In developing the common Law News, academic writings have always played an important part, both to collect overarching principles from dispersed case law, and to argue for change. William Blackstone, from around 1760, was the first scholar to collect, describe, and teach the common law. But merely in describing, scholars who sought explanations and underlying structures slowly changed the way the law actually worked.

• Hammurabi placed several copies of his law code throughout the kingdom of Babylon as stelae, for the entire public to see; this became known as the Codex Hammurabi.
• Weber saw this law as having developed in parallel with the growth of capitalism.
• In modern times, the legal systems of many Muslim countries draw upon both civil and common law traditions as well as Islamic law and custom.
• One definition is that law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions