【正文】 of a variety of federal and state agencies and local entities. The United States Department of Justice alone employs more than two thousands, and the Law Department of the City of New York more than four hundreds. Others are engaged as public prosecutors. Federal prosecutors, the United States attorneys and their assistants, are appointed by the President and are subordinate to the Attorney General of the United States. State prosecutors, sometimes known as district attorneys, are monly elected by each county and are not under the control of the state attorney general. As a rule, lawyers in government are directly engaged in legal work, since law training is infrequently sought as preparation for general government service. However, a small but important minority that constitutes an exception to this rule consists of those who have been appointed to high executive positions and those who have been elected to political office. Though the participation of lawyers in government has declined recently, for two centuries lawyers have made up roughly half of the Congress of the United States and of the state governors. These figures bear out the ment of Chief Justice Stone that, No tradition of our profession is more cherished by lawyers than that of its leadership in public affairs.Lesson Three: Legal Education 法律教育Background背景美國(guó)的法律教育體制具有一個(gè)不同于世界上其他國(guó)家的特點(diǎn)，即沒有一般意義上的法學(xué)本科生。 社會(huì)工程師(social engineers)；社會(huì)正義之斗士(champions for social justice)等。(lawsuits.)其實(shí)，美國(guó)人事事找律師也往往出于無(wú)可奈何。一般來說，美國(guó)人認(rèn)為到法院去解決社會(huì)生活中的法律糾紛是天經(jīng)地義的，但這并不等于說美國(guó)人喜歡打官司。有些人幾乎事事都要請(qǐng)教律師。美國(guó)律師多的主要原因是法律在其社會(huì)生活中起著非常重要的作用。美國(guó)律師之多，在世界上堪稱第一。檢察官與律師(我們中國(guó)人所熟悉之含義上的律師)之間的區(qū)別僅在于前者受雇于政府，后者受雇于私人或自己開業(yè)；前者在刑事案件中負(fù)責(zé)公訴，后者在刑事案件中負(fù)責(zé)辯護(hù)。美國(guó)的檢察官與律師之間幾乎沒有任何職業(yè)差別。誠(chéng)然，這里有語(yǔ)言習(xí)慣問題，但它也在一定程度上反映了美國(guó)各種法律工作者之間人員變換的頻繁性，而且這種變換總以律師為中心。不過，這幾種人又都可以稱為律師(lawyer)，而且他們都可以是律師協(xié)會(huì)(Bar)成員。 there was no recourse for a claim without a writ, the claim did not exist. This system became inflexible when the Provisions of Oxford (1258) prohibited the creation of new writs, except for the flexibility which the writ upon the case allowed and which later led to the development of contract and tort law.The narrow limits of the forms of action and the limited recourse they provided led to the development of equity law and equity case law. Equity, in its general meaning of doing equity, deciding ex aequo et bono, was first granted by the King, and later by his Chancellor as keeper of the King39。Text課文Part OneThe United States is at once a very new nation and a very old nation. It is a new nation pared with many other countries, and it is new, too, in the sense that it is constantly being renewed by the addition of new elements of population and of new States. But in other senses it is old. It is the oldest of the new nationsthe first one to be made out of an Old World colony. It has the oldest written constitution, the oldest continuous federal system, and the oldest practice of selfgovernment of any nation.One of the most interesting features of Americas youth is that the whole of its history belongs in the period since the invention of the printing press. The whole of its history is, therefore, recorded: indeed, it is safe to say that no other major nation has so prehensive a record of its history as has the United States, for events such as those that are lost in the legendary past of Italy or France or England are part of the printed record of the United States. And the American record is not only prehensive。換言之，遵從前例(stare decisis)仍然是美國(guó)司法活動(dòng)中最重要的原則之一。因此，有人說美國(guó)是一個(gè)有許多政府的國(guó)家(a country of many governments)；而美國(guó)的法律體系則是一個(gè)零散的無(wú)系統(tǒng)(fragmental nosystem)。美國(guó)屬于普通法系(Common Law Legal System)國(guó)家，其法律制度有兩個(gè)基本特點(diǎn)：其一是以分散制(decentralization)為原則；其二是以判例法(case law)為主體。美國(guó)法制史可以大體上分為兩個(gè)時(shí)期，即英屬殖民地時(shí)期(the Period of the English Colonies)和美利堅(jiān)合眾國(guó)時(shí)期(the Period of the United States)。編號(hào)：時(shí)間：2021年x月x日書山有路勤為徑，學(xué)海無(wú)涯苦作舟頁(yè)碼：第86頁(yè) 共86頁(yè)Lesson One: Legal System 法律制度Background背景自從哥倫布(Christopher Columbus)于1492年航行至美洲之后，大批歐洲人便開始擁向這片新大陸。不過，人們通常把第一批英國(guó)定居者(the first English settlers)于1607年到達(dá)弗吉尼亞(Virginia)的詹姆斯頓(Jamestown)視為美國(guó)法律制度歷史的起點(diǎn)。雖然美國(guó)的法律制度是在英國(guó)法律傳統(tǒng)的基礎(chǔ)上形成和發(fā)展起來的，但是在近四百年的歷史進(jìn)程中，美國(guó)的法律制度也形成了一些不同于英國(guó)法律制度的特點(diǎn)，如公訴制度(public prosecution)等。美國(guó)除聯(lián)邦政府外，還有州政府、縣政府、市政府、鎮(zhèn)政府等等，而且這些政府都是相互獨(dú)立的，各自在其管轄范圍內(nèi)享有一定的立法權(quán)和執(zhí)法權(quán)。誠(chéng)然，美國(guó)現(xiàn)在也有很多成文法(written law)或制定法(statutory law)，但是其法律制度仍是以判例法為主體的。以上兩點(diǎn)對(duì)于理解美國(guó)的法律制度具有重要意義。 it is immense. It embraces not only the record of the colonial era and of the Nation since 1776, but of the present fifty States as well, and the intricate network of relationships between States and Nation. Thus, to take a very elementary example, the reports of the United States Supreme Court fill some 350 volumes, and the reports of some States are almost equally voluminous: the reader who wants to trace the history of law in America is confronted with over 5,000 stout volumes of legal cases.No one document, no handful of documents, can properly be said to reveal the character of a people or of their government. But when hundreds and thousands of documents strike a consistent note, over more than a hundred years, we have a right to say that is the keynote. When hundreds and thousands of documents address themselves in the same ways, to the same overarching problems, we have a right to read from them certain conclusions which we can call national characteristics.Part TwoThe American legal system, like the English, is methodologically mainly a case law system. Most fields of private law still consist primarily of case law and the extensive and steadily growing statutory law continues to be subject to binding interpretation through case law. Knowledge of the case law method as well as of the technique of working with case law therefore is of central importance for an understanding of American law and legal methodology.The Common Law is historically the mon general law with supremacy over local lawwhich was decreed by the itinerant judges of the English royal court. The enforcement of a claim presupposed the existence of a s