Bob Gordon’s pathbreaking essay The Common Law Tradition in American Legal Historiography, initially published in 1975, was the first significant overview of the history of the field of U.S. legal history. In it, he defines the common law tradition as “the fictional continuity that each generation of common lawyers imposes, in its own fashion and for its own ends, on the development of judicial doctrine.”

* Dahr Jamail, Randall Hage Jamail and Robert Lee Jamail Regents Chair and University Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Texas School of Law.