This book considers how legal history has shaped and continues to shape our shared present. Each chapter draws a clear and significant connection to a meaningful feature of our lives today. Focusing primarily on England and Australia, contributions show the diversity of approaches to legal history's relevance to the present. Some contributors have a tight focus on legal decisions of particular importance. Others take much bigger picture overview of major changes that take centuries to register and where impact is still felt. The contributors are a mix of legal historians, practising lawyers, members of the judiciary, and legal academics, and develop analysis from a range of sources from statutes and legal treatises to television programs. Major legal personalities from Edward Marshall Hall to Sir Dudley Ryder are considered, as are landmarks in law from the Magna Carta to the Mabo Decision.

​This book considers how legal history has shaped and continues to shape our shared present. Each chapter draws a clear and significant connection to a meaningful feature of our lives today. Focusing primarily on England and Australia, contributions show the diversity of approaches to legal history’s relevance to the present. Some contributors have a tight focus on legal decisions of particular importance. Others take much bigger picture overview of major changes that take centuries to register and where impact is still felt. The contributors are a mix of legal historians, practising lawyers, members of the judiciary, and legal academics, and develop analysis from a range of sources from statutes and legal treatises to television programs. Major legal personalities from Edward Marshall Hall to Sir Dudley Ryder are considered, as are landmarks in law from the Magna Carta to the Mabo Decision.