity and diffusion

 

 

 

 

Scientific Organisation

 

 

Eleanor Cashin Ritaine, Director, Swiss Institute of Comparative Law, Lausanne

 

 

Seán Patrick Donlan, Law Lecturer, Limerick University, Ireland

 

 

Martin Sychold, Head of Common Law and Mixed Legal Systems, Swiss Institute of

 

 

Comparative Law, Lausanne

 

 

 

 

Information

 

 

Cécile Fornerod (cecile.fornerod@isdc‐dfjp.unil.ch)

 

 

Tel. +41(0)21 692 49 11 – Fax +41(0)21 692 49 49

 

 

www.isdc.ch

 

 

 

 

Venue

 

 

Swiss Institute of Comparative Law

 

 

Dorigny, CH‐1015 Lausanne

 

 

Tel. +41(0)21 692 49 11

 

 

Fax +41(0)21 692 49 49

 

 

 

 

Access

 

 

By train: Metro m1 (tsol), UNILDorigny metro station

 

 

By car: Take the A1 or A12/A9 freeway toward LausanneSud, and exit at Université EPFL.

 

 

The Swiss Institute of Comparative Law is on the right, at the first round‐about after the

 

 

freeway exit.

 

 

 

 

Registration

 

 

With the attached registration form by 27 August 2009.

 

 

 

 

Fee proceedings included

 

 

􀂾 Participants CHF 200 CHF 250

 

 

􀂾 Alumni and Friends of the SICL, permanent

 

 

staff of universities and research institutes, CHF 150 CHF 200

 

 

employees of the Swiss Confederation

 

 

􀂾 Assistants and students CHF 50 CHF 100

 

 

􀂾 Published proceedings only CHF 70 (+ VAT and postage)

 

 

(publication autumn 2010)

 

 

Upon receipt of your registration, you will receive our confirmation and invoice together

 

 

with the payment instructions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cancellation

 

 

CHF 50 will be retained for any cancellation reaching us by 3 September 2009. No refund

 

 

possible as of 3 September 2009.

For those who missed the Stellenbosch conference in May 2009, a link will be provided when available to those presentations that may be posted on-line:

 

 

                                                                

                                   

 

 

 

 

 

                                   

 

 

            The Joint Colloquium Hosted by

 

 

 The International Academy of Legal Science and The World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists

 

 

 Mixed Jurisdictions as Models?   Perspectives from Southern Africa and Beyond

 

 

                 University of Stellenbosch, ,  14-15 May 2009  

 

 

   

    For those who missed the Celebration of the Bi-Centennial of the Louisiana Civil Code in November 2008, a link will be provided when available to those presentations that may be posted on-line:

 

 

                                                                             


AN INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM
CELEBRATING THE BI-CENTENNIAL OF
THE LOUISIANA CIVIL CODE 1808-2008
November 19-22, 2008
 
PRESENTED BY
THE EASON-WEINMANN
CENTER OF
COMPARATIVE LAW
AND
THE TULANE LAW SCHOOL
International Planning Committee
Professor A. N. Yiannopoulos, Chair
Professor Vernon Valentine Palmer, Chair
Dean Symeon Symeonides, Willamette University
Professor Mathias Reimann, Michigan University
Professor Xavier Blanc-Jouvan, Paris, France
Professor Olivier Moréteau, Louisiana State University
Professor Keith Vetter, Loyola University
 
Cosponsoring Organizations
World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists
International Academy of Comparative Law
International Association of Legal Science
American Society of Comparative Law
Louisiana State Law Institute
Louisiana Historical Society
Louisiana State University Law School
Loyola University Law School

For the above brochure with full event details, please follow this link
 
 
 Create an account or login to post comments. ShareThis

 

 

 

 

 

 

Create an account or login to post comments.

Martindale-Hubbell(R) Connected - Join Now

lexisOne Community

Community Questions




Rotating Banners for Amanda



North American & Caribbean Legal Links

Africa Legal Links

Asia-Pacific Legal Links

Latin America Legal Links

Civil Law & Mixed Jurisdictions Legal Links

Global/Regional Legal Links

Europe Legal Links

Eurasia Legal Links

Middle East Regional Legal Links

Your Resources

Your Toolbox

Our Communities

Other Links