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Cognitive Techniques of Legal Innovation

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Law, Development and Innovation

Part of the book series: SxI - Springer for Innovation / SxI - Springer per l'Innovazione ((SXIINNO,volume 13))

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Abstract

We can consider the law as a technology: a tool to answer the problems and the needs of human beings. We should not confuse legal certainty with the immutability of law. Changes are a common feature of law in the Western legal tradition. History abounds with examples of legal innovations driven by legislators, courts, lawyers, and scholars. Legal innovation often drives economic development. Behind these innovations, the learned hand of the lawyer is at work. This chapter is not about the legal techniques employed to change the law (for instance, legislative reforms). It looks instead at the cognitive techniques of innovation that lawyers employ. Using selected examples of the most significant legal changes that took place in the last decades in different fields of the law, this chapter tries to single out and describe the cognitive techniques employed when lawyers are called to answer old and new problems.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Berman (1983, p. 10). On the concept of change in different legal traditions see Glenn (2014).

  2. 2.

    In 1913 Ehrlich, (2002 transl., p. 391f.) wrote: “A glance at legal history will show that even at a time when the state had already gained control over legislation, great changes were always taking place in the law that were not brought about by legislation. Slavery disappeared from Europe during the course of the Middle Ages; from the beginning of the sixteenth century the peasant in England was gradually acquiring an ever increasing measure of liberty, while in Germany his freedom was being progressively curtailed; and wherever modern large-scale industry has been introduced, it has given rise to countless new kinds of contracts, real rights, rights of neighbors, forms of succession, and has influenced even the family law. In the beautifully developing cities of detached houses of our time a servitude requiring the building of detached houses has arisen. Electrical works have given rise to new kinds of real rights, among others the rights of transmitting currents, and new kinds of obligatory contracts, among others the contract to supply electrical current”.

  3. 3.

    References to the literature can be found at http://www.lawtech.jus.unitn.it/.

  4. 4.

    For a more detailed analysis see Pascuzzi (2010).

  5. 5.

    For further information see Pascuzzi (2013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law, University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Giovanni Pascuzzi

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  1. Giovanni Pascuzzi
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Correspondence to Giovanni Pascuzzi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law, University of Trento, Trento, Trento, Italy

    Giuseppe Bellantuono

  2. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais Faculdade de Direito, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Fabiano Teodoro Lara

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Pascuzzi, G. (2016). Cognitive Techniques of Legal Innovation. In: Bellantuono, G., Lara, F. (eds) Law, Development and Innovation. SxI - Springer for Innovation / SxI - Springer per l'Innovazione, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13311-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13311-9_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-13310-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-13311-9

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