Law Blog

Common Law is judge made law where courts create law where there is no present legal authority in the statutes or prior case law.  Judges have the legal authority to create law by making precedent.  Precedent is derived from common law and binds future decisions.  When parties disagree on what the actual law is during a case, a common law court will look to past precedent of relevant court authority to rule on that issue.  If a matter of dispute is unique from previous cases, it will be decided as a matter of first impression.  Courts are very careful in crafting new laws and usually seek to avoid the issue if the materiality of the case does not hinge on the issue.  This is common in Supreme Court cases where the justices will ignore an issue that is not necessary to decide the case.

Discretion within the courts has both positive and negative consequences.  First, discretion gives judges the ability to better handle circumstances on a case by case basis rather than adhering to hardline black letter law that may not properly address a situation at hand.  It, in a sense, invokes more common sense into the law.  However, the cons hold heavy weight.  First, this gives rise to judicial inconsistency in different courts on the same issue and sometimes even the same courts hold different ways.  Thus, a plaintiff may “win” in one state and “lose” in another.  Following, judges personal bias and thinking is intermixed in case law.  This is a largely unwanted consequence.  Ideally, laws would be mostly uniform across sovereign territories and not be influenced by a judges whim.  The study and application of law is no easy task, but I believe legislatures can improve upon the existing legal structure.

Welcome to Oliquig, a legal information and blogging site typing up daily news and notes.  This site covers all realms of the justice system.  Criminal law, torts, contracts, personal injury, insurance law, environmental law, and many more.  The legal world is now moving into the technological age and it is mostly for the better.  For example, courtrooms are using far less paper as they quickly integrate into a paperless system.  Also, discovery has become easier in most cases as computers can scan documents quickly for keywords being searched for.  However, on this token much more information has become discoverable such as attorney hard drives and emails.  It is now a question whether office emails are even privileged despite any legal disclaimer attached to the bottom.  Furthermore, technology has made contracts easier and more efficient.  Clients from all over the world can connect and bind themselves in a matter of seconds.  Although it should be noted the enforcement of these contracts can become a mess between jurisdictions and different laws.