A GJ Advances article.

Abstract

This article highlights the methodological value of legal families in micro-comparative law from Nordic point of view. The author attempts to offer a preliminary theoretical answer to the question of what legal families in fact are when seen from methodological point of view. The author claims that legal families should be conceived as Weberian “ideal-types”; generalized descriptions of legal systems. This means that a legal family is not the empirically corresponding description of a group of legal systems, but a conceptual device that provides methods for such description. As “ideal-types”, legal families are advantageous for enhancing comparative legal studies. Legal families also have a definite methodological role in the research-process of comparative law.

A draft version of this paper was originally presented in A Nordic Research Seminar: Do We Need Legal Families? 10th May 2001, Helsinki. Thanks to the organizer Pia Letto-Vanamo for allowing publication in Global Jurist.

Originally published in Global Jurist Advances.

Recommended Citation

Husa, Jaakko (2001) "Legal Families and Research in Comparative Law," Global Jurist Advances: Vol. 1 : Iss. 3, Article 4.
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/gj/advances/vol1/iss3/art4