Lawyers must be conscious of the written style, voice, and tone used in legal documents and communications, ensuring that it is suitable for a variety of audiences such as judges, courts, and clients.

To become an influential legal writer, lawyers must hone their ability to be confident, reliable, and persuasive in all of their written work. However, not all of them have such skills, especially those who are on the way to becoming lawyers. Nevertheless, students can get help with law papers from the writing service. In order to find the best one, read the reviews here – URL. They have full information about different writing sites.

Definition of legal writing

When it comes to navigating the legal world, having a well-crafted document is essential. Legal writing consists of briefs, memorandums, contracts, motions, and much more that help to convey your message in the clearest way possible. This type of writing ensures accuracy when dealing with sensitive topics related to laws or regulations.

As legal writing has the purpose of persuading, its tone and style can vary depending on who you are addressing. As a legal writer, it is imperative to be able to adapt your language from legalese for judges or officials to plain language when speaking with clients. Even if one does not consider themselves a writer by profession, possessing strong legal writing skills is essential in all professions within the field – including paralegals, lawyers, and secretaries.

Tips to help you with legal writing

Tip 1: Identify your intent and objectives

Before you start your legal writing project, it’s essential to ask yourself why you’re doing this. What goal are you trying to achieve? Depending on the purpose of your document -whether it be informing, persuading, or evaluating- your text structure, tone, and voice must also change accordingly.

Knowing exactly what outcome is desired from this piece will help ensure that you create a persuasive and effective work. So far as tips go for successful legal writing: understand the motive behind yours before anything else!

Tip 2: Ascertain your audience

Knowing who you are composing for will influence the tone and structure of your work. When considering your audience, consider their place in life, age group, income level, economic standing, educational background, and principles, as well as how much they already know about what is being written about.

All these elements will assist you in deciding the appropriate tone & style needed along with the amount of detail that should be incorporated into your writing – whether it’s a judge or an opposing attorney, or just a client.

Tip 3: delve deep into your research

Before beginning to write, read through all materials provided in order to gain a comprehension of the associated legal implications. When crafting effective legal documents, it is essential that you complete thorough research and incorporate pertinent legal precedents accordingly.

Every legal situation and set of documents requires a unique approach, but if you remember, some essential rules for successful legal research outcomes are ensured. Valuable tools to utilize include FastCase, CourtListener, and Legal Information Institute.

Depending on your specific writing task at hand, additional secondary sources such as academic journals, law reports, and even legal dictionaries may be fundamental in establishing both persuasive and mandatory authority. Therefore utilizing these assets can ensure success when conducting comprehensive legal research!

Tip 4: Develop an outline

To hone your legal writing abilities, one of the most useful strategies is to begin by organizing your research into an outline. Constructing a comprehensive and effective outline will aid in arranging your thoughts and maintaining focused control over what you are writing.

Create it wisely with the main points at its forefront, then include supporting details that naturally flow together with well-connected transitions between ideas. Once you have established this structure for yourself, legal writing tasks become far less complicated and intimidating!

Tip 5: Get writing

Despite having a comprehensive outline at hand, starting the writing process can be an intimidating task. Even experienced legal writers may struggle with writer’s block from time to time. Don’t worry about producing perfect content on your first attempt, though; that is what revising and proofreading is for!

When writing your first draft, ensure the information is comprehensive and relevant. Make sure the content transitions logically throughout. Allow yourself plenty of time to craft a strong piece by taking breaks in between drafts before submitting it for review. Additionally, do not worry about getting every detail perfect—you can refine them on subsequent edits!

Tip 6: Pay attention to content structure

Crafting an effective article? Start with a strong introduction that explains the topic and its importance. Then, highlight your most powerful arguments to build your case while filtering in supporting evidence afterward.

Incorporate headings throughout the piece to transition from one point to another; be sure to begin each section with a summary sentence for extra clarity. Finally, consider using lists or bullets when appropriate – it’s an excellent way of making content easier to scan for readers!

Conclusion

Legal writing has a distinct set of rules and guidelines that must be followed in order to ensure success. By following the tips provided here, you can give yourself the best chance possible of having your work read, understood, and appreciated by its intended audience – whether they are judges, opposing attorneys, or just everyday clients!

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Law is absolutely captivating!

If you want to explore an engaging and comprehensive field of study, Law is the perfect option. All our actions are guided by different legal regulations, whether we shop online, drive on the roadways, or post something on the web. A deeper understanding of the Law allows us to stay updated with these ever-changing parameters and make informed decisions in our lives.

Working as a lawyer is much more than handling the same tedious cases day after day; it’s an opportunity to develop a comprehensive understanding of human behavior and our complex society. Every case you handle will be different, representing people from various sectors and lifestyles. As such, you will have ample opportunities to connect with clients on an emotional level while listening attentively to their stories—ultimately enabling you not only to empathize but also comprehend the difficulties they are facing.

Law is intellectually invigorating.

Law is the perfect career option for those who relish tackling perplexing brainteasers and seemingly impossible obstacles. Lawyers are presented with elaborate ethical, philosophical, and moral situations every day – some of which have simple solutions while others may be much more nuanced, particularly when all laws & regulations must be taken into account or the potential results weighed up.

To illustrate this point: how would you respond to questions like:

• Is it permissible to clone human beings or animals?
• Is there a need to set boundaries for the right of expression?
• Is it time to recognize pollution as a punishable offense?

Rally for justice and protect essential human rights.

Searching for a career that offers more than monetary rewards? Look no further than the field of Law. Through providing legal counsel, fighting injustice, and defending those wrongly accused, you can make a meaningful contribution to society while also achieving a great sense of fulfillment in your work.

Take Ricky Jackson’s story as an example; thanks to passionate lawyers’ determination, he was released after spending 39 years wrongfully imprisoned. Of course, such responsibility comes with its challenges – but even if outcomes aren’t always favorable, it is still possible to strive for improvement within our social fabric through your tireless efforts.

Law is an excellent career choice for those seeking financial security.

Becoming a lawyer is an attractive option for many; these professions remain some of the highest-paid and sought-after jobs available. With legal services always in demand, job security should not be a concern either – from everyday individuals to businesses; there will always be people requiring lawyers’ expertise!

In America alone, this profession is predicted to see a growth of 6% between 2018 and 2028. The competition might be tough, but the rewards are worth it: embarking on a law career may just turn out to be your best decision yet!

Leverage your knowledge of the law to enhance any professional situation.

The power of knowledge is applicable to numerous areas, but there’s no better example than the Law. Contrary to widespread opinion, everyone should understand the legal system – not only those working in this sector. As a result of knowing it well comes many perks, including:

• Averting hefty fines and criminal prosecution
• Legitimately minimizing the amount of taxes paid.
• Supporting your friends and families through difficult times such as divorce proceedings, legal battles, etc.

Developing your critical thinking and decision-making abilities is a vital part of studying Law. You can take advantage of these newly attained skills to improve your personal relationships, manage finances more effectively, or even launch an entrepreneurial venture if you so desire!

Discover cost-effective law degrees.

It’s no secret that the top law schools come with a hefty price tag. However, there are still plenty of affordable alternatives that offer just as much of an outstanding education – for under 5,000 EUR per academic year! So don’t worry; you can now pursue your dream degree without breaking the bank.

Don’t pass up the opportunity to apply for scholarships and financial aid in order to help fund your Law studies. So don’t miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime chance, and make sure that you take full advantage of it today.

Exploring the law through an online degree

If you’re considering a degree in Law or any other field, don’t overlook the option of studying online. It may surprise some people to know that they can get an online Law degree and reap all kinds of awesome benefits like:

• Having the ability to learn whenever and wherever you please
• Lowering the expenses of transportation, lodging, and relocating to an alternate nation
• Saving on tuition costs by opting for an online Law program

Mastering the most current digital resources and online platforms.

Conclusion

Studying Law has its challenges, but it also provides an exciting outlet for personal growth and development, along with many career opportunities. What’s more? Many high-profile lawyers have gone on to become successful entrepreneurs, executives, or politicians – take Barack Obama as a prime example!

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The characteristics of the regulations

The chronology provided by various historians has shown that there have been two classes of Roman Law, including the Private and Public regulations. The Private one was in control of the trade and anything related to work. Whereas the Public law held the rights of the residents of the empire. According to many experts, Roman Law has become one of the strongest legal documents in the entire history of law.  

The significance of the regulations was that they had several aspects, including living an honest, honorable, and dedicated life, keeping the traditions of the territory, formalities, and realistic ways of life. People who followed those rules were considered the honorable residents of the Roman era. It was a key factor to live an honest and unharmful life, as by doing so, the residents were following the law and keeping the discipline. And those who would violate the laws would be punished and made to correct their ways of life. 

Even though the Roman Law has changed with centuries, the main aspect was the same, to keep the traditions. Roman law may have developed, but the practice of law was embedded in the practices that forewent it. Keeping the formalities of the regulations allowed the residents to guide the creation of standards or procedures practical in additional issues, bypassing random variations of the regulation. Success is described in the seriousness covering the action of distributing justice.

Another important thing to keep in mind was to be real to anything that happened. It was necessary to keep the real mind whenever the laws were not able to determine the point. Additionally, keeping the individual characteristics of the law, it was shown that precise differences were made between the social and the honorable types of law. The Roman law has shown us that it is directed to the precision of the determination of the points that meet the ideas of the regulations.

Keeping the traditions

As we have already mentioned above, keeping the traditional aspects was very essential for the Roam Law. All the customs and traditions were passed from generation to generation. Although it was not remarked in a written form, the word of mouth did its job perfectly. And after the 3rd century BC, the Roman Laws started to become in written form as well. Those written laws were called the laws of the twelve tables. 

Thanks to those laws, the regulations of the Roman empire became very organized. The authorities of the Roman era were chosen every year. They were ought to follow the rules and regulations of the Roman Law and were responsible for any offense or violation to the court. One of the regulations for the authorities was that they were not paid as it was their honorable duty.

In addition to the Roman Law, there was also the common law, which was founded in England. It was also called Anglo-Saxon Law, which had the basis in Roman law. In this particular law, the ownership is represented via judicial conclusions, which in issues of mysteriousness must be limited by courts.

With the changes of the centuries, Roman law has started to change and develop. Therefore, from the beginning of the 11th century, it was generally transformed by the Catholic Church. During this period, Roman law became an academic foundation and still is to this day. 

The stability of Roman Law in our days

Whenever historians and academics talk about Roman law, it becomes clear that it is a very demanded subject in most of the academies of the western part. The reason behind having an attorney, custody, magistrates, senate, etc., comes from Roman law. Roman law has been one of the most essential and fundamental factors of the entire legal system all over the world. With the help of the Roman Law, things became more structured and kept their foundations to this day. There were, of course, many dangerous and strange laws as well. Luckily, they are not part of today’s regulations. 

The bottom line

The legal procedures of the Roman period are very complex, detailed, and intricate. That is why it is highly required to do a lot of analysis and research, and comprehend the changes and modifications of each period of those changes. While many things have changed since the introduction of the Roman legal system, the idea of ​​the system generally remains the same.

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According to brokerschart.es experts, international investments are a type of assets that are acquired beyond the local markets and show the diversity and prospects of the portfolio for risk diminishment. If the investors are interested in getting more returns from their assets, they can certainly expand their investments to the international market. This can also affect the country’s economic system in which the investments are being made. International funding normally extends the qualified tools for an acquisition portfolio outside only local investments.

The understanding of the international investment law

International assets have become the only most essential structure of global financial trades and the most substantial course of combination between economies. Over time this has started to become more significant than business in supplying goods and benefits to external markets, and it links federal economies via progressively integrated production networks and international deal chains.

The existence of global organizations across distinct multinational markets has produced a large portion of international trade carried within international worth chains, therefore tightly twisting acquisition and marketing. Arising needs are progressively experiencing these outcomes as both primary beneficiaries of Foreign Direct Investment and significant external investors.

To get acquainted with all the details about the international investment laws and have all the questions about investments overall, there are various brokering agencies’ reviews people can check out such as https://brokerschart.es/mejores-brokers/libertex. Moreover, for those who do not know which agency to apply to, there are a lot of websites that provide comparison tools that people can check to find the most proper brokering agency. You can find a lot of brokers’ reviews there such as https://brokerschart.es/mejores-brokers/admiral-markets .

International acquisition law is the area of global regulation that manages connections between shapes and various people who are interested in investments.

All sorts of assets implicate risk. Whereas the global investment may offer some unique threats, which contain changes in money trade rates, differences in market value, shifts in foreign goods speeds, influential political, financial, and colonial affairs, more inferior liquidity, more undersized admission to vital data, and variable demand processes and techniques.

Global investment law mainly includes over 3000 multinational investment agreements and two-sided acquisition pacts, and acquisition branches in preferential exchange arrangements.

The bottom line

Nowadays, all the nations are trying to find overseas direct funding to promote their improvement strategy. Therefore, they’ve proven an eager hobby in selling and shielding such funding via country-wide and global coverage tools. Part of those measures entails the adoption of global asset contracts, bilateral asset accords, unrestricted work contracts, and a strong country-wide framework for the merchandising and safety of overseas funding. Rallying such assets, in the first place, demands that the financial, regulatory, and funding-merchandising determinants in man or woman nations are in location and on the identical time global framework handling the family members of management and overseas buyers is permitted too. In the beyond few years, it has additionally been visible that a few conditions have increased issues approximately the equity of obligatory arbitration via way of means of declining to take part withinside the arbitration. Few states have actually ended their support for conflict agreements in positive mediation panels. The funding regulation framework wishes to offer clean guidelines and an appropriate instrument for settling disagreements among those performers. Countries can expand country-wide investor-nation war control means, which could permit states and buyers to deal with their resentments on the home degree earlier than they enhance into full-scale criminal arguments and pass to the global courts. Another essential reform that may appear entails the established order of an attractions tool. Moreover, the global funding regulation ought to offer global help to assist all economies to turn out to be extra appealing for global buyers and assist to set up a degree of gambling discipline via means of supplying executive and criminal services. Certain recognition ought to be on helping growing nations all through the discussions of which two-sided funding accords and funding arrangements. The fundamental global economy is obtaining the advantages of the global assets that have conducted the invention of a contemporary global financial demand.

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In the 17th century Swedish judicial practice adopted many designs and principles of Roman law, copied in European countries, whereby those Roman elements became an integral part of Swedish law, of Swedish legal culture.

But we should not forget that the reception of the Roman law affected the Scandinavian countries insignificantly. And its main effect was to forge closer links with continental European law than with English law.

The close relationship between the Nordic legal systems can be explained by the fact that historically the Nordic countries have always had strong political, economic and cultural ties. It is true that the complete unification of the three kingdoms – Denmark, Norway and Sweden – was only temporary in nature.

It was formed as the Kalmar Union and existed from 1397 to 1523. But the connections between Sweden and Finland and between Denmark, Norway and Iceland were much stronger and survived for centuries.
In the tenth and sixteenth centuries Finland was conquered by Sweden and Iceland. Finland was conquered by Sweden and was part of the Swedish Empire until 1809, when Sweden was forced to cede Finland to Russia as a result of an unsuccessful war with Russia. The Russian state granted Finland considerable autonomy as an independent Grand Duchy, and the tsarist administration had little intervention in its legal system. Thus, when Finland separated from Russia after the October Revolution of 1917 and proclaimed its independence in 1918, its legal unity with Sweden was not considerably weakened.

Denmark, Norway and Iceland had been centrally ruled by the Danish royal family for more than four centuries, since the late fourteenth century, so that Danish law was essentially also in force in Norway and Iceland. In 1814. Denmark had to cede Norway’s territory to Sweden in 1814, but the Norwegians were able to gain a great deal of independence as part of the Swedish Empire and were granted full autonomy peacefully in 1906.

The general historical basis of Scandinavian law was Old German law. But of course each Nordic country developed its own local peculiarities. Since the 12th century the norms of Old German law were introduced in numerous land laws and later in city laws. Already from the first acts of the central government the process of unification and unification of law took place. In Sweden in the XIV century it was possible to unite the law of individual localities into a single land law and the law of nations into a single municipal law.

During the 17th-18th centuries the starting point of the formation of the Scandinavian legal systems were two legislative acts,

The first was the Code of King Christian V (“Danske Lov”), adopted in Denmark in 1683.

The second is the Swedish Code of Laws of 1734 (“Sveriges rikes lag”) (in 1687 it was extended to Norway under the name “Norske Lov”), and the second is the Swedish Code of Laws of 1734 (“Sveriges rikes lag”). (“Sveriges rikes lag”).
The Danish Code consists of the following sections:

1)on judicial proceedings;

2), on the church;

3) On secular estates, commerce, and family law;

4) on the law of the sea;

5) Law of property and inheritance;

6) criminal law.

The Swedish Code of 1734 has nine sections:

1) on marriage;

2) Parents and children;

3) Inheritance;

4) on real estate;

5) construction;

6) commerce;

7) on crimes (Criminal Code);

8) on the enforcement of judgments;

9) On judicial proceedings and the judicial system.

The code has 1300 paragraphs. Like the Danish Code, it was written in simple, clear vernacular language, and in the interest of greater specific regulation, it eschewed theoretical generalizations and instructive notions as they were introduced on the European continent in the 18th century by advocates of natural law.

It should be noted that the influence of Roman law on the Swedish Code of 1734 was insignificant. The authors of the Code turned to the traditions of the old Swedish land and town law. This can be seen in its structure, style, language, and in the absence of generalizing norms.

These two codes were the basis for the later development of both branches of Scandinavian law – Danish and Swedish. Of course, this development did not take place in isolation from continental Europe. But attempts to introduce law reforms which would structurally affect the existing system of law were made at certain stages (in the first half of the 19th century drafts for a general law similar to the French Civil Code were discussed), but they were unsuccessful.

It is unlikely that these acts could be considered as codes even at the time of their adoption. Rather, they should have been characterized as sets of existing legislation, since some parts of these legislative acts are not connected with each other in any way.

It is all the more impossible to recognize them as codes now that they include only a small part of the existing legislative provisions. And if the Swedish Act of 1734 does have a practical role – the role of a certain integrating factor of positive Swedish law, the Christian V Code has become a “museum piece,” although formally it is still in force.
The law of 1734, which is still in force today, practically does not include the provisions that were part of it at the time of its adoption. A number of sections have been completely overhauled: a new section on marriage was enacted in 1920; a section on litigation in 1948; in 1959 the revision of the old section on Inheritance resulted in the addition of a section by the same name, and even earlier, in 1949, the section on Parents, which had previously been missing, was removed from this section; in 1970 the section on Real Estate was completely updated. In the remaining sections, few of the old rules remain. Most of the previously existing provisions were replaced by separate laws, the norms of which form the core of the legal regulation of relations in the respective spheres.

At present the law, which does not fit into the wording of the 1734 Act, covers many areas of Swedish law: labour law, company law, laws on industrial property protection and social security, environmental protection, many parts of administrative law – in other words, basically all the areas of law that have appeared as the country developed socially and economically from the mid-19th century onwards.

The same cannot be said for the Danish Code, which has been preserved largely as a historical monument. The codified legislation represents far from a large part of the country’s current law. Both here and in Norway there is a clear attitude attaching importance to jurisprudence as a source of law. The role of jurisprudence is also important in Sweden, and this distinguishes Scandinavian law from the Romano-Germanic family of law, bringing it into some respects in line with the common law.

The centuries-long survival of the Swedish Code of 1734 and the Danish-Norwegian Code of 1683-1687 shows that over the years the law has been applied less and less frequently, and that it has gradually lost its function under the weight of the case law that has developed on its basis. This pattern of legal development also applies to the French Civil Code of 1804 and the German Civil Code.

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1) the long mutual historical ties and the ethnic proximity of these states;

(2) The almost total absence in all these countries of the reception of Roman law, which had a considerable influence on the development of the legal systems of continental Europe;

3) The absence of any codes systematizing individual branches of law, as was done in the Romano-Germanic legal family;

4) the process of unification of Scandinavian law, which has been going on for over 100 years.

An analysis of the modern legal systems of the Nordic countries shows some commonalities between the Nordic and Romano-Germanic legal systems. First of all it is manifested in the similarity of the sources of legal regulation. In the Nordic countries the law is the main source of law, and the courts formally cannot, by resolving a particular dispute, create legal norms. This is where the most important difference between the Scandinavian and common law systems emerges.

At the same time, it must be admitted that the role of the courts in the Nordic countries has traditionally been very significant. Never here has the function of the judge been confined solely to the application of the law. The judge in the Nordic countries has great freedom of interpretation of the provisions contained in the laws and treaties.

In Sweden, the lower courts in almost all cases strictly follow the decisions made by the higher courts, first of all, decisions of the Supreme Court, recognizing them as authoritative presentation of the applicable law.

The role of jurisprudence has been growing considerably in recent years.

In Sweden, under a law of 1971, the Supreme Court hears such cases as are of interest to establish certain lines of law enforcement. It thus recognizes that the decisions of the Supreme Court are binding on the entire judicial system. Ultimately, the expansion of the discretionary power of judges leads to the increasing practice of including vague norms in laws. In Sweden, they are called “general reservations. Swedish lawyers themselves assess the development of the legislative technique of “general reservations” as. “a kind of delegation of legislative power to the judiciary.” This trend can be clearly seen in the evolution of the system of sources in all the countries of the Romano-Germanic family.
Scandinavian law uses the general legal concepts of Romano-Germanic law. The system of legal training is similar to the system of higher legal education adopted in continental Europe. All this is the result of the influence of Roman and later French and German law.

In the first decades of the nineteenth century, the French legal system had a strong influence on Northern European law.

1? In 1826 in Sweden there was even a draft of Civil Code, modeled on the Napoleonic Code, but it never became law.

At the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century the needs of modernization of law made the Scandinavian lawyers turn to the experience of Germany. Practically all Swedish law professors received their professional training in German universities during this period. However, the theoretical views of the Pandectists were not taken up by Scandinavian lawyers. The Nordic countries rejected the codification of civil law on the model of the GGU, because the latter contained many abstract notions, alien to the traditional functional approach to the law of the Nordic jurists. A sociological direction soon prevailed, and the theory of social functions, developed mainly by French jurists, received support here.

A number of characteristic features of Scandinavian law distinguish it from the Romano-Germanic family.

First, Scandinavian law does not know the division of law into public and private, or into branches. In this, it is similar to the common law family. Secondly, Nordic law is not codified. Formally in these countries the laws that originally covered all the normative material continue to operate, but for the reasons mentioned above they cannot in any way be identified with the codifications in the countries of the Romano-Germanic legal family.
Some elements of the legal systems of the Scandinavian countries, perhaps, are closer to the common law system than to the Romano-Germanic legal family. In particular, the legislator in the Nordic countries has for a long time avoided using norms with a high level of generalization. Civil and criminal procedures are governed by the same rules.

What unites Scandinavian and common law is a pragmatic approach to law, legal notions and constructions. This last circumstance explains to a certain extent the success enjoyed in the Nordic countries after World War II by the American concepts of the legal realism school. The growing influence of American law can also be seen in the recent past when certain legal structures and concepts from American law have been borrowed, for instance in the fields of tort liability, insurance, etc. The methods of teaching law in Scandinavian universities are increasingly reminiscent of the American system of legal education.

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The Swedish legislation is mainly uncodified. The only official way of its systematization is a serial numbering of the acts when they are published in the official edition. The final results of the legislative process – laws and regulations – are published in the official gazette Compendium of Swedish Laws, which was founded in 1824. Finnish law bears the strong stamp of Swedish law. Finnish law gained a certain independence during the period when Finland was part of the Russian Empire, where it enjoyed a special state-legal status with a high degree of autonomy. In particular, it had its own criminal code. However, in more recent times, the reform of Finnish law has not yet been completed and many branches are still not codified; in practice, therefore, judicial decisions play the role of the source of law in cases where there is a gap. The Criminal Code of 1889 is still in force in Finland. (as amended) is still in force in Finland. The system of judicial proceedings is similar to the Swedish system.

Thus, we can say that the development of statehood and law in Scandinavian states went in their own way, different from continental Europe and England. At the same time, a certain influence on the development of Scandinavian legal systems was exerted by Romano-Germanic and Anglo-Saxon legal families. That is why in Scandinavian countries one can find some features of both continental and common law. Thus, it is connected with the Romano-Germanic legal family by the fact that the most important sources of law in Scandinavian countries are normative legal acts.

We see that for several centuries before in Scandinavian countries there was a systematization of legislation, which is also typical for the countries of Romano-Germanic legal family. But this process did not lead to the appearance of codes equal to those that appeared in France and Germany. The Swedish and Danish codes can be regarded as incorporation of the existing legislation at the time of their adoption, since some parts of these legislative acts were united on a thematic basis, but they did not represent the acts by means of which the complex regulation of homogeneous social relations was carried out (which is inherent to codes). At present, they cannot be recognized as codes, because, apart from the above, they include only an insignificant part of the existing legal provisions. Although they remain formally in force, their role is not great. This is especially true of the Christian V Code, which is essentially a tribute to history. To a lesser extent this applies to the Swedish Code of 1734, which now plays an integrative role in Swedish law.

Unlike most continental European countries, Scandinavian countries do not have codes that systematize individual branches of law. At the same time, it should be noted that in the Nordic countries there is a process of harmonization and unification of their legislation. As we have mentioned above, this process has been going on for several centuries already. This process was given an additional impetus in 1872, when the lawyers of the Nordic countries met at a convention aimed at unifying Nordic law.

An important feature of the Nordic countries (in contrast to continental Europe) is the important role of jurisprudence. As we have already noted, normative legal acts are the main sources of law there. But the role of the judge is more important than in continental Europe. In Scandinavian countries the courts have considerable freedom in interpreting legal prescriptions. At the same time, they cannot formally create rules of law, and this is the difference between them and the countries of the Anglo-Saxon legal family. That is, the concept of precedent in the Scandinavian countries in its classical sense does not exist.

Based on the above, we can conclude that the legal systems of the Nordic countries are a special kind of Romano-Germanic legal family, as in these countries are widely used its concepts and legal technique. At the same time we should note that the law of the Scandinavian countries has a lot in common with the Anglo-Saxon family of law as well.

CONCLUSION

By fulfilling the set tasks, the author managed to achieve the main goal of his work. In particular, the genesis of the formation and development of the Romano-Germanic legal system is considered, the author identifies three main stages of its development, related to the historical events in continental Europe.

Analysis of the application of the main provisions of the considered system in the states of the world, makes it possible to conclude that the continental system is used in most of the existing states.

Among the main features the author singles out

• the main source – normative legal acts;
• the main role in the formation of the law is given to the legislator;
• clearly expressed division into branches of law;
• pronounced division into private and public law.

Due to the fact that the Romano-Germanic legal system is divided into groups, which have their own characteristics, it is very difficult to highlight the general disadvantages and advantages, it is necessary to consider the features of representatives of each group separately. Having looked at the examples of the legal systems of France, Germany, Sweden and other states, the author concludes that the advantage of the system in question is that the system is clearly codified, it is easier to work with it in legal practice. The disadvantages include the fact that its basis consists of laws and it is less flexible than, for example, the Anglo-Saxon legal system, where precedents form the basis.

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The term “Law of the European Union” is used since the early 1990s, with the advent of the European Union, before that established legal array was referred to as “the law of the European Communities”, “European Community law”, although the latter notion is not equivalent to the concept of “European Union law”. Some scholars see the concept of “European Union law” as synonymous with the broader concept of “European law,” used in a narrower sense.

The central link, the core of the law of the European Union and the law of the European Communities is the law of the European Community (EU law). The core, the supporting structure of EU law is the principles of EU law – the basic provisions of the most general nature that define the meaning, content, implementation and development of all other rules of EU law.

The principles of EU law are divided into functional and general principles of EU law. Functional principles include the principle of supremacy of EU law and the principle of direct effect of EU law. The principle of the supremacy of EU law means the priority of EU law over the norms of national legislation of member States, the norms of national law of member States must not contradict the norms of EU law. The principle of the direct applicability of EU law means the direct application of EU law in the territory of member States, the validity of Community law without any transformation into the legal order of a member State. These principles have been developed in the Court’s practice by interpreting the organization’s constituent instruments. General principles of the EU law include the principle of protection of individual rights and freedoms, the principle of legal certainty, the principle of proportionality, the principle of non-discrimination, the principle of subsidiarity, and a number of procedural principles.

European Union law has an original system of sources. The forms (sources) of EU law constitute an integral system of sources, with an inherent hierarchy of acts. The system of European Union law sources includes two groups of acts – primary law acts and secondary law acts.

Primary law acts include all the founding treaties of the European Union. By their legal nature, primary law acts are international treaties. The norms of primary law have higher legal force than all other norms of the European Union contained in secondary law.

The peculiarity of the European Union is that it is based on several international treaties of a constituent nature. First of all, this is the Treaty of Paris establishing the EEU in 1951, the Treaty of Rome establishing the EU in 1957, the Treaty of Rome establishing the Euratom in 1957, the Maastricht Treaty on European Union in 1992, the so-called “constituent treaties in the narrow sense”. These treaties are “constitutive” of the European Union. The “founding treaties in the broad sense” usually include all the aforementioned acts, as well as international treaties amending and supplementing them: the Brussels Treaty Establishing a Single Council and a Single Commission of the European Communities (Merger Treaty) of 1965, the Budget Treaty of 1970, the Budget Treaty of 1975, The Single European Act of 1986, the Treaty of Amsterdam amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and a series of related acts of 1997. The Conference of the Member States, which ended in Nice on December 11, 2000, approved another set of amendments to the founding treaties of the Union (the Nice Treaty of 2001). These changes were finalized on February 14, 2001.

Secondary law acts include acts issued by the institutions of the Union, as well as all other acts adopted on the basis of founding treaties. In determining the sources of secondary law, we observe the clash of approaches to the understanding of sources in the continental and Anglo-Saxon legal families (recognition of jurisdictional acts as sources), as well as the influence of the concept of sources in international law.

The secondary law of the European Union has as its sources different categories of law-making forms. The first category of secondary law acts are normative acts, these include regulations, directives, framework decisions, general decisions of the EEU, recommendations of the EEU. The second category is individual acts, which include decisions (other than general decisions of the EEOC). The third category is recommendatory acts, which include recommendations (other than EEOC recommendations) and opinions. The next category of secondary law acts are the acts on the coordination of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, as well as the Police and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters. This category of acts includes principles and common guidelines, common position, joint action, and common strategy. A separate category of acts are jurisdictional acts – decisions of the Court. Sources of secondary law include sui generis acts – “unofficial” forms of law, non-statutory acts issued by Union bodies (usually expressed as a decision of a particular body or resolution). The last category of secondary law sources can be designated as international acts, it includes decisions and acts of representatives of member states, conventions between member states concluded on the basis of constituent treaties, international treaties of the European Union.

The peculiarity of the European Union also determines the structural features of the law of the European Union. The structure of the law of the European Union consists of several interrelated elements. Elements of this structure are the founding treaties of the European Union, provisions on human rights and fundamental freedoms, rules adopted under the CFSP and the PCA, as well as the law of the European Communities.

In European Union law today there are trends of codification and improvement (Enforcement). The 2001 Laakene Declaration, adopted at the Summit of Heads of State/Government of the Member States in the European Council, emphasizes the need to reform the sources of primary and secondary law of the European Union, to simplify legal forms and to create, on the basis of the founding treaties of the European Union and the 2000 Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, a full-fledged constitution of the European Union.

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Main Trends and Stages in the Development of the National State and Law in Modern Times

The main content of this stage of human evolution is the worldwide expansion of liberal-industrial civilization, which destroyed the subsistence economy, the traditional way of life of class society and feudal absolutism. In their place, industrial civilization has brought:

• A market economy based on freedom of enterprise, private property, and competition;
• civil society as a community of free and equal citizens;
• liberal democracy with the idea of supreme rule of the people, parliamentary system and inalienability of natural human and civil rights;
• nation-state as a political organization of power, expressing not the class, caste, but the national interests of all citizens living on its territory and identifying themselves with it through the institution of citizenship
• A national legal system based on the conventional nature of legal norms, as opposed to tradition, which operate throughout the country and are universal and equal scales of freedom and justice for all citizens.

The market economy, which marked the beginning of industrial civilization, fundamentally changed the principles of organization of state power and administration, as well as the mechanism of legal regulation, creating the conditions for the formation of economic and political democracy. Based on the principles of private property and freedom of enterprise, the market economy has been more effective in the use of such qualities of human nature as personal gain, the desire to get rich, competition, organically related to the constant improvement of the tools of labor. On the basis of the technological superiority associated initially with the creation of manufactory, i.e. production with the division of manual labor, and then the introduction of a system of machines – factories, industrial civilization proved its advantage in the struggle with the traditional agrarian system of the East and with the medieval way of life that remained in the West, and defeated them. Thanks to the Great Geographical Discoveries all the peoples of the globe were included in the unified process of world development.

The development of private property, competition and competitiveness in all spheres of life radically transformed the social order and the social organization of society. The principle of class hierarchy, characteristic of traditional society, was abolished, and the principle of formal equality of citizens before the law and courts was proclaimed. There was a transition from the personally dependent relationship of suzerainty-vassalage to individual freedom, which is the basis of civil society – a set of free and equal citizens who realize their daily needs outside and without state interference. Civil society and the market economy formed a new model of social stratification based on economic inequality while declaring the principle of equality. The economic power of the first two estates – the feudal landowners and the clergy – was declining, but they had political and spiritual power. On the contrary, the new rich (industrialists, merchants) from the common people, called the bourgeoisie (the third estate), were rapidly getting richer and demanded greater rights and participation in the government of the state. The resistance of the feudal nobility to the growing political power of the third estate was broken as a result of the bourgeois revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. They resulted in the overthrow of kings and emperors and the transformation of the bourgeoisie into a politically ruling class that now determined state policy.

The political system of industrial society is based on the principle of popular sovereignty, the right of citizens to elect their representatives, the separation of powers into legislative (parliament), executive (government) and judicial, independent of each other. Absolutist monarchies, emperors’ personal omnipotence give way to a state governed by the rule of law. The rule of law is associated with the constitutional recognition of the supremacy of human and civil rights and freedoms as the highest value and the obligation of the state and its bodies to guarantee the protection of natural human rights by acting strictly within the framework of the law. Binding by law is equally binding on the state and the individual. The new classes of industrial society – the industrial proletariat and the bourgeoisie – to protect and express their interests can create political parties, which, if they win general elections and come to power, have the right to formulate the political course of the government. Public and professional organizations and social movements also become active subjects of political life, influencing the process of making political decisions and normative acts.

Upon coming to power, the European bourgeoisie replaced Catholicism with an entirely different ideology – liberalism, which radically changed the idea of man’s place in the world, the purpose of the state and law. Its foundations are rooted in the ideals of the Renaissance, which asserted the self worth and individuality of man, who deserves respect and veneration by virtue of his active and creative origin. In keeping with the philosophy of humanism, as well as the God-given nature of existing crafts (Protestantism), liberal notions of the state as a social contract concluded to ensure the inalienable natural rights and freedoms of citizens, and the right as a universal and equal scale of freedom for every individual were formed. Relying on the theory of natural law, the ideologues of the emerging bourgeoisie argued that every person is endowed by birth with fundamental and inalienable rights: the right to life, liberty, property, and dignity, which no one can alienate. Human rights, based on formal equality, became the main value guideline of social development, which greatly influenced the nature of the state, limiting its omnipotence and facilitating the establishment of democratic interaction between the state and the individual. The formation of the rule of law during the New Age would have been impossible without the assertion of human rights in the public consciousness and political practice.

The ideology of liberalism as the ideological banner of the nascent bourgeoisie defended freedom of enterprise, parliamentary system, universal suffrage and the human right to free expression of his thoughts. The idea of human rights and freedoms seems central to liberalism. Every person has a claim to a certain amount of material and spiritual goods, to which the state and society must contribute. The volume of these benefits has historically been determined by the position of the individual in the social structure of society in the system of material production, in the hierarchy of power. These benefits, which are granted to the individual, can be called human rights. The guarantee of these rights is possible under the conditions of legal statehood, which is based on the idea of limited government and the priority of the values of individual freedom. During the New Age there was a transition from the class law, where the scope of rights and freedoms depended on the class affiliation of an individual, to the formal, bourgeois law, which proclaimed the legal equality of citizens, and the formation of national legal systems. Bourgeois law was formed as an integral system, which would exclude the legal particularism and diversity of legal orders characteristic of feudalism.

The formation of the national market, the assertion of the principles of private property and freedom of entrepreneurship on a national scale required the creation of a unified system of law. It was possible on principles different from those of feudal society: 1) the rule of law (or law): 2) legal equality; 3) the principle of freedom; 4) the principle of legality. The main value of civil society is the free individual, who has a claim to a certain amount of material and spiritual goods, called rights and freedoms. Bourgeois society proclaims freedom as the basis of social and political order. Freedom is interpreted quite broadly as freedom of economic, social, and political choice. It means the freedom of private property, enterprise, contract, the freedom to vote and be elected to public office, the freedom to organize, join and resign from organizations, and so on. These rights are granted to all legally capable persons irrespective of their class and class affiliation, as well as sex, nationality, and religion. This expresses the principle of formal equality. Closely related to the principle of legal equality is the principle of legality. Legal equality means not only equal rights, but also equal duties for all, and equal responsibility before the law. Lawful behavior of all citizens and legal entities is one of the manifestations of legality. Legitimacy as a principle of universal behavior provides stabilization of political and economic relations, so necessary for the progressive development of society. The core of the national legal system of modern times, its dominant feature is constitutional (state) law, which regulates the fundamental relationship of the individual, power and society, defines the organization, organization and procedure of activities of state authorities in the center and locally, their relationship with citizens, as well as enshrining the fundamental subjective rights and freedoms of the individual.

Principles of bourgeois type of law within the borders of particular states, depending on the level of economic development, cultural and legal traditions acquired specific form of national legal system. Similar features of national legal systems of different countries allow to combine them into legal families: 1) Euro-continental (Romano-Germanic) and 2) Anglo-American (Anglo-Saxon or common law system). The differences between them are related to: a) the specifics of the process of law formation, in particular, either on the basis of reception of the Roman law, or on the basis of the judge’s decision; b) to the different forms of existence of the law itself, where in one case the law served as the main source, and in another – of judicial precedent; c) to the differences in the structure of law: the presence and absence of division into branches of law.

The Eurocontinental (Romano-Germanic) legal family was adopted by the countries of continental Europe, where the legal system developed on the basis of reception of the Roman law. In the 19th century these legal systems were influenced by French law, and in the 20th century their development was influenced by German law. The main source of law is the law, which establishes general rules of conduct and legal principles. The court in these countries is not engaged in standard-setting activities, but only applies the legal norms to specific cases. Furthermore, among the features of continental legal systems is the widespread codification of both substantive and procedural law

Euro-continental legal systems are characterized by the division of law into private law and public law. According to the prevailing view in these countries, private law protects the interests of individuals against criminal infringements, both on the part of individuals and on the part of the state. Private law includes such branches as civil law, family law, and commercial law. Unlike private law, public law determines the order of organization and activity of the bodies of power and administration and protects the interests of society and the state from any encroachments. The concept of public law includes a set of branches: constitutional, administrative, international, criminal, procedural law. Continental legal systems clearly distinguish between substantive law (a set of norms that directly regulate a particular type of social relations: managerial, property, etc.) and procedural law (a set of norms that define the interaction between the subjects of law, for example, an investigator and a lawyer).

The Anglo-American legal family has not adopted Roman law. It is based on the common law of England, which was created by the royal courts in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The main source of law in these countries is judicial precedent (i.e. a decision of the highest courts of England, such as the High Court or the Court of Appeal), which is considered binding on all courts when considering similar cases. The court creates law, but it creates not general but casuistic rules, i.e., in other words, rules for resolving a particular case. In this regard, in Anglo-Saxon countries the concepts of law and law are not the same. Parliamentary law – a statute becomes the law of the country only if it is applied and interpreted by the court. Custom and constitutional agreements play a significant role as sources of law in these countries. The latter are very widely used in the exercise of state power, determining the relationship between the monarch, parliament and the government. Anglo-American legal systems do not divide law into private and public. There is no strict distinction between substantive and procedural law. In Anglo-Saxon countries the branches of law known in continental Europe are not structurally distinguished. Anglo-American law does not know codification, it is characterized by a special terminology, the presence of legal institutions, which are not found in the Euro-continental legal family.

In the development of the state and law of Europe and the United States in modern times usually distinguish three periods:

1) the initial period – the formation of nation-states and national legal systems (mid-seventeenth century – last third of the eighteenth century);
2) the period of strengthening of the bourgeois state and law as a result of the victory of capitalism and creation of colonial empires, but as a result of the industrial revolution the social antagonisms between proletariat and bourgeoisie worsen; this is the period of mass popular uprisings and bourgeois revolutions in Europe (mid 17th century – 90s of the 18th century – 70s of the 19th century)
3) the period of the crisis of bourgeois state and law and the search for a way out of it through the redistribution of resources in World War I, the emergence of alternative forms of state and law – socialist state and law in Soviet Union.

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Canon law arose originally as the law of the Christian Church as a whole. Then, after the schism of the church, two separate branches of canon law developed. In Western and Central Europe, canon law developed under the influence of the “papal revolution” and became an independent and effective system of medieval law. The Eastern branch of canon law, which took shape within the Greek Orthodox Church, was active in Byzantium as well as in a number of other countries of Southeastern and Eastern Europe, but did not have the same authority as canon law in the West.

The great importance of the norms of canon law in Western European society was determined by a number of factors. First of all, canon law here was developed and supported by the powerful Roman Catholic Church and the papacy, whose political power has already been mentioned. Canon law was universal and extraterritorial, since its norms were in force in all countries which accepted Catholicism. It knew no national boundaries and united all Catholics into one. Canon law was also noted for the breadth of the social relations it regulated. It covered both secular and spiritual issues and was binding on both clergy and laity. Finally, canon law was given special weight by its traditional character, as it had its roots in antiquity, in Greek philosophy and in Roman legal culture. Canon law absorbed and transmitted to subsequent generations a whole series of norms of Roman law, its language, which is reflected in the formula: “the church lives by Roman laws” (ecclesia vivit legae romanae).

The process of systematization of canon law in the Middle Ages culminated in the compilation in 1500 of a vast corpus, which since 1580 was recognized as the official source of law of the Roman Catholic Church. By analogy with the Codification of Justinian, it was called the Code of Canon Law (Corpus juris canonici). Medieval canon law covered a wide range of issues and played an important role in the legal life of Western European countries. It regulated the organization of ecclesiastical authority (the right of the pope to appoint to ecclesiastical posts, the procedure of disputes between priests, etc.), as well as the relations of the church with secular authority, the status of church property and the regime of ownership and use of church lands, sources of church income, etc.

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