Product Description
Following its publication in 2000, this work quickly established itself as a key point of reference on English private law for lawyers in the UK and throughout the world. The book acts as an accessible first point of reference for practitioners approaching a private law issue for the first time, whilst simultaneously providing a lucid, concise and authoritative overview of all the key areas of private law. Each section is written by an acknowledged expert, using the… More >>
OF THE RULES AND PRINCIPLES OF ENGLISH PRIVATE LAW
An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers
The inspiration for `English Private Law’ and its companion volume `English Public Law’ came from the late Professor Peter Birks to whom these works are dedicated. It was he who identified a pressing need to create a clear, comprehensive, thorough and authoritative overview of English private law for the benefit and convenience of practitioners, academics and students alike. And with much of business going global now and in the future, he would have agreed with the editor of this second edition, Professor Andrew Burrows, that foreign lawyers would find both volumes invaluable in constructing a deeper and more insightful understanding of English law.
Thoroughly updated, with certain chapters substantially rewritten where appropriate, `English Private Law’ brings together the finely honed wisdom and expertise of a formidable array of legal academic firepower in the shape and form of 20 contributors from the top universities, mainly Oxford and Cambridge, as well as Kings College London, University of Bristol and McGill University, Montreal
According to Burrows, `English Private Law’ addresses what Birks regarded as a pressing need within the legal fraternity for a well organized review of English private law – a `guide map’ so to speak, pointing the way, from one area of law to another, thereby enabling lawyers to maintain `a sound grip on the concept and principles that hold the law together.’
The result is what Birks referred to as `a coherent, economical account, not only of individual topics, but also of the larger categories of the law and the way that they fit together, and hence, of the law itself.
As a companion work to `English Public Law’, this 22 chapter volume is concerned with `the rights which…people are allowed to realize in courts.’ In contrast, public law deals with constitutional law, human rights, administrative law and criminal law. Like `English Public Law’, `English Private Law’ is a carefully structured work which covers within its almost 2,000 pages `the larger categories’ of private law, from family, companies, property, contract and tort, to unjust enrichment, insolvency, private international and civil procedure.
Birks’ original aim, says Burrows, was for the two companion volumes to be on every English lawyer’s desk as at least a first point of reference — and certainly this remarkable and invaluable book achieves this objective to the letter. Worthy of note are the lengthy tables of cases, tables of Treaties and Conventions and detailed index.
In our view, every English lawyer should own a copy of `English Private Law’ as it’s one of the most reliable sources to find law in one place in any modern learning centre…and it’s worth the time to rummage through its contents to gain the best private law perspective.
ISBN: 978-0-19-922794-5
Rating: 5 / 5