ABSTRACT
Broadly speaking, the difference between the legal systems of Continental Europe and the Anglo-American legal system is conveyed by the image of two great legal families: that of common law, and that of civil law. These two types of legal system are often conceived as two 'functional equivalents': that is, as two structures which, although they employ different instruments, methods and organizations, end up by performing substantially similar functions. The aim of this article is to show that the function of the law in common law systems, and especially in the American one, is profoundly different from its function in Continental legal systems.
