“We are not makers of history.  We are made by history” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

More than any other area of societal interaction, the impact of history on the law is both explicit and profound.  With a common law system expressly reliant on precedent for stability, the Western legal system – particularly the English/American system – leans heavily on history as a foundation for decision-making and setting a course for the future.

The power of precedent has impacted the development of law, the state’s continued expansion, and the legislation’s complexity.  Our increasingly complex society relies more on the precedent of principle than the precedent of practice in applying the law.  The limitations of our legal history and precedent become more profound when discussing privacy in a cell phone age.  The creation of additional statutory law is the direct result of the increased complexity limiting the application of pure case precedent and emphasizing the application of the historical principle.

The law student still needs a solid working knowledge of legal history to understand the development of society and the laws that govern it.  A study of legal history will bring insights into societal and legal principles of behavior, the road traveled that made us who we are today, and some visibility into the road ahead.  As King notes in the quote above, our collective legal history has brought us to this point and made our legal system what it is – and that system will significantly influence our collective societal future.