This book was first published thirty-five years ago. The fact that it is still around and seems to be worth continuing is gratifying.

There have been a few structural changes since the first edition. The chapter on the legal profession was added in the fourth edition. The chapter on enforcement of civil judgments was dropped in the seventh edition. The time has clearly come to add a chapter on the judges. I considered including it in this volume but decided, partly on grounds of the length of the book, that it would be better to introduce it into the next edition of the companion volume, The Law Making Process.

Probably the most important change between the first and this tenth edition is the different balance between excerpted material and the author's own text. The preface to the first edition said that the book did not attempt to replace standard descriptive texts – ‘rather it attempts to supplement them by focusing through the basic texts on points where the legal system is under stress or is the subject of controversy’. It still is not a textbook but I would say that it could perfectly well serve instead of one. Gradually over the course of the successive editions a higher and higher proportion of the book has consisted of the author's own text.